I admire the video-maker Geoff Marshall, the anoraks’ anorak, for his voluminous YouTube documentaries about transport, delivered with clarity and relentless enthusiasm.  He’s a natural communicator, with the gift of talking about things that interest him in a way that appeals to listeners.  And his appetite for challenges means that he makes curiosities entertaining.

His recent piece about the Forth Bridge [I Went To The Top Of The Forth Bridge (youtube.com)] is typical of his work.  His reputation gives him access to the parts other enthusiasts can’t reach, and his videos are technically professional.  Watch for the electric kettle switching itself off on cue.

Until the rail bridge was built, the only way to cross the Firth of Forth between Fife and Lothian without going all the way upstream to Stirling was by ferry.  An 1818 scheme for a suspension bridge was dismissed by a critic because its “very light and slender appearance, [was] so light indeed that on a dull day it would hardly have been visible, and after a heavy gale probably no longer to be seen on a clear day either”.  The engineer Thomas Bouch began a rail suspension bridge (never a good idea) in 1878, but when his earlier Tay Bridge collapsed the following year – “badly designed, badly constructed and badly maintained” – the Forth project was immediately stopped.

The eventual Forth Bridge is an astonishing piece of engineering, a design made possible only by the availability of Bessemer steel, so big and powerful that its form expresses its function, the first unequivocally utilitarian structure in Britain since Sir Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace of 1851.  Unlike Horace Jones’ London Tower Bridge (1886-94), the Forth Bridge couldn’t be dressed up as architecture.

Its cantilever design ensures its strength and safety.  The central cantilever was the largest in the world when it was constructed;  now it’s the second largest, overtaken in 1919 by the Quebec Bridge (Pont de Québec] in Canada [Pont de Québec vu du Parc aquarium du Québec – Quebec Bridge – Wikipedia].

It was never strictly true that the painters started at one end and when they’d finished went back to start again. 

There was a tunnel under the Forth, built upstream to connect Kinneil Colliery near Bo’ness with Valleyfield Colliery near Culross in Fife.  It operated from 1964 to 1982 and was filled in and capped when it closed.  The tunnel features for a few seconds at 3:19 in the film Forth – Powerhouse for industry (1964):  Full record for ‘FORTH – POWERHOUSE FOR INDUSTRY’ (1820) – Moving Image Archive catalogue (nls.uk).

There’s a comprehensive account of the Forth Bridge and the two later road bridges at The Forth Bridge (theforthbridges.org).  It’s incorrect to refer to the “Forth Rail Bridge”.  The rail crossing has historical precedence, opened in 1890:  it was followed by the Forth Road Bridge (1964) and the Queensferry Crossing (2017).

Geoff Marshall makes it possible to appreciate the sheer scale of the Forth Bridge by taking his camera to the top of a cantilever and climbing around the rail deck.  Sooner him than me:  I’m glad of his movie;  otherwise I’m content to cross the Forth Bridge in a comfortable seat on a train – as its designers intended.

However, it will soon be possible to enjoy views of the Firth of Forth at 367 feet above sea level, and to join a Bridge Walk, secured by the same sort of harness that makes it possible to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge:  Forth Bridge Experience (scotlandsrailway.com).