50 Years since Britannia Bridge fire

[CazRail]

50 years ago, on 23rd May 1970, the Britannia Bridge caught fire. Here's a documentary about the fire, where locals and people involved including some of the firemen are interviewed. 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000jljp/britannias-burning-fire-on-the-bridge

 

On YouTube, there are also a selection of videos about the bridge, one im particular about the re-building of it. 

 

I live within half a mile of the bridge, and use it daily for work and to get on and off the island. I've also worked on the bridge, so i find the subject very interesting 

 

Cheers

Caz

[ejstubbs]

Blimey, that means that I was only 10 when it happened.  I remember hearing about it on the news at the time, though, and being quite upset.  I knew about the Britannia Bridge and its innovative design, and I admired its almost minimalist elegance.   Although it's good that it's still basically in use I do think that the rebuilt arch-supported spans are nothing like as attractive as the original box girders.

 

At around that time there were a number of failures of newly constructed or in-construction steel box girder bridges.  These led to a fair amount of largely ill-informed comment and discussion in the media about whether the box girder design concept was fundamentally flawed.  I remember thinking at the time that a wrought iron box girder bridge that had stood for 120 years until some idiots managed to set fire to it could be considered a convincing counter-example.

 

I still regret never having seen the Britannia Bridge in its original form.  I know the bridge at Conwy is the same basic design but IMO it doesn't have anything like the visual appeal of the Britannia Bridge, with its slender cantilevers springing at such height across a rugged but picturesque void.

 

P.S.  Sorry, meant to add: thanks for the link to the programme on iPlayer.  I'd not seen any mention of it in Radio TImes or elsewhere.

Edited May 25, 2020 by ejstubbs

[Stubby47]

As an ex-Menai Bridge resident, my wife is a member of the Anglesey images facebook group.  There have been lots of photos on there of the bridge, both on fire and of the reconstruction.  

[Darius43]

Excellent BTF documentary from the early 1970s on the bridge reconstruction.

 

Had two family holidays on Anglesey in 1975 and 1976.

 

Britannia - a Bridge

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[russ p]

Is there any truth in the conspiracy theories that it was done deliberately to make it easier to enable it to be rebuilt without all the enquiries into destroying the original design?  I first heard this a few years ago from a resident of anglesey while buying car parts from him

[Darius43]

A lady that ran a cafe on the harbour front in Dover told me once that the town was run with a vice like grip by the occupants of Dover Castle.  Perhaps they are related.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[Adam88]

My father was the unwilling passenger in an Anson when the pilot decided that he was going to fly underneath both bridges during the war.  They all lived to tell the tale but I think it was definitely outside the scope of what was permitted at the time.

[runs as required]

I used to know and love Menai Bridge very well, we had a decrepit caravan on Anglesey. 

As a boy in the 1950s, my dad worked for Shell-BP. He was well aware that the "solus" petrol station on the lefthand side of Telford's Menai suspension bridge viaduct approach leaving the Island was one of the highest volume selling filling stations in the whole of the NW division (roughly a triangle between Caernarfon, Bakewell and Carlisle).

He was keen that we should move there permanently (I was keen on the move too, as I'd learnt Welsh). But my mum put her foot down (supported by my sister) so we stayed put near Manchester.

 

The original pre-fire exterior view of R Stephenson's bridge was undoubtedly elegant, BUT I have to say I was always disappointed that, when crossing the Britannia bridge, the train plunged into a disgusting smoky blackness just as the ride was getting most exciting. I always wondered why they didn't replace the tube with a trussed girder for the train to pass through. 

Brunel's Saltash was no anticlimax and, showman that he was, still today affords the passenger a great view of the bridge as you approach from from the Duchy.

However, the ECML from Durham to Dundee still offers the best bridge ride in the UK- sitting on the righthand side of the train. 

[CazRail]

3 hours ago, russ p said:

Is there any truth in the conspiracy theories that it was done deliberately to make it easier to enable it to be rebuilt without all the enquiries into destroying the original design?  I first heard this a few years ago from a resident of anglesey while buying car parts from him

Not that Im aware of, it was a group of local youths that caused it. They went for a walk down to the tube on the Bangor side after a party they were going to attend had been cancelled. They walked about 10 yeards into the up(i believe) tube, and had lit a page of a book so they could see. It was thrown onto the floor and rubbish etc caught fire, which quickly spread to the roof. The boys were only fined £5 for tresspass on the railway, as there wasn't enough evidence against them. 

