BRIDGE BUILDERS
SOME FRENCH STRUCTURES. The viaduct of Garabit, in the Cantal, France, has just celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. Apart from the feat of engineering which it represents, it is famous as being the first of the great girder constructions of Gustave Eiffel, builder of the thousand feet tower in Paris. Steel bridge construction was new when Eiffel set up this viaduct 400 feet above the valley (the Clifton suspension bridge over the Avon is 245 feet high). It traverses the Truyere in a parabolic arc of 540 feet opening, and the total length of the viaduct is 617 yards. The bridge was designed by an engineer named Beyer, but the work was carried out by Eiffel, and much that he learned while erecting this bridge proved useful when later he put up the Eiffel Tower. Trains connecting Saint-Flour with Millau, by way of Harvejols, still cross this viaduct as in the days of Eiffel, and the journey is a fine experience. The highest of all French viaducts is that of Fades, which crosses the Sioule at a height of 433 feet. It was finished in 1908 and is set on concrete bases.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAITA19380704.2.13
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 July 1938, Page 2
Word count
Tapeke kupu
193BRIDGE BUILDERS Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 July 1938, Page 2
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Wairarapa Times-Age. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in