indooroopillybrisbaneqld

The Walter Taylor Bridge is a heritage-listed suspension bridge crossing the Brisbane River between Indooroopilly and Chelmer in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is shared by motor traffic and pedestrians and is the only habitable bridge in the Southern Hemisphere. The bridge is a similar design to the Hercilio Luz Bridge in Florianópolis, Brazil, with the truss carrying the bridge being above the roadway and meeting the cables at non-uniform heights. This means that the suspension cables actually form the top chord of the truss, and this configuration is known as the Steinman (after its inventor) or Florianópolis type.[3] The bridge is unique among Brisbane bridges in that the two towers of the bridge house residential accommodation, which were occupied until mid-2010 when the last members of the original tollmaster's family moved out. The Chelmer side of the bridge is bounded by a council park. A pontoon adjacent to this park was washed away in the 2011 flood, and to date has not been replaced. The Walter Taylor Bridge is one of four bridges in close proximity to each other. The others are the Albert Bridge, Indooroopilly Railway Bridge, and the Jack Pesch Bridge. The bridge was conceived, designed, built and funded by local visionary Walter Taylor, a contractor who lived in Graceville (adjacent to the suburb in Chelmer). Although there was a rail bridge to Indooroopilly and beyond to the northern suburbs of Brisbane, local residents were frustrated because there was no means by which cars could cross the river. Pedestrians had been able to cross the river on the 2 previous Albert Bridges from 1875 to 1893, and from 1895 until the opening of the Walter Taylor Bridge.[4] Construction work began in 1930.[5] The bridge is a suspension bridge and the support cables were actually surplus support cables used to hold up the incomplete halves of the Sydney Harbour Bridge during its construction. When the bridge opened it had the longest span of any suspension bridge in Australia. The bridge was opened on 14 February 1936 by the Governor of Queensland, Sir Leslie Wilson, with the final cost (anchorage to anchorage) coming to £85,000.[1] The bridge was operated as a toll bridge until the 1960s, with a toll collection booth located at the Northern (Indooroopilly) end (see the video link below). During that time, the bridge was known as the "Indooroopilly Toll Bridge".[3] It was operated by Indooroopilly Toll Bridge Limited, of which Taylor was a Director and Company Secretary, listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, and with offices in the Central Buildings, Graceville.[7] In its first full year, it made a profit of £2581.[8] After Walter Taylor's death in 1955, the bridge was renamed the Walter Taylor Bridge in his honor 1956. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Taylor_Bridge

The second and current Albert Bridge was built in 1895.[5] It was designed by Henry Charles Stanley, Queensland's Chief Engineer of Railways from 1891 to 1901 and is considered his major work.[2] He designed a "Hogsback" steel truss bridge on masonry piers. In designing the bridge as two long spans with one central pier, he tried to minimize the obstruction to flood waters created by multiple piers, which had been the downfall of the first bridge. Innovations in the design included the attachment of cross girders, protection against derailment, provision against strong wind gusts, and provision for free expansion under varying temperatures. The working drawings and specifications were prepared by FL Keir of the Chief Engineer's office and were completed by mid-1893. Keir was also the resident engineer on the site. A condition of the construction contract was that as much of the work as possible be done in Queensland. Messrs McCormick erected a workshop adjacent to the site at Indooroopilly, and imported machinery necessary for constructing the superstructure and the caisson for the central pier. Up to 240 persons were employed on-site at any one time, and quarry workers provided freestone from Pearson's quarries at Helidon, the bluestone in the concrete from Jenkin's Bundamba quarry, and the granite for the bedstones and cutwater quoins from Mount Crosby. In 1895 the bridge was the largest in Australia of local manufacture. The most difficult aspect of the work was the construction of the central pier and its foundation caisson. The latter weighed about 230 long tons (230 t), rested 81 feet (25 m) below the high water mark, and was sunk 2 feet (0.61 m) into the rock. The riverbed sand and gravel could be dredged, but divers extracted the rock manually.[1] The southern span was erected above what remained of the former bridge and was extended to the center pier. The old pylons were then removed.[1] The northern truss was floated into position. The shore end rested on two trolleys, and when the tide was at its highest, specially constructed staging on an old bark took the weight of the other end of the truss from temporary piles. Winches were then used to pull the hulk across the river toward the center pier, to which the truss was attached. The bridge was integral to the southwest railway system linking Brisbane with Ipswich, the Darling Downs, and southeast Queensland. With increased traffic, it was supplemented with an adjacent upstream rail bridge in 1957, which together remained the only Brisbane River rail crossing prior to the construction of the Merivale Bridge in 1978. The Albert Bridge currently handles only passenger traffic. Source: www.wikiwand.com/en/Albert_Bridge,_Brisbane The cores of the earlier bridge abutments were widened and heightened to take the new superstructure. Parapets were constructed after the trusses had been fixed in place and were completed in November 1895.[1] When opened the bridge also catered for pedestrian traffic,[1] until the construction of the nearby Walter Taylor Bridge in 1937.

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