[CazRail]

6 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

Blimey, that means that I was only 10 when it happened.  I remember hearing about it on the news at the time, though, and being quite upset.  I knew about the Britannia Bridge and its innovative design, and I admired its almost minimalist elegance.   Although it's good that it's still basically in use I do think that the rebuilt arch-supported spans are nothing like as attractive as the original box girders.

 

At around that time there were a number of failures of newly constructed or in-construction steel box girder bridges.  These led to a fair amount of largely ill-informed comment and discussion in the media about whether the box girder design concept was fundamentally flawed.  I remember thinking at the time that a wrought iron box girder bridge that had stood for 120 years until some idiots managed to set fire to it could be considered a convincing counter-example.

 

I still regret never having seen the Britannia Bridge in its original form.  I know the bridge at Conwy is the same basic design but IMO it doesn't have anything like the visual appeal of the Britannia Bridge, with its slender cantilevers springing at such height across a rugged but picturesque void.

 

P.S.  Sorry, meant to add: thanks for the link to the programme on iPlayer.  I'd not seen any mention of it in Radio TImes or elsewhere.

Ive worked in the Conwy tubes, filthy place to work. It gave me a fair idea of what working in the Britannia tubes would have been like, but obviously not half as long.

[Merfyn Jones]

4 hours ago, CazRail said:

Ive worked in the Conwy tubes, filthy place to work. It gave me a fair idea of what working in the Britannia tubes would have been like, but obviously not half as long.

 

As you say Caz "filthy place".  I recall numerous times going through looking for track circuit faults, not easy with the dirt and dust.  Of course now it has to be checked after every steam train. Well you wouldn't want to loose the last one in the world, that would be embarrassing !

[CazRail]

20 minutes ago, Merfyn Jones said:

Of course now it has to be checked after every steam train. Well you wouldn't want to loose the last one in the world, that would be embarrassing !

I think the p-way walk through after a steam train's been through? We cleared all the rubbish and debris out last year before any steam came, and it doubled up for us to get it ready for inspection. Ofcourse had to be a Sunday for longer line blocks!

[Mr_Tilt]

OK, I'm almost 2 years late, but that's life.....

 

My very first job when I joined BR in September 1969 was testing the Britannia Bridge. I arrived at the RTC at 8 am, and by 8 pm that evening I was 150 ft above the Menai Straights trying to stop a leaking hydraulic power supply from lubricating the Straights!

 

There was a large team of us from the Track & Structures Section of the RTC testing the Bridge to ensure it could take 25 ton axle load wagons that Alcan wanted to use to move their products from Anglesey to the mainland, and tales of the testing would fill a book. Luckily many of the checkpoints were still in place when the fire happened, and we had to go back and RE-test it. I was the first one of us out there after the fire and took most of the 'official' BR pics post the fire, and still have many copies of them now. 

 

The re-testing was pretty dangerous as there was a risk that the Bridge would break in half and dump us all in the Straights, but luckily when the rivets on the South tube failed on the Monday morning after the fire, they broke on the Britannia Tower side of the support girders and it all stayed  together. 

 

Here's a few of the pics I took post fire. You can clearly see how far the tubes sagged because they got so hot in the first pic. The broken girder and the split in the tube can be seen in the 2nd pic. That's me nearest the camera in the 3rd pic, and we'd cut samples of the wrought iron plates away from the top of the tube to see how badly it'd been stressed. 

 

 

 

Edited April 3, 2022 by Mr_Tilt

[Mr_Tilt]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention just how much the Bridge sagged. It dropped just over 1 metre (39.4 ins in proper measurements...) at the centre of the Welsh side south span, and the other three main spans were slightly less! 😲

Edited April 3, 2022 by Mr_Tilt

[russ p]

2 hours ago, Mr_Tilt said:

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention just how much the Bridge sagged. It dropped just over 1 metre (39.4 ins in proper measurements...) at the centre of the Welsh side south span, and the other three main spans were slightly less! 😲

 

Evening Kit

Didn't they manage to winch some coaching stock over the damaged bridge to get it back to the mainland?  That must have been a bit hairy as I suppose men would have had to have been in close proximity to the vehicles over the worst bits to make sure they didn't derail 

[Mr_Tilt]

Yes, they did. The rolling stock was winched across one at a time through the North tube, which hadn't failed, but was still pretty bent. I don't recall anyone being near the stock as it was winched across, but the Royal Engineers may have got their Bailey Bridge sections installed up the inside edges of the piers by then, and they lessened the likelihood of a span collapsing. I can't remember the exact sequence of events I'm afraid. 

