The 2.5 km. (1.5 mile) Forth Railway Bridge, the world’s first major steel bridge, with its gigantic girder spans of 521 m. (1710 ft.) ranks as one of the great feats of civilization. It was begun in 1883 and formally completed on 4 March 1890 when HRH Edward Prince of Wales tapped into place a ‘golden’ rivet.
Tancred–Arrol, constructed the bridge, robustly designed in the aftermath of the Tay Bridge disaster by civil engineers Sir John Fowler and Benjamin Baker. The balanced cantilever principle was adopted. The main crossing comprises tubular struts and lattice-girder ties in three double-cantilevers each connected by 105 m. (345 ft.) ‘suspended’ girder spans resting on the cantilever ends and secured by man-sized pins. The outside double-cantilever shoreward ends carry weights of about 1000 tonnes to counter-balance half the weight of the suspended span and live load.
In 2004 the Forth Bridges Visitors Centre Trust accepted a kind offer from a local professional researcher, Val Wilson, to research the identities of those who died. To identify those who died a number of sources were used:
Death Certificates.
Registers of Corrected Entries.
Quarterly reports of the bridge works.
Newspaper articles (The Scotsman, Edinburgh Evening News & The Dunfermline Press).
The project culminated in April 2005 when the Forth Bridges Visitors Centre Trust received the results of this research. The report identified 63 workers who were recorded to have died on the works. The discrepancy between this value and that established by Westhofen is explained as follows:
Two workers died after the Sick and Accident Club closed in late December 1889.
It was considered unlikely that the two boatmen who died on 16 th July 1888 would have been included in Westhofen’s figure; they may not have been in the Sick and Accident Club and did not appear in the bridge’s quarterly reports for 1888.
Two railway miners died whilst working on the approach works – one of these fatalities was after the Sick and Accident Club closed and is considered under point one also.
There were no deaths reported in the 21 st quarterly report (31 st May 1888) – the research has uncovered two deaths in the period it covers.
As the Sick and Accident Club was only open to employees of the contractors, it is conceivable one (or more) of the workers who died were not members.
| The Forth Road Bridge when opened, on 4 September 1964 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, was the largest suspension bridge in Europe, and, together with the approach viaducts is over 2½ km. (over 1½ miles) long.
The bridge has a spectacular central span of over 1 km. (3300 ft.) between its two main towers. The side spans, which carry the deck to the side towers, are each 408 m. (1340 ft.) long and are flanked by approach viaducts.
At the side towers the supporting cables turn down towards the anchorages which are, essentially massive wedges built by tunneling into the rock. The cables are 610 mm. (2 ft.) in diameter and were spun on site using 11618 parallel high tensile steel wires 5 mm. (0.196 ins.) in diameter.
The main towers extend 156 m. (512 ft.) above mean river level and the sag of the cables between the towers is approximately 91 m. (300 ft.). The clearance for shipping below the deck of the main span is 46 m. (150 ft.) close to the towers and this increases to 50 m. (163 ft.) at mid-span.
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