The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-12-07
AN ENGINEERING FEAT
IS THE WORK OF WIDENING
 LONDON BRIDGE.
A Giant Structue Over @ Tidal Stream Enlarged Without Mo ment's Obstruction to Large and Constant Traffic.
 The Spans

London Times.
 The widening of London bridge. now in progress, Sis an event of considerable inn portance to Londoners; it is also an engl- neering task of no little difficulty, espe- cially as 1t has to be carried out without stoppinr the traffic London Bridge has lcrg been too small for the work it has L '. No one knows exactly when the T.-Ies was first spanned, but il must have been before 1091.' for of that year there are records of a London Bridge be- ing washed away by flood: another was burned in 1136. London Bridge made London: for it took from Westminster, where the ford was, the main stream Of traffic between north and south. lt was not until l750 that Westminster Bridge not, of course, the present structure was built. Putney Bridge, the second road across the tideway, had then been constructed twenty-one years. One can understand that the citizens of London, seeing how much their bridge had done for them, should be jealous for its pre- rogatiye, but we are inclined to smile now when we think of them petition!ng Par liament. as they did, that new bridge should not be built, because. If 1t were. the trade of. London would wane ana '--oy. It is indicative of how recent have been the great advances in the de- velopment of the metropolis that Tor probably 500 years there was one road way only across the tidal Thames, ana then, during 15e years. all the bridges which now join the two banks sprung into existence. Moreover, those that now exist have all been constructed during the century just closed. Waterloo, the doyen of present metropolitan bridges, was opened two years after the battle which gives 1t its name. Vauxhall Brldge, which has just disappeared. and which will be rebuilt at the London County Councils leisure, preceded Waterloo by a Xear. Southwark Bridge was completed two years later. in 1918, and its own spans are, therefore, more ancient than the iron arches of the present London Bridge, commenced in 1924 and opened in 1851.
 When Rennie designed London Bridge he may have onsidered-remembering the new bridge at Southwark and with no forecast of the terminus of the Brighton Railway or the Southeastern station- that two 9-foot 6-inch footpaths and 34-foot 6-inch roadway would be sufficient for as long as the bridge existed. If so, his anticipations were soon falsified, for the structure has long been too small for it's purpose When the Tower Bridge was opened and whenf the City and South London Railway made its tunnel almost un0er the site OI 1oiuOli pi1uBc, ~ was thought that sufficient relief would be given, while the Tower Subway and the Black Wall Tunnel were both designed to divert some of the traffic from Lon don Bridge. But. in spite of all that is done, the ever-growing stream of traffic swels and surges in it's old channel; nothing seems to be more difficult than to divert it to new courses; but this is the characteristic of the main arteries of communication all over the world. Whether the population of London Will continue to grow, as 1t has since London Bridge was rebuilt, is a matter of doubt, but there can be little question that the activity of Londoners will increase enor- mously within the near future. With added facilities for locomotion, people only move about more. The work begun by the steam engine will be carried fur ther by electric traction and by motor cars, the latter especially making heavy demands on roadways. At some distant period-probably about the same era as that of the completion of Vauxhal Bridge-a decent telephone system will enable people to transact good deal of business without going into the streets, yet increased facilities for movement will be more and more demanded
 The Corporation of London. recognizing these facts. determined some time ago to widen London Bridge. The proposal caused much utcry, as 1t was considered little less than sacrilege to touch Rem nie's classic design. But although the simplicity of the structure will be some- what sacrificed, and there will be a loss in the severer beauty of the design, there will. doubtless, be gain in picturesque ness. ..-s
 The widening is being carried out under 1ll Inst. c. F., as engineer, and MT. Andrew Murray, F, R. I. B. A, as architect. the resident engineer being Mir. Cole. The work will be commenced by building out corbels or cantilevers from the ex- isting bridge. These granite brackets, as they may be described, will carry the new footways, and there will be at in tervals refugees. By means of the hanging structures thus built out it will be pos sible to widen each footway from 9 feet 6 inches to IA feet, and the roadway will also be widened by feet inches, bring ing it up to 37 feet. To build out sub stantial stone structure such as this en- tails some heavy work, and necessarily the existing footpaths must be blocked to traffic. though the roadway will be kept open. The engineers have, there- fore, to build out on each side of the bridge temporary steel footbridge, which will also serve the important pur- pose of a gantry to carry the travelling cranes used for the work. Each of these temporary bridges consist of five spans -one 157 feet inches and four 145 feet inches The spans run on each side alongside the permanent bridge, but are placed few feet away from it for pur- poses of construction. The sides of the spans consist of lattice girders, between which the passengers will walk. while the top booms of the girders will form a runway for the travelling cranes, by aid of which the new masonry work will be put in place and the old granite par apet and pavement will be dismantled. The span girders are F feet inches deep, and the rails upon which the cranes run are supported on timber placed on the top fianges of the girders. In order to protect passengers during the work an iron roofing covers the footpath, there being thus formed a covered way which will be much appreciated during wet weather. On each temporary bridge or gantry there are two five-ton electric travelling cranes. and by them the blocks of stone for the new work can be lifted from barges in the stream below and set in place without interfering with the ve- hlcular traffic or with the foot passen- gers in the covered galleries of the tenn porary bridges.
 In order to avoid delay and to prevent river bed. a very ingenious method of sup porting the spans, etc. has been devised. The piers of the main bridge have been a very much smaller distance beyond the main structure than the distance at uhicb fha famnorarv bridRaz ra r1acad