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Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland Highlands and Islands

Date 2007

Event ID 617637

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/617637

Connel Ferry Bridge, once the longest cantilever railway bridge in Europe after the Forth Bridge, is situated 5 miles north-east of Oban at the entrance to Loch Etive, where strong currents and the tide race ruled out the placing of the bridge piers in mid-channel. It was constructed between 1898–1903, on the Ballachulish branch of the Caledonian Railway. The span of the bridge is 524 ft between the piers, but the inward-sloping support structure reduces the clear span to 500 ft.

The engineer was Sir John Wolfe Barry whose partners H. M. Brunel and E. Cruttwell were also involved. The contractor was Arrol’s Bridge & Roofing Company of Glasgow, and the superstructure of the bridge contains about 2600 tons of steel mostly erected from 1900–03. The bridge originally carried a single line railway which ruled out the use of scarfed rail expansion joints as trains ran in each direction.

The bridge has a suspended span of 232 ft, large in comparison to the 524 ft total span, which in conjunction with the short anchor spans of 106 ft tends to give the bridge a rather awkward appearance. The struts are all rectangular box members (unlike the circular tubes of the Forth Bridge) with the stiffeners on the outside, somewhat like the welded seams of a Mini car.

In 1914 the bridge deck was modified to take both road and rail traffic and, subsequent to the closure of the railway in 1966, was adapted solely for road traffic.

R Paxton and Jim Shipway 2007b

Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Highlands and Islands' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.

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