World's highest bridge opens to traffic

Not intentionally. It’s an obscure Archers reference (Radio 4 do an omnibus edition of all the weeks episodes on Sunday morning, which usually fades into DIDs about the same time as breakfast is finished) wrapped in a not-so-obscure Archer reference. So The Archers is how you get… OK, I never said it was a good joke. Or even a funny one. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

And I didn’t want to say I didn’t get the DID reference either, because I didn’t want to appear without-it. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

7 Likes

When it was being proposed, renders of the Channel Bridge seemed to assume that it was always sunny weather. The thought of that bridge in a winter storm, or freezing fog, didn’t seem to occur to them. Once the traffic has stopped for some reason, getting it going again on a bridge that long would be amusing. And seeing most of the British and French cars in those days were interestingly reliable (it was the hydropneumatics on my Citroen that caused me to learn how hydraulics worked), stoppages would be rather frequent.
But as a claustrophobic I’d far rather die in a shipwreck than a tunnel, so there is that.

1 Like

The QEII Bridge at Dartford Crossing (the easternmost road crossing of the Thames, which is 60m high to allow ships to go under it) used to have a service like that, but it was stopped several years ago. I don’t think they gave you a blindfold, though.

Obligatory video:

The trail gets increasingly sketchy as it goes; skip to 1:10 if impatient… They’ve repaired it now, unfortunately; it would’ve been awesome fun to do it as shown here.

2 Likes

This must some definition of fun I was previously unaware of.

2 Likes

@Wanderfound having fun:

3 Likes

I truly feel butterflies and an adrenalin surge when I view things in first-person like that. Even when playing video games. My greatest fear when climbing is that my palms would be so sweaty they would be the source of my downfall.

2 Likes

I was previously aware of it, but then I had a family and sudden death would have had consequences for other people.

1 Like

I got the impression that the army might have a bunker in the channel tunnel but I may be wrong

Let’s hope they get anybody in it out before May has it filled in, in around 2019.

2 Likes

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.