Thursday, October 29, 2009

The Gantry Crane


This is a progress photo of the building of the new Roslyn Viaduct Bridge. The old bridge was constructed of steel girders. You will remember photographs of that bridge being disassembled that I posted here a while back - June 2, 2009, to be exact. They have done this in two sections, removing half the old bridge, and erecting one side of the new bridge, and the first half is now done. All of the old bridge is now gone, and they are getting ready to assemble the second half of the new bridge. The new structure is called a "Concrete Box Girder Bridge" and it is comprised of sections that are about 20 to 25 feet in length. This Gantry Crane is what lifts these sections from the ground up to the bridge level, where the sections are connected to each other with cables under tension. This Gantry Crane is HUGE! It must be almost 300 feet long, and nearly 100 feet high! Here it towers over the houses below. I love these machines, with their extraordinary scale, in human terms. I also love that it is painted bright yellow - you can see this structure from a mile away.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This bridge appears to be directly over the house or is my perception off? A little bit scary. I love your enthusiam and teaching us so much through your photos.
Joan

Ken Spencer said...

The gantry is between the house on the right, and the new bridge in the background. It is so big and so high that it does appear to be over the house.