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Double Bridge at Tacoma Narrows?


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3 hours ago, John Burgess said:

I'm guessing one takes East bound traffic, the other Westbound.

 

All the best,

 

John

Good guess. The one on the left of the pictures is the westbound one now and the original replacement for "Gallopinging Gertie" (see link). Since it carried both east and westbound traffic (two narrow lanes each direction with no divider) before the new one, it was regularly severely backed up as the area to the west is a bedroom community to Tacoma and points east. The new four lane span makes travel considerably more convenient now.

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18 hours ago, Gulfstreamtwo said:

Good guess. The one on the left of the pictures is the westbound one now and the original replacement for "Gallopinging Gertie" (see link). Since it carried both east and westbound traffic (two narrow lanes each direction with no divider) before the new one, it was regularly severely backed up as the area to the west is a bedroom community to Tacoma and points east. The new four lane span makes travel considerably more convenient now.

 

 

Great!  I love local info on the sceneries! Thanks :)  

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On 11/21/2020 at 11:04 PM, John Burgess said:

 

No problem.

 

With Orbx KTIW

tacoma.thumb.jpg.2e0c4613dc734e0adcf9603cad316a57.jpg

 

What's actually there - love google search :)

 

2010_usa_tacoma_narr_b_1.thumb.jpg.4b125e267593ff225002f1db8f89c8dd.jpg

 

Edit - I'm guessing one takes East bound traffic, the other Westbound.

 

All the best,

 

John

 

First I really thought both pics were real life ones and wondered why there is no traffic on the first shot. Only then when looking at the top left corner I saw that the first one is Orbx' scenery in MSFS. And then I also saw John's caption above the pic. :)

 

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The bridge on the left is the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge. She had a bad start in life. Because it was designed with solid side wall, the airflow around the span caused a lot of problems. The bridge earned the nickname "Galloping Gertie" because it would sway so badly in the wind. One day, the wind was especially strong, as it tends to be there in the Narrows, and the bridge set up a wave harmonic, that kept getting worse and worse and worse. They closed the bridge, but a few cars were stuck on it, because the harmonic was so bad they couldn't drive off. One car had a dog inside that the owner left. Eventually a man tried to free the dog by walking out across the bridge, but the poor thing was so scarred she wouldn't get out of the car and he finally gave up. The bridge eventually failed, and the dog was the only casualty. Afterward, they redesigned the span, and rebuilt the bridge. Lessons learned from it are still used in bridges today.

 

 

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16 hours ago, kerrygipe said:

One day, the wind was especially strong, as it tends to be there in the Narrows, and the bridge set up a wave harmonic, that kept getting worse and worse and worse.

 

I used to teach Physics - that video took me back! We used it as a classic example of resonance though I believe there are some who now say it was due to a different effect.

One source I found suggested the guy on the video was actually the bridge engineer doing a site inspection :rolleyes:

 

All the best,

 

John

 

 

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>

I used to teach Physics - that video took me back! We used it as a classic example of resonance though I believe there are some who now say it was due to a different effect.

One source I found suggested the guy on the video was actually the bridge engineer doing a site inspection

 

Actually, he was an Engineering Professor ! Professor Farquharson was with the University of Washington. I just realized, that all happened 80 years ago this month!!

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