Not really necessary, there's about 30ft clearance even when it's closed. Back in the days when London's commercial shipping was wind powered and mainly based upstream of the bridge ("the Pool of London") the bridge operators made it a point of honour to not delay a ship's progress through having to wait for the raising. What the road traffic thought of that isn't recorded. Gradually, as freight was based further downstream and finally moved to the port of Tilbury, the delay increased until you now have to give a week's notice. There was also a famous incident in which a bus driver was crossing and felt the bridge starting to rise. He floored the throttle and did an Evel Knievel over the gap with a double decker full of passengers. http://www.towerbridge.org.uk/news/2016/01/08/day-bus-jumped-tower-bridge/ Tony
Tower Bridge, London. We've sailed under it on our narrowboat (the ratbags didn't lift it for us though).
ReplyDeleteTony
Duck your head!
ReplyDeleteNot really necessary, there's about 30ft clearance even when it's closed.
ReplyDeleteBack in the days when London's commercial shipping was wind powered and mainly based upstream of the bridge ("the Pool of London") the bridge operators made it a point of honour to not delay a ship's progress through having to wait for the raising. What the road traffic thought of that isn't recorded. Gradually, as freight was based further downstream and finally moved to the port of Tilbury, the delay increased until you now have to give a week's notice.
There was also a famous incident in which a bus driver was crossing and felt the bridge starting to rise. He floored the throttle and did an Evel Knievel over the gap with a double decker full of passengers.
http://www.towerbridge.org.uk/news/2016/01/08/day-bus-jumped-tower-bridge/
Tony
Correction.
ReplyDeleteIt's "only" 24 hours notice, not a week.
They'll open it if you're over 9m tall, but it doesn't cost you anything.
Tony