Work commenced in 1883 on the massive steel structure which would become one of the greatest accomplishments in engineering. Each of the three cantilever towers are over 330ft tall and are embedded in granite piers. At the time, the Forth Bridge possessed the longest cantilever span in the world.
WHERE’S THE FOURTH BRIDGE?
The new iron age brought Forth a conjunction
A shipyard’s patois, iron girders wrought.
Two engineers conceived its form and function,
Four thousand briggers its fruition brought.
Three huge red diamonds gleam against the sky*
UNESCO’s necklace gracing estuary.
And trains conveying passengers do fly
Across the bridge. Aye, way above the sea.
This first - of three! - made possible a scheme:
The sleeper out of King’s Cross they would take,
And o’er the bridge it raced to Aberdeen
In record time, on Scottish shores they wake.
*One cantilever short of poetry
Yet space enough to fit, the irony.