Saturday, January 30, 2010

Hot Rails to Hell

Construction of a bridge over the Wupper was running several years late and 2 million Deutschmarks over budget. Eventually some bright spark noticed that the blueprints had accidentally been rotated through 90° and they were building it lengthwise.

To add to the embarrassment, the bridge was also upside-down.

Indigenous NZ Engineering Cock-up
The Opiki Bridge across the Manawatu River was nearly complete when the government of the time realised how much money could be saved by not including the deck. Pedestrians can still cross the river by swinging from rope to rope, Tarzan-style.

A system of aqueducts and locks has since been built nearby to raise the Manawatu, route it over the road, and lower it again.

7 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

I have preformed some research.

Now I'm even more confused. You have rivers in New Kiwiland, and people have to pay trolls to cross over them?
~

Smut Clyde said...

No, no, the trolls cross over the bridges voluntarily, on account of they are so community-minded.

There is an alternative universe in which Len Lye converted the Opiki Bridge into the world's largest Newton's Cradle.

Unknown said...

No one does mini motorways like we do, really, no one. Speeding ticket? They should pay us to drive on them.

icarterse, drive with a short manner.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Pity you can't have copy-paste trolls attach a road-bed composed of "Red State" posts.

Hamish Mack said...

Arrrh, of course ye can do ya fancy schmancy "research" but ye cannot know how it feels to be captain of a pack weta train coming in to Opiki at 4am of a Winter's morning. With the wind tearing holes in yer clothes and the wetas near to dying and ye know that if you don't don't make it there'll be no salted Pineapple in Shannon that year.
Then ye find that some bugger has stolen the bridge track for building the fort in the Opiki Dramatic Society re-enactment of the Seige of Khartoum.
Arrrrh!

mikey said...

Now I don't know, but it sure seems to me that a siege would be a highly inefficient way to get some cartoons. You could go to Montgomery Wards TV department and watch them, or if you have enough booze you could go to your sister's house and watch cartoons there, although it is fair to say that they would be more realistic than the actual events lived IN your sister's house.

Hell, you could get a couple hits of blotter from that nice young man at the train station downtown and turn the whole world into a cartoon!

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

totally steampunk. Zombies approve.