Movable Bridges - Meridian Bridge (2)

I'm standing on the deck of the Meridian Bridge. In the distance you can see the Sutter Buttes, which are the remains of some old volcanos.

The steel tower supporting the swing span is a model of simplicity. The tubular legs on each side of the deck come together at the top and are braced with a strut. The cables come up from two floor beams, through the top of the tower, and then are attached to two floor beams on the other side.

I often wondered why the swing span of this type of bridge doesn't bang into the corners of the side spans when it moves. I looked closely at the gap between them and saw that it was curved, probably to the circumference of the circle the swing span makes as it rotates about the pivot span.

Movable Bridges - Meridian Bridge (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.