[moose07]

For the interested.

[moose07]

Ref ping.

[Covenantor]

Lovely piece of engineering and large scale ironworks. Built during our Revolutionary War. Amazing. The brief video at your BBC link indicates their intention to restore the bridge to last another two hundred years. Hats off.

Interesting that there was a need for such a span before the first steam engine trains. That old curiosity cat killer lead to more information. First railways or wagonways were for the transport of coal at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Stands to reason, heavy cargo with high demand. Shropshire area later had a wooden rail system for horse drawn wagons.

More interesting background.

Timeline of railway history

[niteowl77]

We might consider it quaint, or old-fashioned (or something else along those lines), but this bridge was at one time the most famous example of the cutting edge of non-masonry structures- "high tech," so to speak, circa the American Revolution.

Though I am math-challenged, I picked up an interest in the engineering of those days through a chance reading of L.T.C. Rolt's "Short History of Machine Tools," which led to "Victorian Engineering," which led to (book lovers know how it works) Telford, Trevithick, the Stephensons, Brunel, and so on. Intertwined with them are the Darbys, John Wilkinson, William Hazeldine and all the other "ironmasters."

Gold is for the mistress -- silver for the maid --
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.
"Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
"But Iron -- Cold Iron -- is master of them all."

(A little Rudyard Kipling for FR this morning.)

Mr. niteowl77

[Bigg Red]

Wow! Beautiful.