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Bridges of the Forth 135
All of this carried just two railway lines, but for threequarters of a century
the bridge captured the imagination by itself – most famously perhaps in the
two movies of The Thirty-nine Steps, neither of which much resembled John
Buchan’s book, but which left familiar images of the bridge in the minds of
many who had never seen it. H. V. Morton, the travel writer, put it well in the
thirties in In Search of Scotland: “To see the Forth Bridge is rather like meeting a
popular actress, but with this difference: it exceeds expectations.” Interestingly
enough it became the custom to cast a coin out of the window of the train as it
crossed the bridge. The reason for this was that the bridge replaced the very
old established and often dangerous Queensferry which in the early days
represented a considerable hazard to travellers who used to make an offering
in one or another chapel situated nearby before embarking. The motor car
brought about the revival of this crossing which lasted until the opening of the
Road Bridge in 1964.
The bridge realised a long-held ambition: to achieve a crossing below
Stirling, but it did not meet demand for a road bridge at Queensferry and, in
the late fifties, plans were laid to build the fine suspension bridge which makes
Queensferry such a unique place for bridge enthusiasts. The building of the
Forth Road Bridge marked the dawn of the contemporary era in Scottish
motoring. Serious talk about a Forth Road Bridge began in the 1920s resulting
in the eventual compromise of the Kincardine-on-Forth Bridge. After the war
it was evident that the original suggestion, that a suspension bridge should be
built at Queensferry, would have to be reconsidered. Some notable long span
road bridges had been built between the wars elsewhere, but there were none
in Britain. One reason for this was that, in a relatively small country, it could
always be argued that even great estuaries like the Humber and the Severn
could be circumvented with comparatively little inconvenience, provided that
there were not delays on the alternative routes. It is also possible that some
engineers did not trust suspension bridges. However, when the Motorway
network was planned after the Second World War the two first estuaries to be
included in the plans were those of the Forth and the Severn.
In the early sixties the two great towers of the Bridge were built. Then the
tiny thread of the catwalk appeared. It was followed by the wires from which
the deck of the bridge would be suspended. It seemed then that, rather than
ploughing across the Forth on the Queen Margaret eating ice cream, one might
one day be driving across the water. The reason for this was that the solution
to the problem of crossing the Forth without getting your feet wet which was
so firmly imprinted in every mind, was the heavyweight engineering
extravaganza of Baker and Fowler – most famous bridge in the world perhaps
– the Forth Rail Bridge. While even when it was completed the road bridge
looked so insubstantial by comparison with the Road Bridge that it appeared
inadequate for its task, there is, surprisingly perhaps, two thirds as much steel
in the road bridge, which is of course wider, as there is in the Rail Bridge which
has always been regarded by engineers as much heavier than it needed to be.
One reason why there is so much steel in the road bridge was the need to