A HUGE STRUCTURE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5471, 6 September 1929, Page 3

A HUGE STRUCTURE.

SYDNEY’S HARBOUR BRIDGE. GREAT ENGINEERING FEAT. Sydney’s Harbour Bridge, which is now in course of construction, when accomplished, will provide a broad highway for the free and uninterrupted passage of railway, vehicular and pedestrian traffic between the city and the northerns suburbs. Traffic Facilities. The bridge provides for four lines of electric railway ; roadway accommodation for six lines of vehicular traffic, and two footwalks, each ten feet wide ; the tram service is not to be taken across the bridge. The roadway, 557 feet wide, between kerbs, is at the centre of the structure, flanked on either side by two lines of railway, with a footway on the outside of each pair of railway tracks. When working at its maximum capacity 168 electric trains, 6000 vehicles and 40,000 pedestrians can cross the bridge in an hour. The main arches are designed to carry a total live load of 12,0001bs per lineal foot. Type and Cost of Bridge. In 1924 the tender of Dorman, Long and Co., was accepted for the construction and erection of an arch bridge with five steel approach spans on either side of the harbour, a total length of steelwork of 3770 feet, at a cost of £4,217.721 Ils lOd. The tender provides for using Australian steel as far as practicable ; all materials other than steel to be wholly Australian. Progress of Construction. To make way for the bridge 461 prbperties have been demolished on the northern side of the harbour and 266 on the southern side. Mr L. Innis, 0.8. E., is director of construction for the contractors, an English firm. There are about 1250 men directly employed on the bridge by the Public Works Department and Dorman, Long and Co. In 1931 the bridge and city railway should be completed, and they will revolutionise the traffic problems of Sydney to-day. The aforementioned gives but a glimpse of this wonderful engineering feat. 1 ■