Monday is here, the holiday season is over and you all should be back to work, except Joy who has special dispensation.
So, as most of you know I have been spending the Holiday season with my 93 year young Father in South Wales in a town recently visited by none other that Barack Obama for the NATO conference
Now if you look at the logo, the bottom right image is from Newport's most famous landmark, the Transporter Bridge. There are only eight remaining transporter bridges in the World, and one of the few still operating.
The bridge was built in 1906 to allow workers to go from their homes in Pillgwenly (locally referred to as Pill) to the newly constructed Orb steelworks on the other (East) side of the River Usk. The reason that this unusual form of bridge was chosen is that the Usk has a huge tidal range - 39 feet - and that at the turn of the century, the docks up stream were still receiving tall ships. Because of these reasons, both a ferry and conventional bridge were inappropriate. The solution was a transporter bridge, where a suspended gondola was hung beneath a tall structure, and was moved from one bank to the other by an overhead electric railway. Amazingly, it only required 2 X 35 hp motors to function.
Power to propel the transporter platform or gondola is provided by two 35 hp (26.1 kW) electric motors, which in turn drive a large winch, which is situated in an elevated winding house at the eastern end of the bridge. This winch is sufficient to drive the gondola through its' 196.56 m (644.9 ft) total travel at a speed of 3 metres per second (9.8 ft/s),[citation needed]. This is the oldest and largest of the three historic transporter bridges which remain in Britain, and also the largest of the eight historic transporter bridges which remain worldwide) Source wiki.So here is a short video of this amazing historical artefact.
And to keep PCarey happy, here is another Newport viseo by Newport's own GoldielookinChain
