Foto van The Forest of Dean met vlakbij Puzzlewood. Op weg van de Forest of Dean naar het natuurgebied New Forest langs de Stonhenge. Foto's langs de kust met het imposant natuurlijk gevormde Dudle Door aan de Jurassic Coast. Prachtige plaatsen als Bornemouth en Portsmouth in het zuiden van Engeland.

De Jurassic Coast is een deel van de zuidkust van Engeland die op de werelderfgoedlijst staat. De Jurassic Coast strekt zich uit langs het Kanaal, van Orcombe Point in de buurt van Exmouth in het oosten van Devon tot Old Harry Rocks bij Swanage in het oosten van Dorset.

Vanwege zijn unieke geologie en landvorm was de kust in 2001 het tweede natuurwonder in het Verenigd Koninkrijk dat op de werelderfgoedlijst werd geplaatst.

Photo's from The Forest of Dean, Stonehenge, Portsmouth and Bornemouth. Dudle Door part of he Jurassic Coast witch is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. The site stretches from Orcombe Point near Exmouth in East Devon to Old Harry RocksSwanage in East Dorset, a distance of 153 kilometres (95 mi). Chartered in 2001, the Jurassic coast was the second wholly-natural World Heritage Site to be designated in the United Kingdom. Its entire length can be walked on the South West Coast Path.

De Forth Bridge is een spoorbrug die de oevers van de Firth of Forth in Schotland verbindt. Dit type brug staat ook wel bekend als cantileverbrug. De brug ligt tussen de plaatsen North Queensferry en Queensferry.

De bouw

De werkzaamheden aan de brug begonnen onder leiding van Sir Thomas Bouch, maar werden gestaakt toen de Tay Bridge, een ander ontwerp van Bouch, instortte tijdens een storm. Het werk werd overgenomen door Sir John Fowler en Sir Benjamin Baker en uitgevoerd tussen 1883 en 1890. De brug werd geopend door de Prins van Wales, de latere koning Edward VII. De eerste vier jaar werden besteed aan de bouw van caissons (waterdichte kamers) en de bouw van de pijlers. Door het instorten van de Tay Bridge werd de Forth Bridge zo berekend dat het een orkaan zou moeten kunnen weerstaan. In totaal heeft de bouw van de brug aan 54 mensen het leven gekost.

Cijfers

De brug is 2,46 kilometer lang en het spoor bevindt zich 45 meter boven het wateroppervlak. In de brug is ongeveer 54.860 ton staal en 7 miljoen klinknagels verwerkt. Voor het onderhoud heeft de brug een eigen onderhoudsploeg, waaronder een aantal permanent actieve schilders. Het te schilderen oppervlak bedraagt 59 ha en daarvoor is 31.800 liter verf nodig.

The Forth Bridge is a cantilever railway bridge over the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland, to the east of the Forth Road Bridge, and 14 km (9 miles) west of central Edinburgh. It is often called the Forth Rail Bridge or Forth Railway Bridge to distinguish it from the Forth Road Bridge, but should correctly be referred to as the Forth Bridge.^{[citation needed]} The bridge connects Scotland's capital Edinburgh with Fife, and acts as a major artery connecting the north-east and south-east of the country. Described as "the one internationally recognised Scottish landmark",^[1] it may be nominated by the British government as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.^[2] The bridge and its associated railway infrastructure is owned by Network Rail Infrastructure Limited.

Construction of an earlier bridge, designed by Sir Thomas Bouch, got as far as the laying of the foundation stone, but was stopped after the failure of another of his works, the Tay Bridge. Bouch had proposed a suspension bridge but the public inquiry into the Tay bridge disaster showed that he had under-designed the structure and mistakenly used cast iron, which weakened the entire structure. Upon Bouch's death the project was handed over to two other Englishmen Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker, who designed a structure that was built by Glasgow based company Sir William Arrol & Co. between 1883 and 1890. Baker – "one of the most remarkable civil engineers Britain ever produced" – and his colleague Allan Stewart received the major credit for design and overseeing building work. During its construction, over 450 workers were injured and 98 lost their lives.

First steel structure

The bridge was built in steel alone, the first bridge in Britain to use that material. It was the first major structure in Britain to be constructed of steel^; Its contemporary, the Eiffel Tower was built of wrought iron. Large amounts of steel had only become available after the invention of the Bessemer process in 1855. Until 1877 the British Board of Trade had limited the use of steel in structural engineering because the process produced steel of unpredictable strength. Only the Siemens-Martin open-hearth process developed by 1875 yielded steel of consistent quality. The 64,800 tons of steel needed for the bridge was provided by two steel works in Scotland and one in Wales.

