Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

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CallumParry
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Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

Post by CallumParry »

So it has come to light that Middlesbrough Council hasn’t been looking after the Transporter Bridge properly for many years. From botched repairs to under qualified structural inspectors which has meant that it simply can not be reopened unless extremely expensive repair work is carried out something they say may not happen.
https://www.middlesbrough.gov.uk/news/f ... -discussed


Thoughts on this?
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

Post by ravenbluemoon »

Well I guess they could just sell it to some Native Americans... :wink:

It will be incredibly sad if they do decide to permanently close it to vehicular traffic, but how busy does it really get? I've crossed on it a few times and it's always been quiet. To say there's nothing of interest on the north bank is maybe being generous...

Seems like a nationwide problem, so I wouldn't say that Middlesbrough have been as bad as anyone else. London's bridges and viaducts are in a terrible state, that viaduct in Liverpool had to come down recently (can't remember the name, but no bad thing that it went), and also Clifton Bridge in Nottingham.
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

Post by KeithW »

ravenbluemoon wrote: Wed Dec 09, 2020 19:03 Well I guess they could just sell it to some Native Americans... :wink:

It will be incredibly sad if they do decide to permanently close it to vehicular traffic, but how busy does it really get? I've crossed on it a few times and it's always been quiet. To say there's nothing of interest on the north bank is maybe being generous...

Seems like a nationwide problem, so I wouldn't say that Middlesbrough have been as bad as anyone else. London's bridges and viaducts are in a terrible state, that viaduct in Liverpool had to come down recently (can't remember the name, but no bad thing that it went), and also Clifton Bridge in Nottingham.
They have been patching up the structure for decades, I had to a do a survey of it in 1974 and there was a lot of rot which resulted in the upper walkway being closed for many years. The reality is that its capacity is minimal when its running. At a max it can carry 9 small cars on each trip, worse as it is frequently closed in high winds you cannot rely on it running. We really could do with a better crossing but with the offshore base and wharves upstream a conventional bridge wont work. It was useful for foot and bus traffic in the past but with a minimal bus service and the near abandonment of Haverton Hill and Port Clarence on the north bank and Middlehaven to the south its never even going to cover its running costs let alone maintenance. Realistically the best that can be done is dock the gondola, decommission the winding gear and make a static attraction of it which has happened to most surviving examples of the type.

In 1911 it made sense as there were chemical and iron works as well as a ship yard on the North Bank and most traffic consisted of pedestrians going work. The nearest crossing was Victoria Bridge between Thornaby and Stockton.

The best option for a replacement would be a tunnel but given the cost and the fact that the industry has long gone at best it will become an industrial/business estate as happened to the old Head Wrightson site in Thornaby
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

Post by punyXpress »

Went there 17 October 2011 thinking the Mayor & Corporation would put on a decent show for the centenary.
Was at the north bank and the band struck up, after which . . . nothing.
There was a breeze blowing so event was cancelled.
Eventually went about a month later.
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

Post by Bryn666 »

KeithW wrote: Wed Dec 09, 2020 20:06
ravenbluemoon wrote: Wed Dec 09, 2020 19:03 Well I guess they could just sell it to some Native Americans... :wink:

It will be incredibly sad if they do decide to permanently close it to vehicular traffic, but how busy does it really get? I've crossed on it a few times and it's always been quiet. To say there's nothing of interest on the north bank is maybe being generous...

Seems like a nationwide problem, so I wouldn't say that Middlesbrough have been as bad as anyone else. London's bridges and viaducts are in a terrible state, that viaduct in Liverpool had to come down recently (can't remember the name, but no bad thing that it went), and also Clifton Bridge in Nottingham.
They have been patching up the structure for decades, I had to a do a survey of it in 1974 and there was a lot of rot which resulted in the upper walkway being closed for many years. The reality is that its capacity is minimal when its running. At a max it can carry 9 small cars on each trip, worse as it is frequently closed in high winds you cannot rely on it running. We really could do with a better crossing but with the offshore base and wharves upstream a conventional bridge wont work. It was useful for foot and bus traffic in the past but with a minimal bus service and the near abandonment of Haverton Hill and Port Clarence on the north bank and Middlehaven to the south its never even going to cover its running costs let alone maintenance. Realistically the best that can be done is dock the gondola, decommission the winding gear and make a static attraction of it which has happened to most surviving examples of the type.

In 1911 it made sense as there were chemical and iron works as well as a ship yard on the North Bank and most traffic consisted of pedestrians going work. The nearest crossing was Victoria Bridge between Thornaby and Stockton.

The best option for a replacement would be a tunnel but given the cost and the fact that the industry has long gone at best it will become an industrial/business estate as happened to the old Head Wrightson site in Thornaby
As a useful traffic route it isn't of any use but you'd hope there'd be some kind of tourist value in it - Teeside is the sort of place where industrial heritage needs to be recognised rather than derided in my view. Unfortunately such things cost money to set up and it's highly unlikely cash strapped post-Covid councils are going to want to spend money on them.
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

Post by ravenbluemoon »

KeithW wrote: Wed Dec 09, 2020 20:06 It was useful for foot and bus traffic in the past but with a minimal bus service and the near abandonment of Haverton Hill and Port Clarence on the north bank and Middlehaven to the south its never even going to cover its running costs let alone maintenance.
What happened in St. Hilda's Middlehaven is a real travesty in itself. Taking a quick look on Streetview there's some glimmers of hope around the college, but the rest of it is a derelict wasteland, much as it was 10 years ago when I last passed through. Port Clarence isn't much better, so you really have to go out of your way to visit it.
Bryn666 wrote: Wed Dec 09, 2020 21:47 As a useful traffic route it isn't of any use but you'd hope there'd be some kind of tourist value in it - Teeside is the sort of place where industrial heritage needs to be recognised rather than derided in my view. Unfortunately such things cost money to set up and it's highly unlikely cash strapped post-Covid councils are going to want to spend money on them.
You'd think they'd really be pushing the historic side of things there, wouldn't you? We used to use it as a tourist if we were heading for Northumberland/Scotland - at the time the A19/Tyne Tunnel route was a nicer run up that way, and the kids found the ride to be a fun curiosity, while it gave me a quick "fag break" and a stretch while we went across. I had no qualms paying the £1-whatever the fare was, or the slight detour.
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

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Bryn666 wrote: Wed Dec 09, 2020 21:47 As a useful traffic route it isn't of any use but you'd hope there'd be some kind of tourist value in it - Teeside is the sort of place where industrial heritage needs to be recognised rather than derided in my view.
Indeed. Particularly as it's literally on Middlesbrough Council's logo.... I try and use it whenever I'm in the area on business to keep a bit of money coming in.
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

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I've lived close to it in the past for a few years but never found the need to use it. Any time I drove over the Tees it was on (???) Newport Bridge , a precarious drive in FIL Robin Reliant as the side winds could cause problems. Sad, but like a lot of old stuff in Middlesbrough it's had it's day. However it was an ingenious solution to the problem in it's day. I'd say it's worth of at least some Lottery funding to at least restore it to working as a model,with no traffic requirements .
I note a few posters with Gotenburg in their location. Middlesbrough has another link to that town, an old ,now dead submarine cable link to Sweden. This was the prototype for the UK- Canada submarine link(CANTAT 1) ,using the same cable /terminal equipment /power feed except that where the Swedish cable was single end power fed, CANTAT was double end fed .
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

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I made a deliberate diversion to use it about 11 years ago and if I remember right they had just finished what was described as a major overhaul. It had certainly been repainted and had what looked like a newly built carpark on the south side, in anticipation of queues maybe? It will be a great shame if it is lost but I do get what is being said about the north side of the river being a wasteland. I didn't realise at the time but the next bridge along is unusual as well, being a vertical lift type. Though it will never lift again.

I must make the effort to ride on the transporter at Newport next year. I've visited the only other transporter bridge at Warrington, which is privately owned and long out of use - accessing it is an adventure in itself. My partner's parents used the Runcorn-Widnes transporter in their youth, which must have been a sight to behold.

If we are so desirous to reclaim our pride and sovereignty I think it is far more important we should be fighting to retain these tangible examples of our proud engineering and industrial heritage and less obsessed with things like some notional line in the sea which concerns very few of us directly.
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

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Barkstar wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 01:37 I made a deliberate diversion to use it about 11 years ago and if I remember right they had just finished what was described as a major overhaul. It had certainly been repainted and had what looked like a newly built carpark on the south side, in anticipation of queues maybe? It will be a great shame if it is lost but I do get what is being said about the north side of the river being a wasteland. I didn't realise at the time but the next bridge along is unusual as well, being a vertical lift type. Though it will never lift again.

I must make the effort to ride on the transporter at Newport next year. I've visited the only other transporter bridge at Warrington, which is privately owned and long out of use - accessing it is an adventure in itself. My partner's parents used the Runcorn-Widnes transporter in their youth, which must have been a sight to behold.

If we are so desirous to reclaim our pride and sovereignty I think it is far more important we should be fighting to retain these tangible examples of our proud engineering and industrial heritage and less obsessed with things like some notional line in the sea which concerns very few of us directly.
Very nice sentiment but the income from current levels of use is not going to pay for its operational costs let alone a major restoration. You may not have noticed but Middlesbrough Council is not rolling in money, having just seen my rates increase I am well aware of that fact.

The Newport transporter bridge is subsidised by the Welsh Government.

The reality is that until this closure it was at best running about 12 hours per day with a crossing every 15 minutes.
Keeping the bridge open as an operating transport link would cost £7 million per annum, making it a static attraction would cost about £4 million. Given that the council has an annual budget of £112 million that's hard to swallow. To put this into perspective the losses incurred running it would be approx the same as the combined cost of Adult Social Services and Childrens services.

Hard times mean hard choices. What money we have managed to get from central government is being channelled into cleaning up the old Steelworks sites at a cost of £140 million. Unless you have seen it you cannot even begin to understand the level of contamination 150 years of iron and steel making can produce. The site is covered with everything from toxic slag to asbestos and dioxins. Then there are the derelict structures where an explosion killed 2 workers trying to make it safe. Credit where its due the current government has provided the money to clear up the mess. Meanwhile we have well meaning 'heritage' enthusiasts urging they be preserved, none of them would pay for it of course and they have no clue about how dangerous a decaying structure contaminated with coal tar is.
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

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Barkstar wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 01:37 I made a deliberate diversion to use it about 11 years ago and if I remember right they had just finished what was described as a major overhaul. It had certainly been repainted and had what looked like a newly built carpark on the south side, in anticipation of queues maybe?
Yes, it was shut for a few years in the mid 2000s, and reopened. There was a small but interesting enough visitor centre. From a transport perspective it really does only serve Port Clarence, so I'd have thought it has little future unless the heritage is developed. The problem probably is that it's not particularly tied into any other heritage sites or acitvities nearby, so there'd need to be a something else it can connect into - it's possibly a big ask for it to become as signficiant attraction on its own.

Genuinely, if I were Middlesbrough Council, I'd be trying to get a phone number for Jonathan Ruffer (of Kynren/Auckland Castle) to help solve this one
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

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Rob590 wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:12
Yes, it was shut for a few years in the mid 2000s, and reopened. There was a small but interesting enough visitor centre. From a transport perspective it really does only serve Port Clarence, so I'd have thought it has little future unless the heritage is developed. The problem probably is that it's not particularly tied into any other heritage sites or acitvities nearby, so there'd need to be a something else it can connect into - it's possibly a big ask for it to become as signficiant attraction on its own.

Genuinely, if I were Middlesbrough Council, I'd be trying to get a phone number for Jonathan Ruffer (of Kynren/Auckland Castle) to help solve this one

A castle carries rather more kudos than a 110 year old rusting steel bridge that links 2 industrial areas.
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

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I can understand the Heritage Value but a crossing every 15 minutes which must take at least 10 minutes by the time you have loaded and got a cross, paying a toll, it must surely be quicker to go via the A66, A1032, A1046 around a distance of 3 miles. No wonder it is losing shedloads of money.

It is not like the Torpoint Ferries, which while having another bridge 2 1/2 miles to the north, the extra mileage is 20 miles, so waiting for the crossing makes sense and therefore the tolls collected are high. No authority can afford to lose that amount of money on a structure which is no longer suitable.

While the bridge may have been fit for purpose over a 100 years ago, unfortunately it is not now.

Same argument with the Great Western Mainline and heritage. People were complaining that electricification would ruin Brunel's structures, even though electric trains are better for environment and faster, taking 13 minutes of journey times to Bristol. We have to move on, even though after reading a lot on Brunel he was a forward thinker and would be pleased that his achievement was still going 170 years later and was the basis for the modernisation.
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

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A303Chris wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:52 I can understand the Heritage Value but a crossing every 15 minutes which must take at least 10 minutes by the time you have loaded and got a cross, paying a toll, it must surely be quicker to go via the A66, A1032, A1046 around a distance of 3 miles. No wonder it is losing shedloads of money.

It is not like the Torpoint Ferries, which while having another bridge 2 1/2 miles to the north, the extra mileage is 20 miles, so waiting for the crossing makes sense and therefore the tolls collected are high. No authority can afford to lose that amount of money on a structure which is no longer suitable.

While the bridge may have been fit for purpose over a 100 years ago, unfortunately it is not now.

