Building the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney, NSW. Australia.
S 33° 51.240 E 151° 12.580
56H E 334373 N 6252590
The building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge was a vast enterprise, involving hundreds of workers over eight years. John Nicholson describes the stages of construction, the clever solutions to technical problems and the celebrations at the opening.
Waymark Code: WMW8ZW
Location: New South Wales, Australia
Date Posted: 07/26/2017
Views: 7
The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a stee arch bridge across Sydney Harbour that carries rail, vehicular, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic between the Sydney central business district (CBD) and the North Shore. The dramatic view of the bridge, the harbour, and the nearby Sydney Opera House is an iconic image of Sydney, and Australia. The bridge is nicknamed "The Coathanger" because of its arch-based design.
The book, "Building the Sydney Harbour Bridge" by John Nicholson tells the inside story of this Australian national icon.
Quoted from a book review...'The giant coat-hanger' took 1300 men eight years to build. They used six million rivets and 53 000 tonnes of steel. John Nicholson tells the story step by step, in fascinating detail: the vision, the problems, the solutions, the suspense (would the two halves actually meet?), the risks, the celebrations.
Once you've read this book, you'll never see that soaring arch, that vast maze of steel, the same way again.
BOOK DETAILS: Category: Children's non-fiction
ISBN: 9781865082585
Awards: Runner-up, CBCA Book of the Year, Eve Pownell Award for Information Books, 2001 , 2001
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Pub Date: August 2001
About the bridge:
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.
ISBN Number: 9781865082585
Author(s): John Nicholson
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