Construction

The bridge is, even today, regarded as an engineering marvel. It is 2.5 km (1.5 miles) in length, and the double track is elevated 46 m (approx. 150 ft) above high tide. It consists of two main spans of 1,710 ft (520 m), two side spans of 675 ft, 15 approach spans of 168 ft (51 m), and five of 25 ft (7.6 m). Each main span comprises two 680 ft (210 m) cantilever arms supporting a central 350 ft (110 m) span truss. The three great four-tower cantilever structures are 340 ft (104 m) tall, each 70 ft (21 m) diameter foot resting on a separate foundation. The southern group of foundations had to be constructed as caissons under compressed air, to a depth of 90 ft (27 m). At its peak, approximately 4,600 workers were employed in its construction. Initially, it was recorded that 57 lives were lost; however, after extensive research by local historians, the figure was increased to 98. Eight men were saved by boats positioned in the river under the working areas.

Hundreds more were left crippled by serious accidents, and one log book of accidents and sickness had 26,000 entries. In 2005, a project was set up by the Queensferry History Group to establish a memorial to those workers who died during the bridge's construction. In North Queensferry, a decision was also made to set up memorial benches to commemorate those who died during the construction of both the rail and the road bridges, and to seek support for this project from Fife Council. More than 55,000 tons of steel were used, as well as 18,122 m³ of granite and over eight million rivets. The bridge was opened on 4 March 1890 by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, who drove home the last rivet, which was gold plated and suitably inscribed. A contemporary materials analysis of the bridge, c. 2002, found that the steel in the bridge is of good quality, with little variation.

The use of a cantilever in bridge design was not a new idea, but the scale of Baker's undertaking was a pioneering effort, later followed in different parts of the world. Much of the work done was without precedent, including calculations for incidence of erection stresses, provisions made for reducing future maintenance costs, calculations for wind pressures made evident by the Tay Bridge disaster, the effect of temperature stresses on the structure, and so on. Where possible, the bridge used natural features such as Inchgarvie, an island, the promontories on either side of the firth at this point, and also the high banks on either side.

The bridge has a speed limit of 50 mph (80 km/h) for passenger trains and 20 mph (32 km/h) for freight trains. The weight limit for any train on the bridge is 1,422 tonnes (1,442,000 kg) although this is waived for the frequent coal trains, provided two such trains do not simultaneously occupy the bridge. The route availability code is RA8, meaning any current UK locomotive can use the bridge, which was designed to accommodate heavier steam locomotives. Up to 190–200 trains per day crossed the bridge in 2006.

A structure like the Forth Bridge needs constant maintenance and the ancillary works for the bridge included not only a maintenance workshop and yard but a railway "colony" of some fifty houses at Dalmeny Station. The track on the bridge is of "waybeam" construction: 12 inch square baulks of timber 6 metres long are bolted into steel troughs in the bridge deck and the rails are fixed on top of these sleepers . In 1992 the bridge was re-railed with standard BS113A rail (54 kg/m). Prior to 1992 the rails on the bridge were of a unique "Forth Bridge" section. Although modern trains put fewer stresses on the bridge than the earlier steam trains, the bridge needs constant maintenance, and this is currently undertaken by Balfour Beatty under contract to Network Rail.

"Painting the Forth Bridge" is a colloquial term for a never-ending task, coined on the erroneous belief that, at one time in the history of the bridge repainting was required and commenced immediately upon completion of the previous repaint. According to a 2004 New Civil Engineer report on contemporary maintenance, such a practice never existed, although under British Rail management, and before, the bridge had a permanent maintenance crew. A contemporary repainting of the bridge commenced with a contract award in 2002, for a schedule of work which was expected to continue until March 2009, but as of September 2009 is still ongoing. This involves the application of 20,000 m² of paint at an estimated cost of £13M a year. This new coat of paint is expected to have a life of at least 25 years. In 2008 the estimated cost was increased to £180M, and projections for finishing the job to 2012. In a report produced by JE Jacobs, Grant Thornton and Faber Maunsell in 2007 which reviewed the alternative options for a second road crossing, it was stated that the estimated working life of the Forth Bridge was in excess of 100 years.