Great Britain: North Parade Bridge (2)

My last photo of Bath is a view of the approach onto the North Parade Bridge over the River Avon. This is a handsome single span stone masonry arch bridge The original bridge was built in 1836 of cast iron with stone abutments. It was rebuilt in 1936 completely in stone.

The Tall Bridge Guy likes it when I travel to new and exotic places to photograph bridges. Today I'm flying to Chile (as part of the PEER, EERI, FHWA Investigation Team) to collect data on the performance of bridges during the February 27, 2010 Maule, Chile Earthquake.

Hopefully, I'll have time to send a quick blog from the field every day.

Great Britain: North Parade Bridge (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Great Britain: North Parade Bridge (1)

I don't often provide a view of a bridge deck in my blog. We're back to where I took the first photo (of Pulteney Bridge) for the recent blogs about bridges in the ancient city of Bath.

The older bridges in Bath have a nice architectural presence with their carefully mortared stones, ornamental lamps, building-like edifices, etc. The view of the tower of Bath Abbey also adds to the experience.

Bridge engineers don't have to be architect's adversary. In most of my work, I'm working to make the architect's vision a reality. I particularly like the Piranesi-like quality of this bridge deck.

Great Britain: North Parade Bridge (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Great Britain: Sainsbury Bridges (3)

A look back at Sainsbury's Pedestrian Bridge.  A plastic roof was mounted to the concrete barrier rails. It must be pleasant to seek shelter under the barrel-shaped surface on a rainy day. However, I'm not sure if I like bridges made out of short-lived materials. Also, the concrete pedestal attached to the much older stone pier gives the bridge a temporary appearance.

Great Britain: Sainsbury's Bridges (3) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Great Britain: Sainsbury Bridges (2)

A look under the two Sainsbury's Bridges.

The bridge on the left looks like the Midland Road Bridge with it's big bottom chords supporting tapered floor beams. This is more evidence that the two bridges used to sit side by side.

Instead of big steel rocker bearings that support the bridge on the left, the bridge on the right sits directly on a reinforced concrete pedestal. Also one of the girders on the pedestrian bridge looks like it was struck by a passing vessel. This seems strange since the  bridge on the left wasn't hit.

Great Britain: Sainsbury's Bridges (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Great Britain: Sainsbury Bridges (1)

Continuing on our walk along the River Avon to Bath, we arrived at Sainsbury's Bridges. I wish they wouldn't put two different bridges next to each other because it's hard to distinguish each bridge's features. For instance, in this photo, it looks like the bridge in front has a plastic roof, when it's actually on the other bridge.

The structure in front was a railroad bridge that was converted for highway use after the trains stopped running. I would have called it some kind of lattice truss, except they usually have a roof. Maybe the roof was removed when the bridge was converted to vehicular traffic. The bridge is a two-span steel through truss structure supported at midspan on a large stone pier with cutwaters and on seat-type abutments. Note the big rocker bearings supporting the truss.

Since these bridges provide access to the Green Park Railway Station, I wonder if the pier was the former location of the Midland Road Bridge? The strange thing is that we don't see any sign of where a pier might have been attached to the Midland Road Bridge (in yesterday's photo). Also, it's apparent that the Midland Road Bridge doesn't need a support at midspan. However, there is quite a bit of room on the existing pier where another bridge may have stood.

The other Sainsbury's Bridge is a footbridge supported on three precast I girders. We'll take another look at both these bridges tomorrow.

Great Britain: Sainsbury's Bridges (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.