Ideas over building a bridge that connected the north part of the St. Lawrence River to the south part were popular in the mid to late 1800’s to allow ease of transport.The Quebec Bridge is the longest cantilever span in the world, with a centre-distance of 549m (1,800 ft) between supports.The Government of Canada assigned this task to the Quebec Bridge Company who contracted the Phoenix Bridge Company to design this structure.The Quebec Bridge Company employed a chief engineer, Edward Hoare, an erection inspector, Norman McLure, and a consulting engineer, Theodore Cooper who was seen as an expert in his field. For those who are not familiar with a cantilever bridge design, think of it as a continuous beam anchored at both ends to pillars.

And they certainly did not want to alarm any one.The next morning, with the engineering team off to New York, Yenser took it upon himself to continue work. Its railway designation is mile 0.2 subdivision Bridge.

It wasn’t until Cooper received the drawing that he noticed that the estimated weight of the span was off, on the low side, by almost eight million pounds.

Of the 86 workers on the bridge at the time, 75 were killed.




It took three tries and cost 89 lives, but the city of Quebec was determined to compete with provincial rival Montreal for commercial rail traffic in the late 19th century. The Quebec Bridge was included in the National Transcontinental Railway project, undertaken by the federal government. ASCE Library Card (20 downloads)



This resulted in a loose and inefficient supervision of all parts of the work on the part of the Quebec Bridge and Railway Company.



The estimated weight of the span was calculated based on these first drawings.

The Quebec Bridge structure plunged over 150 feet taking with it the lives of 75 workers. However, preliminary calculations made early in the planning stages were never properly checked when the design was finalized, and the actual weight of the bridge was far in excess of its carrying capacity.



The team had not yet heard from Cooper, but the other senior engineers on site agreed with Yenser.At 5:32 PM on the 29th of August, while McLure was making his way back from New York, all hell broke loose at the construction site when the girders trembled with a grinding noise and gave way. A photo of the first bridge that was taken less than a day before the collapse.



It also needed to be 150 feet above the water, to allow the ocean-going vessels to pass. The Quebec Bridge was included in the National Transcontinental Railway project, undertaken by the federal government. The initial plan for the bridge was drawn in the early 1900s.

Before the Quebec Bridge was built, the only way to travel from the south shore of the St. Lawrence in The bridge question has again been revived after many years of slumber, and business men in Quebec seem hopeful that something will come of it, though the placing of a subsidy on the statute book is but a small part of the work to be accomplished, as some of its enthusiastic promoters will, ere long, discover.

• In 1882 Quebec Bridge Company was granted the contract for the bridge • Due to short finance , nothing was done until 1887 when Quebec Bridge was incorporated with the Railway Company • Now the new management demanded to get the project rolling a.s.a.p.

The Quebec Bridge was to be one of the engineering wonders of the world.

In its final design, the clear span was 548.6 m (1,800 ft) long.

Szlapaka of the Phoenix Bridge Company, had laid out the first drawings of the Quebec Bridge. At 67 feet wide, it can accommodate two sets of railway tracks, two sets of streetcar tracks and two roadways. On 29 August 1907, the south arm and part of the central section of the Quebec bridge collapsed into the river in a matter of seconds.

Almost 12 years to the day after the tragic collapse, the


He sent a letter to Cooper, who was stationed in New York, and later met with Cooper to discuss causes of the bending. Theodore Cooper had been the consulting engineer for the Quebec Bridge project, and most of the blame for the disaster fell on his shoulders.

In 1907, the first span of the cantilever reached over the water, and it became clear to McLure that certain steel chords were beginning to bend.