River Cruising Water Cooler

[Wings55]

1 hour ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

 

Your DH sounds like the guy in this cartoon 😅

 

I'm sad to say I can identify with Earl more often than I care to admit. (Jane would agree!) 😉

Paul

[Canal archive]

There’s no doubt us Mini aficionados must stick together, so although no individual gondola ride I did get the Orient Express, the Blue Train the Rocky Mountaineer and various other stream and diesel trains around the world. So it’s now onwards to complete the wonderful rivers of Europe.

P.S. He did try to pay with a rather large denomination bank note which the gondolier refused so the passage was free. Then I got my gondola ride when the Venetian opened in Vagas. 

[Wings55]

@Canal archive There was no way Jane was leaving without a gondola ride and I have to admit it was worth the price.

We enjoy trains too but have never been on a real train vacation (holiday??). We're hoping to book the Rocky Mountaineer for the fall of 2024.

[CPT Trips]

On 3/25/2023 at 3:50 PM, Canal archive said:

 

Bordeaux road bridge.
 

 

Bordeaux bridge open for tall ships and sea cruise ships.

 

The transporter bridge is fantastic but I think just a little scary.

The Burlington-Bristol bridge crossing the Delaware River

 

 

circa 1930. 

[Canal archive]

Looks soooooooo good. Should have made time but with only two full days and Moreno and up the tower etc., although I did enjoy a drink watching the world go by in St Marks Square, knowing your getting fleeced but to hell with it! Then following the guy with our luggage on a hand cart from our hotel to the train station for the Orient Express. Trains the special ones are usually one or maybe two nights for our Rocky Mountaineer we started on the Eastern Coast - Victoria Falls then flew to the West Coat all in all managed to see quite a bit of Canada.

[Canal archive]

CPT oh wow some of these bridge builders are really something.

[sharkster77]

37 minutes ago, CPT Trips said:

The Burlington-Bristol bridge crossing the Delaware River

 

 

circa 1930. 

There is a railroad bridge crossing the Cape Cod Canal that similarly goes up and down.  Most of the time I've seen in in the up position (for ships) so  I assume it is lowered for trains, which pass less frequently than ships, I would think.

[Canal archive]

Whoops done it again change Victoria - different continent for Niagara Falls.

[Canal archive]

This is ours which when I first saw it looked just a bit scary.
 

Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge reopens http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-31787804

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by Canal archive

[CPT Trips]

You call that scary?

 

Buy that engineer a new slide rule.  

Edited April 4, 2023 by CPT Trips

[Wings55]

1 hour ago, CPT Trips said:

You call that scary?

Buy that engineer a new slide rule.  

.. and rescind his degree!

[gnome12]

1 hour ago, CPT Trips said:

You call that scary?

 

Buy that engineer a new slide rule.  

I'm amazed how long it shook BEFORE it broke up! It was like the pavement was elastic.

[Host Jazzbeau]

I'm not sure which version of the film this is, but wikipedia says that some of it was filmed at a slower speed than most modern copies, making the oscillation seem more dramatic than it was.  [Of course, nobody can dispute that it was violent enough to cause the bridge to fail!]

 

Of great interest to me, as a native New Yorker, is that the Bronx Whitestone Bridge originally had a similar design to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge:

 

[T]he Bronx–Whitestone Bridge['s] ... design was similar to that of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which collapsed in 1940. As a result, extra stiffening trusses were added to the Bronx–Whitestone Bridge in the early 1940s... The stiffening trusses were removed during a renovation in the mid-2000s, and the bridge's deck and approach viaducts were replaced soon afterward.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronx–Whitestone_Bridge

 

I was driving over that bridge twice a day from 1982 to 2012, so the knowledge of this historical design flaw was often present in my mind – especially after the stiffening trusses were removed.  [I noticed the removal – that was easy because traffic was tied up so badly for many years that I could monitor every day's progress... – but we were never informed about how the renovation was planned or why it was safe to remove them.]  Those reading this will be relieved to know that I didn't die in a Whitestone Bridge failure [of which there were none...]

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

5 minutes ago, gnome12 said:

I'm amazed how long it shook BEFORE it broke up! It was like the pavement was elastic.

Steel is actually quite elastic – until it fails.

