Engineering Wonders

If two crews drill from either side of a mountain, how do they know if they will meet in the middle? How was McCulloch able to make a little hole straight through four rock walls in a straight line to create a railway shortcut through the mountains? How were the crews even able to scale down shear cliffs over a raging river gorge to start the construction? All of this was done at a time when there wasn't a lot of high tech gadgetry. If you click on this photo to make it larger, you may be able to see the light at the end of the third tunnel - the tunnels are that straight!



Great engineering feats have always fascinated me, particularly bridges. How exactly does one build a suspension bridge? As I watch traffic flowing over Lions Gate Bridge (yes, occasionally traffic does flow in Vancouver), it seems impossible that such a flimsy structure can carry all that weight.



Of course, not all of our bridges have been engineered all that well. The Second Narrows Bridge collapsed in 1958 just as workers were placing the last piece to join both sections of the bridge.
Eighteen workers lost their lives due to a simple error in the calculation of the weight the structure could bear. This bridge was rebuilt and eventually called the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge.

Next week, the Golden Ears Bridge will open connecting Maple Ridge to Langley. It will be an electronic toll bridge - the first toll bridge in British Columbia in several years. They are giving us a month of free use before tolls apply. I can't wait to try it out. But, I think I will wait a day or two, to let others test it out first.