tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16539163.post5471709400086176978..comments2024-03-28T11:54:53.075+00:00Comments on Adullamite: Thomas TelfordAdullamitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15537659871829290071noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16539163.post-7270570208340271442013-08-10T16:13:12.572+01:002013-08-10T16:13:12.572+01:00Lee, All the greater as he was self taught.
Soub,...Lee, All the greater as he was self taught.<br /><br />Soub, I thought you would know him. One of the great engineers.<br /><br />Jerry, I think that happened then also. He had his friends too of course!Adullamitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15537659871829290071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16539163.post-91888476794496926122013-08-10T00:33:12.277+01:002013-08-10T00:33:12.277+01:00We could sure use some like him these days, but I ...We could sure use some like him these days, but I wonder if they would be permitted to actually construct projects that would stand the test of time? For with government incompetence and corruption running rampant, it is considered good when a public works project is completed before it starts falling apart over here. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16349087080262856079noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16539163.post-3911672478751734362013-08-09T22:51:50.876+01:002013-08-09T22:51:50.876+01:00There you go, Telford, somehow, though I had learn...There you go, Telford, somehow, though I had learned about him in school, and of course in later years, being fascinated by the great innovative engineers of the industrial revolution,you brought up the fact that he was a Scot.<br />I did not know that. I'd always assumed he was from Shropshire, given that they named a town after him. I've never been there, but I've always intended to go to the many museums of the Ironbridge Gorge area.<br />BBC Timewatch did a program on Abraham Darby's Iron Bridge,the world's first cast iron arch bridge. I watched in fascination as they cast new bridge-ribs, pouring molten iron into sand moulds. Nobody, today, can say for sure, how it was erected. Was each arch assembled flat then hauled into position? Who knows?<br /><br />Then there's Telford's Menai bridge, which you picture. He had to build it with a hundred feet of clear space beneath, to allow sailing ships free access. No scaffolding was permitted by the original brief.<br />And Telford designed this elegant and unprecedented structure, making chains out of cast iron iron bars, to span 577 feet, high above the straits, imagine the work, to draw a chain, (each weighed 121 tons) across that stretch of fast-flowing tidal water, and haul it upward into position. Telford's vision created something that should have been, maybe was, seen as a new wonder of the world. He built the impossible.<br /><br />I also didn't know he was the builder of St Katherine's Dock, by The Tower of London, I've been there many a time. There's an incredibly ugly hotel beside it...<br />But the dock itself.... Somewhere, long ago, I think I posted some pictures, I wish I tagged posts, it would make life easier, looking back. <br /><br />McAdam's roads. Well, he was really an adaptor of the roman method, , but now I have to find out what Telford did to improve on it.<br />Roads, and their genesis and engineering are a bit of an interest of mine...<br />I'm a big fan of Blind Jack of Knaresborough.soubriquethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01151288534629885195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16539163.post-75227963950672154312013-08-09T21:50:18.462+01:002013-08-09T21:50:18.462+01:00One can only sit or stand in awe of what men like ...One can only sit or stand in awe of what men like Telford did so many centuries ago...and all achieved without the tools, knowledge (or so-called knowledge) and technology we are surrounded with today.<br /><br />When you/me/we take time to think about it...it really is outstanding; and if the proof wasn't still around to remind us, we'd never believe it...believing it to be a product of some writer's over-active imagination.Leehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15835982875620956300noreply@blogger.com