The words "aerial ferry" may seem like some kind of weird, futuristic device, but it actually describes a very old piece of tech.

Professional tinkerer and thought-provoker Tom Scott recently took a trip to the Newport Transporter Bridge in Wales to get an up-close look at the structure. The bridge isn't new, but it's remarkable because there are so few left in the world doing what it does.

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The Newport Transporter Bridge was built to cross the River Usk, and it does so by essentially ferrying a platform that's suspended from the top of the bridge via long cables. When it was built back in the early 20th century, tall ships making passage through the area meant the height of the bridge was a real concern—ergo, an aerial ferry was needed.

At the time, the transporter bridge made sense given the odd tidal patterns that saw low tides leaving a whole lot of mud and not much more while high tides provided their own set of issues. These days, infrastructure planners would likely just tunnel under the river, or maybe not even bother making a crossing at all.

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These days it just makes for a novel destination to scare the bejesus out of yourself by walking across, but the June 1905 edition of Popular Mechanics seemed pretty keen on the whole thing.

An aerial ferry or transporter bridge, 1,000 feet long in the clear, and spanning the Mersey has been opened to service connecting Widnes and Runcorn. The bridge has the longest span of any bridge in the United Kingdom designed for road traffic. The overhead truss-work is hung from two cables each containing 2,413 wires and weighing 243 tons. The truss is 18 ft. high by 35 ft. wide and allows a clearance of 82 ft. above high water, and is fixed to vertical rockers at each end to provide for expansion and contraction. The towers are of steel, 190 ft. high and rest on eight cast iron cylinders 9 ft. in diameter which are anchored to the solid rock.

The transporter car is 55 ft. long by 24 ft. wide suspended by cables from an overhead trolley 77 ft. long and running on 16 wheels. Four electric motors propel the car, power being generated by gas engines in one of the towers. Four loaded wagons and 300 passengers can be taken across on each trip which occupies 2 1/4 minutes in crossing. The bottom of the car is 12 ft. above the water. The bridge cost $650,000.

Pretty amazing that something that was built back when the main traffic was horse-drawn wagons, not cars, is still in operation. Guess they really knew how to build back in 1905.

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