Skip to content

LETTERS: Remarkable design in engineering

Editor: Re: New bridge for Nicomekl, Oct. 11.
9458018_web1_DSC_4662
Replacement of the Bailey bridge that has crossed Nicomekl River on King Grourge Boulevard for decades was to begin last month. (File photo)

Editor:

Re: New bridge for Nicomekl, Oct. 11.

The Bailey bridge is significant to me.

I served two years in the Royal Engineers in the U.K. and had training in the bridge assembly.

There was “wet’ and “dry” Bailey. Wet was using pontoons on rivers and lakes, and dry was across gullies. The bridge was assembled panel by panel, and manually moved on heavy rollers. Each panel was lifted by six men and assembled using large metal cylindrical pins.

It was a remarkable design in bridge engineering.

I hope that some panels avoid the scrap yards and are preserved in an army museum, or in a bridge builder’s premises.

R. Lee, Surrey