Engineering Marvels ~ McC Ab Test

In Wales we also found an engineering marvel to visit, the Newport Transporter Bridge. It was completed in 1906, and is still driven by the original electric motors. It is comprised of a huge gantry which spans the River Usk, and a gondola, a sort of "suspended ferry" which hangs off this gantry on cables. Up to six cars and thirty pedestrians can be loaded onto this gondola, which is then carried across the river suspended on its cables from a trolley above which rolls across the overhead gantry.

Newport Transporter Bridge

Sue standing in the rain at the entrance to the gondola.

Why would they build such a thing, I hear you ask. Well, it allows tall ships to pass but does not require an elevated bridge to achieve this. An elevated bridge would have been a much bigger structure with long approach ramps needed at each end to get up to the height of the crossing.

The transporter bridge still operates, although it is largely just a tourist attraction today. The wind and rain were so strong today we decided to give it a miss.

SS Great Britain

When launched in 1843 the SS Great Britain was the first iron hulled propeller-driven steamship to operate across the Atlantic Ocean between England and America, and until 1854 was the longest passenger ship in the world. She was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, one of the greatest engineers of the time, and is powered by a two-cylinder steam engine, each cyclinder being 2.2 metres in diameter!

The SS Great Britain first operated as a luxury ocean liner between Bristol and New York, then later for thirty years carried immigrants to Australia, before eventually being abandoned in the Faulkland Islands in 1937. Decades later money was raised to have her towed back to England, where she was restored and now sits in dry dock exactly where she was built 170 years ago.