WOW! Fabulous video, incredible scenery and beautiful views as well as how amazing, it is to the boats go under the bridge too and the sole halogen wigwag - classic and vintage!
That reminds me of the Poole Harbour Bridge in Poole Dorset (the blue bright by the harbour with Level Crossing lights) I haven’t seen the bridge go up to let ships through but I’ve seen it down a lot
Awesome video! 😁 Great to see you've finally caught a raise in full. This is one cool bascule bridge, it is literally a 'lifting' bridge and really adds meaning to the term! 😄 I like the vertical traffic-light style wigwags there too, very similar to the ones at a level crossing in Minffordd.
No problem! It isn't raised very often, maybe a couple of times a week. Usually raised for barges accessing Ridham Dock and you can track them on a website which came in handy for this bridge.
I remember I worked on the mainland some years ago working night shift, they lifted the bridge between 00.00 and supposedly 04.00 for maintenance, so I just stayed at work and kept warm. 04.00 came , the bloody bridge had stuck---- I got home indoors at about 6am, put my work bag down and just fell into bed. But I love this bridge really, 😁my dad was one of the engineers who helped build it in the late 50's early 60's. I have a special fondness for it. Jason Statham was filming on it recently for the film "The Tourist" and a series was filmed using the bridge ,the scene involves a car going into the water off the bridge, strangely the show was called "The Bridge". 😂
Yeah, I thought they might activate as soon as the amber lights are on. I'm not too sure a narrow set of LED wigwags would fit in the same spot as the halogen vertical lights.
To be fair I’ve always wondered if the bells on the bridge are actually manually activated instead of automatically. From personal experience, sometimes they don’t activate at all, sometimes they only activate for a couple of seconds, sometimes they only activate on the initial road closure but not on the bridge drop/reopening of the carriage way lol. This is also the case for the Fog Horn which is used to give bigger ships the signal that the bridge is fully raised… I’ve heard the foghorn used at nighttime a couple of times but never heard it sound of a day time.
Yes, the train timetable takes priority too, Network Rail runs the bridge. There are published times when the bridge can be raised. It seems that trains pass one direction, then the other, then the bridge goes up. In my experience, if the trains pass me at high tide, when I'm cycling on or off the island, I have to pedal for dear life - otherwise I get stuck for up to 20 minutes.
_train on the Sheerness side grinds to a halt_ "What happened to the power?!" Love how the bridge is absolutely silent in operation, then SCREEEEEEEEEECH for no obvious reason.
A nice thought! The boring answer is that there's a feeder substation for the railway at Queenborough. No conductor rails on the lifting section so trains have to coast across.
I assume that the bridge is part of the train signing ~ imagine the train stopping at a red signal and waiting for a long time = driver; “sorry for the delay, the signal is red as the kingsferry lift bridge is up”
I live on the Isle of Sheppey, and the bridge is actually owned and operated by Network Rail and not by National Highways/Highways England/Local Authority. This can be easiest seen with highway maintenance work and road resurfacing which takes place either side of this bridge. Highways maintain and resurface the road surfaces and signage from the roundabouts up until the approaches to the bridge on either side (this was done recently last year - the road surface whilst on the bridge is in terrible condition by contrast). Over night you will almost always see a network rail van or a personal car owned by a network rail member of staff parked up on the roadside just on the mainland side northbound approach to the bridge who sits in the bridges control room. I believe during the day they actually park their vehicles in Swale Train-station which is just on the southbound side of the road on the mainland side of the bridge.
@Green Giant On previous visits I have seen the bridge controller come out and they are all usually wearing Network Rail gear. It would make sense that they control it as they would know the times trains are due across the bridge. Thanks for the info tho.
