Talk:Britannia Bridge

Another picture
Please Add this picture: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Britanniabruecke_Postkarte.jpg. thx --84.164.108.54 20:07, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Added with this edit. I got the date of 1886 from the information at this website (University of St Andrews). Carcharoth 22:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Question: How did a wrought iron bridge manage to catch fire? 203.87.74.230 (talk) 01:18, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


 * It was laid with wooden sleepers which had been steeped in tar to preserve them and the tubular bridge was coated in soot from passing locomotives. Reputedly there was also a lot of litter and other flammable debris in there Velela (talk) 09:18, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Similar Bridge
The article currently incorrectly states that there was only one other Stephenson tubular bridge (Conwy). I know of 3 others on the Grand Trunk Railway in Canada, and I have a railway atlas that suggests that there may have been as many as 11 on the line. Before I rewrite this, does anyone know if there were any other Stephenson tubular bridges in the UK or elsewhere? Meters (talk) 17:47, 31 October 2011 (UTC)


 * There is always some confusion because the word tubular bridge has been used to describe a number of different types of Bridge. In this context it describes a bridge made in the form of a rigid tube which carries the road or rail inside. An alternative use for the same name is a bridge carried on tubes as in Brunel's tubular bridge at Chepstow . I have also seen it used for wooden bridges that are fully boxed in against snow where the box provides little rigidity or load carrying strength. There may be other meanings beyond these. However, I can see that the original Victoria Bridge (Montreal) was indeed a true Tubular bridge and I, for one, would be happy to accept that there were others in Canada and perhaps elsewhere if we can only find reliable sources to support their inclusion.  Velella  Velella Talk  20:09, 31 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The term tubular bridge was also used at one time in the US to describe river tunnels built by sinking tunnel tubes. After digging through 30 or so references in my collection I can document the following tubular bridges: Conwy and Britannia in the UK; the Victoria, Ste-Anne-de-Bellvue, and Grand Rivewr (Breslau) on the Grand Trunk in Canada; and two bridges over the Nile on the Alexandria and Cairo Railway in Egypt. Newspaper articles show that the Benha bridge over the Nile was definitely a tubular bridge; however, the tracks were on top of the tube rather than inside it, probably because of the problem of heat buildup inside the tube. (so... the first box beam bridge?) I have not yet found independantly confirmation that the second Nile bridge was a tubular bridge.
 * I also have found published proof of a tubular bridge on the Nepean River at Penrith, Australia. This was built in 1868 by the same contracting company that had built the Victoria tubular bridge. Another possible tubular bridge was at Stoney Creek near Melbourne Australia. I don't know if it was ever built. A contract was let in 1857, but the contractor defaulted and the contract was out for tender agin in 1858. A tubular bridge was planned across the Niagara River at Buffalo, but I don't believe it was ever built. I have not found any hint of tubular bridges in the UK other than the two famous examples. Are there any railway or bridge historians who can confirm or disprove? Meters (talk) 18:20, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I've found a recent ref that include info on at least one other UK tubular bridge, so I'll write it up for the article.Meters (talk) 18:43, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Rewrote section. General info on other tubular bridges will be added to Tubular bridge instead. Meters (talk) 21:02, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Comparison to High Level and Royal Albert Bridges
How is it possible to justify writing that the High Level Bridge is a second and more elegant version of the Britannia Bridge? A tied arch doesn't have anything in common with a tubular bridge.

Similarly, the lenticular truss design of the Royal Albert Bridge has virtually nothing in common with a tubular bridge. The construction method of building the spans on land and floating them into position is about all that can be attributed to the Britannia Bridge.Meters (talk) 08:23, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * done Meters (talk) 18:37, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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Public Domain photo of a London and Northwestern Railway express train emerging from Britannia Tubular Bridge, early 1900s
Internetarchives has a (low-resolution) photo from before 1914 of a London and Northwestern Railway express train emerging from Britannia Tubular Bridge, size is roughly 1900px × 800px. The picture should be public domain as it was published before 1924 and the author of the picture is not known (not stated). Source: Ernest Protheroe, The Railways of the World, London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd.. 1914 (published simltaneously in USA by E. P. Dutton & Co., New York), page 267. So if anybody feels like loading that up to Commons, here are book url, page viewer url, picture url (picture needs to be cropped). There is also some detail on the construction of the bridge to be found on pages 267–268. --Alias Sobriquet (talk) 18:34, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Deaths
https://historypoints.org/index.php?page=britannia-bridge-builders-memorial-llanfairpwll lists 19 men who died on the site during construction. Others died of disease linked to the poor conditions in the work camp. Worth mentioning perhaps? Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 22:01, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Restored/Enhanced 1898 Film
[4k, 60fps, colorized (1898). British railways. The Irish day mail and Henley station.] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.75.178.118 (talk) 08:26, 10 January 2022 (UTC)