Sydney Harbour Bridge. NSW. Australia.
S 33° 51.240 E 151° 12.580
56H E 334374 N 6252590
The famous Australian icon, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, is also a rail bridge. Linking the city with North Sydney, it carries eight lanes of road traffic and two railway tracks which form part of the city's rail suburban network.
Waymark Code: WM7598
Location: New South Wales, Australia
Date Posted: 09/03/2009
Views: 62
The Sydney Harbour Bridge carries Trains, Motor vehicles, pedestrians and bicycles.
The road and railway track actually hangs from the arch, 59 metres (194 feet) above sea level.
At its highest point, the arch is 134 metres above sea level. Taking into account the road approaches, 'the bridge' is 1150 metres or about a mile long. There are 58,000 tons of steel in the bridge, the arch of which was built from both ends and met in the middle. Steel supports for the road and rail platform were 'hung' beginning at the middle to the pylons. Its two eastern lanes were originally tram tracks, converted when Sydney abolished its trams in the 1950s.
The building of the bridge coincided with the construction of a system of underground railways in Sydney's CBD, known today as the City Circle, and the bridge was designed with this in mind. The bridge was designed to carry six lanes of road traffic, flanked by two railway tracks and a footpath on each side. Both sets of rail tracks were linked into the underground Wynyard railway station, on the south side of the bridge, by symmetrical ramps and tunnels. The eastern-side railway tracks were intended for use by a planned rail link to the Northern Beaches; in the interim they were to be used to carry trams from the North Shore into a terminal within Wynyard station.
Before it opened, its entire length was packed with railway carriages, trams and buses to test its ability to support a total traffic jam. It was designed to withstand winds of 200 kilometres and hour, which are cyclonic (hurricane) in force and have never been recorded in Sydney.
Bridge Type: Arch
Bridge Usage: Railroad
Moving Bridge: This bridge is static (has no moving pieces)
|
Visit Instructions:
Please provide a photo taken at the time of visit.