File:Maryborough Bridge under construction, 31 March 1896.jpg

English: The Brisbane Courier

30 October 1896

MARYBOROUGH BRIDGE, OFFICIAL OPENING.

The official opening of the new bridge over the Mary River at Maryborough will take place at 4 p.m. to-day.

The Ministers for Works and Railways, the members of the Victoria Bridge Board, the Under Secretary for Works, and the Chief Engineer for Bridges, and a small party of members of Parliament will leave Brisbane for Maryborough by this morning's' train, returning by the mail train on Saturday. A dinner will be given to the visitors by the Maryborough Bridge Board at the Royal Hotel in the evening. It is expected that the Minister for Works will open the bridge officially in the unavoidable absence of his Excellency the Governor. The new bridge was built to replace the high level wooden structure which was destroyed by the flood of 1893. The new bridge is a composite structure of Portland cement concrete, and steel.

The total length is 613ft., and the width between the curbs 21ft. It is a low level bridge, only 12½ft. above high-water spring tides, and 20ft. below the highest flood level. There are eleven spans or arches, each 50ft. in the clear, the rise from the springing to the crown of each arch being 4ft., and the thickness of concrete at the crown 20in. The superstructure is carried upon two concrete abutments and ten concrete river piers. Each pier foundation consists of two wrought-iron, rectangular caissons, measuring 10ft. 4in. by 5ft 6in., sunk to bedrock, and filled with concrete up to low water level, above which level the concrete piers are built. The depths of the pier foundations vary from 43ft. to 58ft. below high-water level.

The concrete arches are strengthened or stiffened with eleven continuous steel ribs or skeleton framing formed of railway rails, fitted and riveted together, and spaced 2ft. apart in the section of the arches, and completely embedded in the cement concrete. The roadway on the bridge is of the most modern type, formed of ironbark block paving, close-jointed, and bedded directly upon the concrete, the joints being run in with boiling asphalt. The hand railing on the bridge is formed of wrought-iron stanchions and tubes made in sections, and easily removable in flood time. The approaches of the bridge also form part of the contract. The total cost of the bridge is about £22,000, exclusive of the cost of removing the remains of the old bridge, constructing new ferry approaches, and expenses incurred by the Bridge Board in salaries, fees, and sun- dries. The contractors for the bridge and approaches are Messrs. M'Ardle and Thompson, and the work has occupied some fifteen months' time.

Queensland State Archives, Digital Image ID 22469