Anchorage...

On my commute to Edinburgh every working day, I cross over one of my favourite human structures which also gives wonderful views of another of my favourite human structures. These of course are the Forth bridges and today the Forth Estuary Transport Authority (the body that runs the Forth Road Bridge were holding an open day. I had a couple of hours spare today so popped over.

It was absolutely fascinating. There were loads of bridge workers there to explain every aspect of what is involved in the maintenance of the bridge, displays showing the history of it and loss of others wee distractions for kids like face painting and micro bus rides.

I didn't think I'd have time to go on the tour that takes you to the anchorage station and I didn't but I chanced my arm and drove straight to the station and sneaked in the back of the tour that had come across the bridge on a mini bus.

This picture (probably best viewed through a LARGIFICATION glass) is taken from inside one of the north anchorage stations which is where the big main cables that hold the bridge deck up come down, split into smaller strands and loop around these anchor points that go some 80 metres into solid rock. This is an odd panorama photo taken from looking 45 degrees down on the right of the picture where the anchor points hold onto the cable ends. Moving to the left of the picture, the view moves to be looking upwards at about 45 degrees where the main cable in it's entire width comes into the anchorage station from outside.

Truly fascinating and utterly awesome engineering in the very literal sense of the word.