Technology visit - Bridging the Tamar

Today we visited Bridging the Tamar, the Tamar Bridges visitor centre to look at the construction of the two bridges and the types of jobs that go in to running them. 

Mark gave a great talk about the styles of bridges, the types of materials used to construct them, the amount of vehicles that use the bridges each day and why the bridges are in the location that they are.

Did you know...

• The Tamar Bridge is used by around 40,000 vehicles per day and the Royal Albert Bridge is used by nearly 80 trains every day

• The bridges are places where they are is it is the narrowest and safest point of the River Tamar to cross and it also meant that trains from London could access Plymouth and western Cornwall. This could take up to 10 hours during the infancy of rail travel!!

• The roads to and from the bridges and the bridges themselves are monitored by CCTV continuously as well as the wind speed and air temperatures.

We finished the visit by walking across the bridge although the heavens did open just as we reached the Saltash side of the river!