Queen Elizabeth II Opens Forth Road Bridge

May The Forth Be With You Well!

You learn something new every day! I always thought it was called the Forth Road Bridge because it was the Forth road bridge ever built and also because I can’t spell. But it turns out that the Forth Road Bridge, which was opened by someone called Queen Elizabeth II on this day in 1964, got that name by straddling the River Forth and a jolly good job of straddling it does too. At the time of opening, it was Europe's longest suspension bridge with a span of 1006 metres between the two main towers, a length that could be run in 2 minutes and 11 seconds if world record holder Noah Ngeny happened to be on the bridge. The deck is suspended with 11,618 high tensile wires which is enough wires to fill the Grand Canyon if the Grand Canyon was exactly 2,345 feet shallower. And each of the main cables is able to take 13,800 tonnes of total load, or a staggering 147,456,744 Ant and Decs IF they put on quite a bit of weight. WOW!