 

There were a number of 47s stuck at Holyhead too and some genius figured they could do the same with them, but my boss, Walter Partington, said (in a broad Derby accent... 🙂) 'Only if you want them to have a wash in't water.....' so they were shipped out to Liverpool I think. 

[Bucoops]

4 hours ago, Mr_Tilt said:

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention just how much the Bridge sagged. It dropped just over 1 metre (39.4 ins in proper measurements...) at the centre of the Welsh side south span, and the other three main spans were slightly less! 😲

 

Oh so not just tilting trains, you were involved in tilting bridges too

[Steamport Southport]

As well as the 47s there was some 40s, 24s and 08s.

 

They left the 01s and 08s where they were and a couple of the 24s. The rest went to Barrow.

 

http://nwrail.org.uk/nw2005e.htm

 

 

Jason

[Steamport Southport]

Also the poem by John Evans (1826-1888)

 

Pedwar llew tew
Heb ddim blew
Dau 'ochr yma
A dau 'ochr drew

 

Rough translation into English

 

Four fat lions
Without any hair
Two on this side
And two over there

 

 

🤣

[CazRail]

Really interesting stuff, @Mr_Tilt. I live about half a mile from the bridge, and have also worked on it, so I always wonder how it used to be and about the time of the fire.

 

Locally, we can't imagine how life would be if the fire hadn't happened, as it now holds two of the three ways to get on and off the island, so possibly a miracle dressed up as a disaster. 

[Mr_Tilt]

13 hours ago, Bucoops said:

 

Oh so not just tilting trains, you were involved in tilting bridges too

 

Too true, and by accident too. I'd applied for a job on the APT project, but even though the programme was put back 18 months BR had all the recruits show up at the RTC in Sept 1969 anyway! Most of the others were put on 'gardening leave' for a while until they found temporary jobs for them, but they needed a hydraulics guy in Track & Structures immediately because of the problems they had with the Britannia Bridge tests. I went to see the boss of T&S, John Lucas, and he greeted me with open arms and sent me off to Bangor right away. 

 

My wife was a little surprised when I phoned her from a hotel in N Wales rather than a rented flat in Derby!

[Mr_Tilt]

13 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

 

Four fat lions
Without any hair
Two on this side
And two over there

 

 

🤣

 

The four lions are still there of course, they must weigh TONS, but they're almost impossible to see these days, which is a big pity as they're magnificent looking beasts.

 

From the road they're umpteen feet below you, from a train you can just get a glimpse of them as you round the curves onto the Bridge, and on foot it's a lengthy walk from the nearest parking spot.

 

I'm pleased they saved one section of the original Bridge so you can see how big it was, but once again you HAVE to want to see it as it's a long walk down there and a pretty steep climb back up again.

 

 

 

My late wife making friends with one of the lions.

 

 

 

Me posing IN the bridge section.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Mr_Tilt

[phil-b259]

13 minutes ago, Mr_Tilt said:

 

The four lions are still there of course, they must weigh TONS, but they're almost impossible to see these days, which is a big pity as they're magnificent looking beasts.

 

From the road they're umpteen feet below you, from a train you can just get a glimpse of them as you round the curves onto the Bridge, and on foot it's a lengthy walk from the nearest parking spot.

 

 

 

I have often thought it was a shame that the plinths the Lions are on were raised during building of the road deck. They would be a fitting and much more appreciated feature if you could see them from the road deck.

 

Were the bridge being rebuilt today I have a feeling that raising them would be done as 'Heritage mitigation' or suchlike

[Steamport Southport]

Another thing to look for if you are in the area is the statue of Lord Nelson.

 

Very few people know it's there.

 

https://historypoints.org/index.php?page=lord-nelson-statue-llanfairpwll

[Hibelroad]

Reading the above is fascinating as I regularly drive across the bridge to visit and work on my retirement bungalow on the island. I often think of the lions as I cross and hope to visit them soon once I move in and have the time to explore.