Walkways

I climbed the stairs of the tower. It didn’t take long to reach the top. The first part of the Tower Bridge tour allows you to cross between the two towers using two high level  walkways. The walkways are fully enclosed and are 44m above the river. They allow people to cross the river even when the road bridge is raised. They were closed in 1910 because not enough people were using them, but were reopened in 1982. I guess somebody saw their tourist potential and they weren’t wrong; the walkways are very popular. 

The walkways are glass sided providing superb, elevated views in both directions along the river. Every so often I found a very useful small sliding window that allowed me to poke my camera through to take photographs. The main tourist attraction though were the long sections of toughened glass flooring. Earlier this morning I’d been to the top of The Shard and bizarrely, the 44m down to the river didn’t actually see that far down in comparison. I’d no problem walking across it and looking down. It was obvious that quite a few people did suffer from vertigo though. Even a small dog avoided the glass and walked along the side of it. Mirrors had been placed on the ceiling so that people could lay on the glass and take photos of themselves using the reflection from the mirror. At one point, a London bus passed under my left leg whilst a boat floated under my right leg.  It was all good fun. There were plenty of information boards along the walkways that gave key information about the bridge. 

History

In 1876 a committee was created to look at potential designs for a new bridge. There were many design options including transport and swing type bridges. In the end they opted for a drawbridge design and work started in 1886. Caissons went 8m down into the riverbed in order for workers to create the foundations for the towers. The internal stairs in the towers were completed in April 1894. Inside, the towers seemed to be a three dimensional jumble of steelwork and spiral staircases. They were still painted the original ‘bright chocolate’ brown colour favoured by Queen Victoria. The bridge was opened on the 30 of June, 1894. It is estimated that it cost around £1.6 million to build. It was certainly a popular addition to London with an estimated 8,000 horse-drawn vehicles and 60,000 pedestrians crossing the bridge daily. At that time, London was the busiest port in the world and so the drawbridge would be raised and lowered on a regular basis. Until the 1930s, the Bridge would lift around 9,000 times a year. Their website suggests that it still lifts 800-1000 times a year. 

The information displays were very good in that they described the history of the bridge from different perspectives and in a variety of presentation formats. One of these told the story of ‘The Day A Bus Jumped Over Tower Bridge.’ This seemed a bit far fetched to me, but I read on. It happened on the 30th December (I noted it wasn’t April 1st) 1952, when Albert Gunter was driving a number 78 from Dulwich to Shoreditch. As he approached halfway, he realised that the bridge was rising. He didn’t have time to break and so he accelerated. Fortunately the south side of the bridge hadn’t started to rise and so the bus was able to ‘leap the 3 foot gap’ and land safely. Gunter broke his leg, but the 20 passengers escaped without injury. He was awarded £10 for his quick thinking and bravery. I can’t find any details about how and why this happened, and what they did to prevent it happening again. Amazingly, the same thing has happened twice since then; once in the Spice World Movie and the second time when Peppa Pig was taking a London bus tour. Will the bridge authorities never learn and sort this problem out once and for all? 

If ships require the bridge raising, there is an online booking system to book a slot. Sometimes ships don’t realise they have to book. Amazingly, as recently as 15 May 2004, the three mast STS Lord Nelson attempted to pass through the bridge, but communication between the ship and bridge control failed. The ship struck the south pier. Fortunately there was very little damage to the ship and pier. The Spanish Cargo ship Urquiola hit Tower Bridge three times (1957, 1964 and 1967). 

Tower Bridge also survived the Blitz. Although the Tower of London was bombed 15 times, Tower Bridge was never hit. 

I finished my tour of the walkways and descended the spiral staircase of the south tower. The engine rooms were tucked away near the south end of the bridge. The tour process involved leaving the south tower and following a blue line along the pavement. This led me to the south end of the bridge and down some steps to the entrance to the engine rooms. I was thankful that I’d kept my señor ticket since I needed to present it to get in. 

Engine Rooms

The engine rooms contained the type of Victorian machinery that you might expect would be needed to lift a large section of bridge. Nowadays the bridge is lifted by electricity, but up until 1976, the process was powered by water and steam. 

The original steam and hydraulic system was quite innovative for its day. 20 tons of coal a week would be used to heat water to produce steam. This powered a flywheel and pistons which in turn powered water pumps to create the high-pressure water (i.e. the hydraulics). This pressurised water was then used to raise a tank called an accumulator. The six accumulators were basically a storage of energy. They were raised higher during the energy storage process, and then lowered when the hydraulic power was needed to be released. This power source was then used to drive an enormous cog that raised the bridge. 

A monitor showed an animated display of how all this engineering worked. A mother was watching this animation with her 6 year old child and then asking him questions on how it worked. The kid looked like he’d rather be creating something in Minecraft. 

A video type game was available where you had to open the bridge for an approaching ship by controlling the coal input, steam pressure,  oil usage and the accumulators. I had a couple of goes and the ship crashed into the bridge on each occasion. There was obviously a flaw in the programming of the simulator which I reported back later on using my feedback form. 

Reflections

It had been an unusual, but fascinating tour of Tower Bridge. I guess most tourists are attracted by the thrill of the glass bottomed walkways and possibly neglect the engine rooms. It was certainly less busy in the engine rooms area. This was a shame since it was fascinating to see the steam engines and how they worked. In the gift shop, I tried getting a señor discount on a fridge magnet, but the gift shop assistant just looked at me confused. I couldn’t go through all that business again and so I just paid the full price.