Quebec Bridge
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The Quebec Bridge is a Canadian bridge. It is the largest cantilever bridge in the world and crosses the lower Saint Lawrence River west of Quebec City, Quebec. The Quebec Bridge is a riveted steel-truss structure and is 987 meters (3239 feet) long, 29 m (94 ft) wide, and 104 m (340 ft) high. It presently accommodates three highway lanes, one rail traffic line, and one pedestrian walkway. At one time it also carried a streetcar line. Each cantilever span is 177 m (580 ft) long.
The Quebec Bridge is owned by the Canadian National Railway.
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History
The collapse of August 29, 1907
Before the Quebec Bridge was built, the only way to travel from the south shore of the St. Lawrence in Levis to the north shore at Quebec City was to take a ferry. By the 1890s, a bridge was needed. A March 1897 article in the Quebec Morning Chronicle noted:
- The bridge question has again been revived after many years of slumber, and business men in Quebec seem hopeful that something will come of it, though the placing of a subsidy on the statute book is but a small part of the work to be accomplished, as some of its enthusiastic promoters will, ere long, discover. Both Federal and Provincial Governments seem disposed to contribute towards the cost, and the City of Quebec will also be expected to do its share. Many of our people have objected to any contribution being given by the city unless the bridge is built opposite the town, and the CHRONICLE like every other good citizen of Quebec would prefer to see it constructed at Diamond Harbor, and has contended in the interests of the city for this site as long as there seemed to be any possibility of securing it there. It would still do so if it appeared that our people could have it at that site. A bridge at Diamond Harbor would, it estimated, cost at least eight millions. It would be very nice to have, with its double track, electric car track, and roads for vehicles and pedestrians, and would no doubt create a goodly traffic between the two towns, and be one of the show works of the continent.
The bridge was built by the federally-owned Quebec Bridge and Railway Company, as part of the government's National Transcontinental Railway. Construction was contracted to the Phoenix Bridge Company of Pennsylvania and began in 1903 under the direction of famous American engineer Theodore Cooper after the federal government allocated funding. It was designed to span the river's shipping lane and measured 26.5 meters (67 feet) wide, carrying two railway tracks, two streetcar lines, and a two lane road.
By 1904, the structure was taking shape. However, due to miscalculations made during the planning stages, the actual weight of the bridge was far in excess of its carrying capacity. When the bridge was nearing completion, structural problems were noticed, but the local engineering team did not recognize the gravity of the situation. Work continued despite the fact that the consulting engineer ordered all work to be halted on August 27, 1907. On August 29, after four years of construction, the south arm and part of the central section of the bridge collapsed into the river in just 15 seconds. Of the 86 workers on the bridge that day near quitting time, 75 were killed and the rest were injured. Many of the victims were Mohawk steelworkers from the Kahnawake reserve near Montreal; they were buried at Kahnawake under crosses made of steel beams.
The collapse of September 11, 1916
After a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the collapse, construction started on a second bridge following a similar design, this time with Ralph Modjeski as Chief Engineer. Disaster struck again on September 11, 1916, when the pre-fabricated center section was being raised into place between the rebuilt piers. The collapse killed 11 men.
Completion
Construction was ultimately completed in August 1919, at a total cost of $25 million. On December 3, 1919 the second Quebec Bridge opened for rail traffic, after almost two decades of construction. Its center span of 576 meters (1890 feet) remains the longest cantilevered bridge span in the world and is considered a major engineering feat.
Post-completion history
The bridge was designed and built primarily as a railway bridge, however the streetcar lines and one of the two railway tracks were converted into automobile and pedestrian/cycling lanes in subsequent years.
The bridge was declared an historic monument in 1987 by the Canadian and American Society of Civil Engineers. On January 24, 1996, the bridge was declared a National Historic Site of Canada.
The bridge is privately owned by Canadian National Railway, although CN receives federal and provincial funding to undertake repairs and maintenance on the structure.
Trivia
- The Quebec Bridge's "sister bridge" is the Forth Bridge over the Firth of Forth in Scotland.
- Some have claimed that a portion of the collapsed bridge has been used over the past century to smelt rings used in the Iron Ring issued in the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer ceremonies, administered for graduating Canadian engineering students. This is possibly apocryphal, as the bridge was steel, not raw iron. Nonetheless these rings, voluntarily carried on the little finger of the working hand of professional engineers in Canada, are meant to serve as a reminder to engineers of their social responsibilities to follow the ethical requirements of their profession.
- The Pierre Laporte Suspension Bridge opened in 1970 just upstream to accommodate highway traffic on Autoroute 73.
External links
- Familiarity breeds (http://www.napegg.nt.ca/newsletters/July98/page11.html) forget (http://www.napegg.nt.ca/newsletters/July98/page12.html)
- Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer (http://www.ironring.ca/)
- The Iron Ring (http://me.queensu.ca/undergraduate/activities/ironring/article.asp)
- Iron Ring myth and tradition (http://eca.concordia.ca/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=2&page=1)fr:Pont de Québec