the bridge with a difference

As a child one of J's holiday memories always involved a trip on the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge.

 

 

Last year I went on it for the first time on the way home from our trip to Yorkshire, and I loved it so much we decided to make it part of the journey tradition.

 

Passengers travel across the Tees on a gondola suspended by steel cables 50m about the river in a journey taking two minutes.

 

Which is just long enough to get out of the car and stand under the giant steel frame and marvel at the engineering.

 The visitor centre had several mechano replicas. Someone clearly had fun building them, there were miniature cars travelling back and forth in the gondolas.

Miss K and I were very entertained by the journalistic writing style on the display boards, about the opening ceremony in 1911.

"In a day of jaw dropping pomp and pageantry, industrial Middlesbrough, the Infant Hercules, dressed itself in it's Sunday best, flexed it's rippling muscles and let out a lion sized roar of pride as it unveiled its tower tribute to engineering genius, a symbol of the town's steely resolve and soaring ambition."

makes my ramblings seem rather lacking in descriptive prowess........