Pont de Grand-Mere
Coordinates: 46 ° 37 '12 " N , 72 ° 40' 36" W.
| Pont de Grand-Mere | ||
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| use | Road bridge | |
| Crossing of | Rivière Saint-Maurice | |
| place | Shawinigan - Grand-Mère | |
| construction | Suspension bridge | |
| Longest span | 289 m | |
| completion | May 1, 1929 | |
| planner | Robinson & Steinman | |
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The Pont de Grand-Mère is a two-lane road bridge over the Rivière Saint-Maurice near the place Grand-Mère in the province of Quebec in Canada, which is now part of Shawinigan . At the time, it was the longest suspension bridge in Canada and the longest suspension bridge in the world with suspension cables made of wire rope instead of the usual parallel wire ropes .
description
A first, 47 m long section of a steel truss bridge was built in 1917 by the Laurentide paper mill to make it easier to transport wood. However, construction could not be continued because the dam wall built downstream raised the water level.
The solution to the problem was a suspension bridge designed by the New York engineering firm Robinson & Steinman , which was built from 1928 to 1929 and opened to traffic on May 1, 1929. It is 337 m long and has a span of 289 m , including the truss bridge used as an access ramp (but without the anchor ropes reaching far back into the country) . One of the pylons is at the end of the access ramp in the river bed, the other on the other bank. That is why only the deck girder hangs between the pylons on the supporting cables. In keeping with the style of the time, the steel pillars of the pylons are reinforced with diagonal struts. The roadway girder consists of a lattice girder that is still comparatively high compared to later bridges. In order to save costs, the suspension cables were not made from individual wires using the air-jet spinning process . Instead, several wire ropes supplied by John A. Roebling's Sons Company were hung on the pylons and pressed together to form suspension cables and sheathed. Steinman repeated this procedure, which was first used here, later and a. at the Waldo-Hancock Bridge . The half-timbered ramp has been replaced by a reinforced concrete slab in recent years.
The bridge, painted in the green typical of David B. Steinman, made it possible to extend the current QC-155 to La Tuque , 120 km further north , which led to the economic revival of Grand-Mère.
Web links
- Pont de Grand-Mère on the Répertoire du patrimoine culturel du Québec