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> A reporter asked how the new bridge would be secured to the old substructure. "It’s 400 tons," said Walter Heller ... "Nobody’s going to pick it up and take i
by kijin 15y ago
> A reporter asked how the new bridge would be secured to the old substructure. "It’s 400 tons," said Walter Heller ... "Nobody’s going to pick it up and take it home."
I don't think the reporter meant "secured" in the sense of preventing theft. Is a 400-ton bridge heavy enough not to rattle and damage the surrounding concrete if 18-wheelers repeatedly cross it at high speed? Or flip over if a train hits it from below?
- jsight 15y agoI agree that this is obviously not what the question meant. My reading of the article is that the author was picking a bit of fun at the highway director's misunderstanding by including that. It's actually an interesting question, IMO.
- wiredfool 15y agoIt's less important in places like Massachusetts than in earthquake prone locations like Missouri, California or Washington. There, it's required that you have at least .3g worth of hold downs. (roughly anyway, it varies depending on the exact seismic zone)
- Ogre 15y agoWhile I don't think it's what the reporter meant either, at least one bridge has been stolen before. http://old.post-gazette.com/pg/11280/1180364-455.stm#ixzz1a9neYAw0 http://old.post-gazette.com/pg/11280/1180364-455.stm#ixzz1a9... I can't find the weight of that bridge directly, nor how they arrived at the value estimate, but if I'm reading it correctly, this (http://www.steelonthenet.com/commodity_prices.html http://www.steelonthenet.com/commodity_prices.html) seems to say steel scrap was going for $428/ton in October 2011, so from the "estimated $100000" we can guess that it was about 234 tons of steel.
- nopassrecover 15y agoIt actually sounds relatively low risk ("What are you doing!? Moving the bridge like this here paperwork says. We never approved that! Oh must have been a mixup..")
- ars 15y agoThe value is probably for a constructed bridge (i.e. includes labor), not scrap.
- Ogre 15y agoYou're probably right: http://www.wfmj.com/story/15644204/theives-make-off-with-entire-bridge-in-new-castle http://www.wfmj.com/story/15644204/theives-make-off-with-ent... seems to be the real source of the $100,000 number, an engineer estimating the likely replacement cost, not the value of the scrap. Also this, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050015/Brothers-charged-stealing-steel-bridge-haunted-prom-queen.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050015/Brothers-cha... > Two brothers have been charged with stealing a 'haunted' western Pennsylvania bridge and selling the 15.5 tons of scrap metal for £3,160. (I assume being in Pennsylvania they actually got dollars for it)
- kijin 15y agoBritish newspapers tend to convert everything to pounds without citing the original figure. I find it really annoying since I can never remember the going exchange rate for GBP.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- anigbrowl 15y agoWell you never know... http://www.wtae.com/r/29413287/detail.html http://www.wtae.com/r/29413287/detail.html