Newport Transporter Bridge

The Transporter Bridge is arguably Newport's most famous tourist attraction. With all the bad weather holding up the golf it is hoped that many famous golfers especially Tiger Woods take time out to visit this engineering marvel.

There had been numerous proposals for bridges and subways under the River Usk at this eastern end of the town but none of them had come to fruition, mainly due to the nature of the work required and the high cost.

The banks of the river were - and still are - very low at this point and it would have required long steep approach ramps to build a bridge with sufficient height to allow ships to pass underneath. A subway or tunnel would have been prohibitively expensive. A ferry would not do the job as the rise and fall of the river has always been great and at low tide boats would simply not be able to dock.

And so nothing was done until 1896 when John Lysaght proposed building a new steelworks to the south west of the town. In order to attract and encourage him the Borough Council decided that they would have to "bite the bullet" - a crossing of some sort would have to be built.

Borough engineer RH Hayes had heard of transporter bridges and travelled to Rouen to see an example that had been built by Ferdinand Arnodin. The idea of a transporter bridge - in effect an aerial ferry - would eliminate the problem of the low banks and it would be considerably cheaper than excavating a tunnel below the waters of the Usk. Hayes returned convinced, and by 1900 Parliamentary approval had been granted. Work began.

The transporter bridge was to have tall twin towers on either side of the river, reaching up nearly 250 feet into the air, while the horizontal beam from which the transporter platform or gondola was to hang was some 70 feet lower. This gondola would travel the 600 feet above the water at a rate of 10 feet per second.

The transporter bridge cost just £98,124 to construct and was intended to take both vehicles and passengers across the river. At the opening ceremony on 12 September 1906 - the official opening being conducted by Viscount Tredegar - the new bridge was described as: