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My adult son, Patrick, was born and grew up in Zurich. He knows a lot about the city; I have visited many times. Interestingly, one of the most heavily-travelled roads in Zurich is a half-kilometer long bridge which traverses the Limmat River at its origin, i.e. where it flows from the Lake of Zurich. It is called QuaibrĂĽcke. It carries four traffic lanes, two trolley tracks and spacious pedestrian/bicycle walkways on both sides.
In 1983 - 84, my son explained, the bridge was replaced. The new bridge was constructed on steel beams, parallel to the old. When it was ready, the old bridge was slid off its foundation and the new bridge moved into place. The closure lasted 16 hours. Here in Pittsburgh, by comparison, bridge replacement is measured in fractions of eternity.
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In 2 days in 1886 the southern United States modified the rail gage for over 10,000 miles of track.
Try that today!
(I may know this from Scanalyst?!)
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Here’s the post, from 2022-01-31, “When the U.S. Changed the Gauge of 11,500 Miles of Railroad Track in 36 Hours”.
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Thx John! I routinely tout this 1886 feat as how it was “back in the day!”
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We have a winter home on Pine Island, one island in from Sanibel. Because of medical issues our return was delayed until a couple days ago, and we just drove across the rebuilt Pine Island causeway mentioned in that video. While I was planning to take a close look at the repairs when we drove over them the damage in Matlacha was too distracting (as a passenger, not driver), and the repairs so smooth, that I missed them.
Steve Honc (pronounced honch) from a local construction company was a big part of organizing the 3 day causeway repairs, although the actual contract was given to a much bigger company from Miami. The original government estimate was over 6 months, and removing the island inhabitants was being discussed shortly after Ian. As the video mentions, like Sanibel the repairs are only “temporary” and will be redone eventually. I haven’t tried to find out when they might be planned, but am skeptical enough to wonder if they’ll ever happen.
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