Same argument with the Great Western Mainline and heritage. People were complaining that electricification would ruin Brunel's structures, even though electric trains are better for environment and faster, taking 13 minutes of journey times to Bristol. We have to move on, even though after reading a lot on Brunel he was a forward thinker and would be pleased that his achievement was still going 170 years later and was the basis for the modernisation.
It makes more sense as an active travel bridge - it's a long way for a pedestrian or cyclist to go around. If environmental clean up works on the north banks of the Tees there mean Port Clarence and so on become a viable residential site in the future, and I can't see why it wouldn't do, then it has potential to be a landmark and attraction to development even though in that situation it's more likely that a fixed bridge would be built nearby anyway. The key to regenerating ex-industrial heartlands is to give people a reason to live there, and quirky heritage is one of many ways to do that. You can buy a crudbox cut-and-paste Barratt (other crudbox cut-and-paste houses are available) house anywhere, so that alone wouldn't entice people to move to Teeside.
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

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Rob590 wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:12
Barkstar wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 01:37 I made a deliberate diversion to use it about 11 years ago and if I remember right they had just finished what was described as a major overhaul. It had certainly been repainted and had what looked like a newly built carpark on the south side, in anticipation of queues maybe?
Yes, it was shut for a few years in the mid 2000s, and reopened. There was a small but interesting enough visitor centre. From a transport perspective it really does only serve Port Clarence, so I'd have thought it has little future unless the heritage is developed. The problem probably is that it's not particularly tied into any other heritage sites or acitvities nearby, so there'd need to be a something else it can connect into - it's possibly a big ask for it to become as signficiant attraction on its own.

Genuinely, if I were Middlesbrough Council, I'd be trying to get a phone number for Jonathan Ruffer (of Kynren/Auckland Castle) to help solve this one
It does provide a shorter route between central Middlesbrough/east Cleveland and the industrial area of Seal Sands, once you get beyond Port Clarence. But I guess it's still slower now that the roads are much improved via the Tees viaduct.

It seems that Middlesbrough council owns it - but since half of it is in Stockton borough, don't they also have an interest in its upkeep? Of course, before its abolition, Cleveland County Council owned it and was the authority for both banks of the river, so there would be no question of a dispute of that kind.
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

Post by KeithW »

Chris Bertram wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 12:04 It does provide a shorter route between central Middlesbrough/east Cleveland and the industrial area of Seal Sands, once you get beyond Port Clarence. But I guess it's still slower now that the roads are much improved via the Tees viaduct.

It seems that Middlesbrough council owns it - but since half of it is in Stockton borough, don't they also have an interest in its upkeep? Of course, before its abolition, Cleveland County Council owned it and was the authority for both banks of the river, so there would be no question of a dispute of that kind.
A crossing in that area was an investigated as an option when the plans for a third Tees crossing was being evaluated by the TVCA but the Transporter Bridge was never a realistic option, it simply doesnt have the capacity. If you assume one crossing every 10 minutes and 9 cars per trip that amounts to under 60 cars per hour and with modern cars being larger today probably more like 40

In the early 1970's I was travelling to the ICI Refinery on Seal Sands from Middlesbrough and even then it was overloaded . When you came down the A178 to Port Clarence the line of traffic waiting to use the crossing would be long enough that you realised the queue would be anything from 30 to 45 minutes and so typically I went via Haverton Hill to Portrack and over the Newport Bridge.

What I think could be done with Stockton Council would be to increase capacity on Haverton Hill Road from Portrack to Haverton Hill, its pretty much all 3 lane now and making it D2 would really help. The recycling centre there is jointly used by Stockton and Middlesbrough. The road between Portrack and Port Clarence is only 3 miles and the A1046 is already D2 south of Portrack. It would perfectly complement the proposed third Tees crossing.
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

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When I lived up there in the mid 1970s, (before the interceptor tunnel was built), the joke was that the Tees was so heavily polluted that you could walk across it, except your feet would corrode before you got to the other side.
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

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Rob590 wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:12 Yes, it was shut for a few years in the mid 2000s, and reopened. There was a small but interesting enough visitor centre. From a transport perspective it really does only serve Port Clarence, so I'd have thought it has little future unless the heritage is developed. The problem probably is that it's not particularly tied into any other heritage sites or acitvities nearby, so there'd need to be a something else it can connect into - it's possibly a big ask for it to become as signficiant attraction on its own.
I went on the one in Bilbao last year, that has a gift shop and is marketed as an attraction but also is a genuinely useful transport link as the area around is entirely built-up. They are an interesting novelty, but also far too niche to really survive on it's own merit as an attraction. Move it to somewhere else?
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

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The interesting quote from the council report is this
The audit found that the lack of specifically qualified or trained engineering staff ultimately led to the bridge deteriorating to the extent it presented a health and safety risk.
Isn't that the problem with Local Government currently, the standard of professionally qualified staff within their ranks is very low. When I returned to the private sector 5 years ago, I was the only professionally qualified engineer left in a team of 25.
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Re: Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge CLOSED indefinitely

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I think that's a case of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. If a public body doesn't have 40-odd weeks of work for a Structural Engineer each year, the political pressure is to get rid of them and buy in their services as required. Particularly as the point approaches where it is more expensive to engage a consultancy firm for a few weeks a year than to re-establish your former engineering department and you can't really afford either, the financial pressure to save money by doing without altogether increases.
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