UK has paid off their entire national debt, fixed all the roads and bridges. So said Drew yesterday.

 

1. Perhaps the ambulance company should find a couple bucks to buy a well used Mini and duct tape a stretcher to the roof. That shouldn’t weigh much.

   Posted by Drew458       07/08/2009  at  08:43 AM  



2. The Grade I listed landmark has a weight limit of four tonnes, but when fully loaded the new-style ambulances brought in last year weigh five tonnes.

   The new emergency vehicles are fitted with additional equipment like CCTV cameras and a charging unit for defibrillators.

   A “tonne” is a metric ton: 1000 kilograms, or 2200 pounds. So this bridge can handle only 8800 pounds of load safely. One small truck, or 2 medium cars, or 9 slender cows and a bulimic cowherd. What the hell kind of bridge is that? Purest crap. The thing must have been built as a footpath bridge.

   [furious high speed Googling] Aah, I get it. The thing is an antique. Pretty, but a piss poor brick design, and politics got in the way during construction, causing short cuts to be taken.
   

   Designed in the early 19th century for light horse drawn traffic it still meets the demands of 21st century commuter traffic with 11-12,000 motor vehicles crossing it every day.

   Yeah right ... two cars at a time, with well paid unionized bridge tenders / car weighers at each end. The numbers above are BS - 12K cars a day is 500 transits per hour, a mere 7.2 seconds per crossing per vehicle ... because if the bridge is max rated for 4 tonnes loading, you don’t want more than a single car (average weight 1.5 tonnes) at a time on the bridge. Two at a time is pushing things, especially if the driver has just had lunch.

   http://www.clifton-suspension-bridge.org.uk/
   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5766901/Heavy-ambulances-banned-from-Clifton-Suspension-Bridge.html

   Fire engines are also unable to use the bridge.

   Sounds to me like this pretty little old bridge needs some retro-engineering. I think I might have a solution.

   Thanks for the post Peiper. You’ve once again caused me to go and learn something.

   Posted by Drew458       07/08/2009  at  10:56 AM  



3. Makes you wonder what a genius like IK Brunel could come up with today with access to modern building materials.

   Posted by LyndonB       07/08/2009  at  12:43 PM  



4. Lyndon,
   I may be wrong but I think that our modern culture or whatever you’d care to call it, is not conducive to producing genius on his level.  I’ve read about the guy and he truly was one of a kind.

   Posted by peiper       07/11/2009  at  09:14 AM  

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