BIGGEST IN EUROPE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 April 1939, Page 9

BIGGEST IN EUROPE

CONCRETE BRIDGE IN FRANCE. Europe’s biggest concrete bridge is at Plougastel and was built to save a detour of only ten miles. It crosses the river Elorne where this river flows into the roadstead of Brest and unites the important port with Quimper. This concrete bridge is 984 yards long, or almost four times the length of Westminster Bridge, London, and crosses the river in three spans, each of 203 yards. Its height is 138 feet above the level of the sea. It is a double bridge, consisting of an upper passage way for vehicles and pedestrians, and a lower passage way for use ultimately when the traffic on the upper part grows too numerous. A curiosity of this bridge is that the sea helped considerably in its construction. First an arch of wood was’Built, a huge mould for the cement, on floats alongside the shore. At the same time, the buttresses were being erected on their sunk foundations in the river marking the spans of the arches. Then the huge wooden form for the first arch was floated out into the stream and hauled into place, and it was the tide which enabled it to be placed-in exact position. During four montns concrete was poured into the form, and eventually it was withdrawn and floated again into position for the making of the second and then the third span. The bridge-of Plougastel, or the Albert Louppe bridge, to give it its official title, took four and a half years to build, and it required 20,000 square metres of concrete, and 1,500 tons of steel. This great work of man does not mar the landscape. On the contrary it gives an added touch of picturesque contrast as it swings out its three graceful arches supporting the comparatively narrow roadway across the water for more than halt a mile from shore to shore. The green shore, the blue river, with this slender white bridge, form a harmony of the beauty of nature and the labour of man.