Historic Civil Engineering in the U.K.: EWRI Friends Visit London, York, Edinburgh, Arbroath, and Glasgow for Titan Crane Landmark Ceremony

Abstract

In August 2013, several EWRI friends visited London civil engineering projects: Tower Bridge, Brunel Museum and international landmark Thames Tunnel, and the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE). After a tour of Leeds Castle, Dover, Canterbury Cathedral, and Greenwich, the group took a Thames River cruise under many London bridges. From the renovated London Kings Cross Rail Station, the group visited the National Railway Museum in York or the York Minster. In Edinburgh, we saw the ICE Scotland Museum (Heriot - Watt University), went to an Edinburgh International Festival Concert, and attended the Military Tattoo (Edinburgh Castle). Via the international landmark Forth Rail Bridge to Arbroath, we saw the Bell Rock Lighthouse Signal Tower Museum (David Taylor) and Arbroath Abbey. With other ICE attendees, we stayed at a Glasgow hotel and toured the Auchentoshan Distillery. We had a West Clydebank (Dunbartonshire Council) town hall lecture (by Roland Paxton) about the Titan Crane’s designer. At the Titan Crane Landmark plaque ceremonies, with ICE, IMechE, ASCE, and ASME, all went through the Titan Crane Museum, before a Clydebank (West Dunbartonshire Council) town hall civic dinner. We visited the Forth & Clyde Canal 2000 international landmark at Bowling. On an ICE history tour, all visited the largest UK masonry railway arch, Ballochmyle Viaduct (1846-48), a seven arch engineering masterpiece. (The Glasgow & South Western Railway (1850) had a landmark plaque unveiled on 25 April 2014.) Next, the tour stopped at the Dick Institute, Kilmarnock, where an ICE plaque (Kilmarnock & Troon Railway (1812), Scotland’s first public railway) was presented to Provost Jim Todd, East Ayrshire Council.