The Accident to the Partly-Completed Quebec Bridge

We give here two pictures illustrating the Quebec Bridge, the centre span of which recently broke away and sank into the river. On the right is the span which should have occupied the gap shown in the view on this left. "The Engineer" points out that this mishap is not the second disaster to the bridge. The disaster of 29 August, 1907, involving the the loss of some seventy lives, occurred to an earlier bridge at the same site. It is true, but of quite a different design, and under the charge of quite different constructors. The new bridge, so far as the superstructure is concerned, has been constructed by the St. Lawrence Bridge Company, an amalgamation for the purposes of this contract of the Dominion Bridge Company of Montreal and the Canadian Bridge Company of Walkerville, Canada.


Quebec Bridge over the St. Lawrence before Accident


Quebec Bridge Centre Span


"It is, as far as we can see see at present, in no way comparable with the fall of the first bridge, which was indeed a disaster, for it revealed an actual defect in the design, and led to the rejection of the whole structure. In the first instance the design of the bridge is not brought into question by the mishap, and in all probability the two great cantilevers are but little damaged. The only thing to be feared is that one of them may have been strained in some measure by the sudden relief of the load imposed by the central span, and the other by the imposition of the falling load. This remains to be seen."


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