[gnome12]

1 hour ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Steel is actually quite elastic – until it fails.

Maybe, but I see what happens to the pavement during pothole season here in Toronto. The pavement breaks.

[Host Jazzbeau]

30 minutes ago, gnome12 said:

Maybe, but I see what happens to the pavement during pothole season here in Toronto. The pavement breaks.

True, but the pavement on a bridge is like the plaster on your walls.  It can break, but the house won't fall down.  The steel is what holds up the bridge.

[Canal archive]

Evidently all tied up with tensile strength also so my civil engineer friend tells me a lot depends on where the steel was manufactured. I also suspect weight load, fixings and the ingenuity of those engineers that got it right.

[notamermaid]

My father worked in steel, in a company that made steel/iron into products that is. Some years ago I got a bit more into the history of iron refining processes and steel-making. A story that has fascinated me is the first railway in Germany. Nobody knew how to do it properly in 1835, they had to get most of the knowledge and equipment from England. The Ludwigseisenbahn in Bavaria gave the order for the rails to a company in Neuwied on the Rhine, they were the only ones able to supply what was needed in length and strength, i.e. the rails. The company had learnt from English engineers and their workmen going to England. The engine and engine driver came from England directly as there was no one in Germany able to build and ride a locomotive at the time.

 

If you are ever on the Rhine near Koblenz and have a bit of time, check out the former iron works at Sayn. It is like a cathedral of iron and glass, an early example of that architecture used for factories.

 

notamermaid

 

[Daisi]

Very interesting... even won an architecture award in 2016! 

 

https://www.architectmagazine.com/awards/al-design-awards/2016-al-design-awards-sayn-iron-works-foundry_o

[notamermaid]

Thanks for the link, Daisi. That looks a very interesting website to roam around.

 

The iron foundry's metal casting hall is a design by Prussian mining expert Carl Ludwig Althans, built in 1828: https://www.erih.net/i-want-to-go-there/site/sayner-huette-iron-works

 

A river cruise company offered an excursion to there a few years back, I think it was either Avalonwaterways or Amawaterways.

 

Have not been there since they finished renovating.

 

notamermaid

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

8 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Evidently all tied up with tensile strength also so my civil engineer friend tells me a lot depends on where the steel was manufactured. I also suspect weight load, fixings and the ingenuity of those engineers that got it right.

John Augustus Roebling, a German immigrant to the US and the engineer who designed the Brooklyn Bridge [the one that people always want to sell you...] guessed that the steel contract would be won by Andrew Carnegie, who famously underbid and then delivered poor quality steel.  So he over-designed the bridge to make up for the poor steel.  It's still standing today, carrying far heavier loads than originally.

[Canal archive]

John Rennie built brick bridges across the canal for horse drawn vehicles they’re still in use today by some of the heaviest lorries on the road today. 
I watched a programme recently about the restoration of one of our earliest Steel framed Mill buildings all of four storeys tall, evidently its strength went towards proving the possibility for the building of sky scrapers.

[notamermaid]

I guess it is the opposite of planned obsolescence. Built to last or hold as long as possible and with forethought in mind of what the future will bring. Or just plain the best that you can do. Striving for genius not for "should last a while". Look at Pont du Gard. the aqueduct has had some repairs and no longer carries real traffic or water but it still stands proud after over 1900 years. France has got a lot of amazing old structures, that one is one of my favourites.

 

notamermaid

 

[Canal archive]

Superb structure with an excellent museum.

 

[notamermaid]

2 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

John Augustus Roebling, a German immigrant to the US and the engineer who designed the Brooklyn Bridge

Never knew that a German immigrant designed the Brooklyn Bridge. Have looked him up and an Erfurt city website says that there is a August-Röbling-Strasse in a suburb. Apparently Johann August Röbling had studied mathematics in Erfurt and then architecture, etc. in Berlin. He emigrated to the US in 1831 and designed several bridges, the Brooklyn Bridge is his most famous work, which he sadly did not see completed. Apparently he was already very interested in suspension bridges in Germany, but his designs were not built.

 

What an important man. We still build cable-stayed suspension bridges with wire robe. Wikipedia says that there is the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge over the Ohio river.

 

notamermaid