The Forth Bridge: A Picture History

This was a gift and the recipient was very happy. Bigger and better than expected. Highly Recommended.

this book is ideal for the model of the forth bridge my friend is building,very informitive

There was more text in this book than I expected - which is a good thing! Lots of information and images chronicling the history and construction of this engineering marvel. A perfect gift for my dad (who walked on the Forth Road Bridge when it opened alongside this rail bridge in the 1960s).

This is a book that every Civil Engineer should have a copy of in their reference library. Truly an amazing story of the construction of the bridge, and we are very lucky that the construction was so well documented with photographs, with photography still being fairly young at that point. Even looking at the photographs, it is hard to convey the scale of this monster bridge, and it is a wonder to think of the resources required to construct it, and the time frame in which it was built. It is also a testimony to the fortitude of those who built it, and the 57 men whose lives were lost during the construction.

Excellent book.

Few structures better represent the skill, audacity, and occasional bonkers insanity of Victorian engineering than Scotland's massive, iconic, and presumably Godzilla-proof Forth Rail Bridge. There don't seem to be many books on the bridge, presumably because it isn't terribly pretty, but this book, originally published to coincide 100th anniversary of the bridge's opening, has held up quite well.Despite being only 112 pages, it feels more substantial than one might expect. The quality of the paper, the binding, and of the photographs themselves are far superior to most paperback reprints today. Sheila Mackay's text is surprisingly readable, peppered with first-hand accounts of the bridge's construction, mini-biographies of key figures, and explanations of how certain elements of the bridge were assembled. The highlight is the 80 period photos by Assistant Engineer Evelyn Carey, who, using the bulky glass-plate camera equipment of the time, managed to capture every major stage in the bridge's construction, from preparing the work sites and taking soundings to raising the viaducts, digging the foundations, and assembling the massive cantilevers. There are also quite a few excellent technical diagrams sourced from periodicals of the time and a few engravings.Unfortunately, the brief page count does mean some engineering terms and aspects aren't really adequately explained, and without any maps, the stream of Scottish place names can be rather meaningless. If a revised edition ever gets published, a glossary and a map of the surrounding area and rail lines would be a huge help. Putting that aside, I highly recommend this book to anyone intrigued by this emblem of Victorian heavy engineering.