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The 5th bridge on the list is another railway viaduct in China no surprise there right.  There is very little information about the bridge but here is what we know.  The name of the bridge is Beijing Grand Bridge it is 29.921 miles long or 48.153 kilometers, it is located in Beijing, China and is part of the Beijing–Shanghai High-Speed Railway it was completed in 2010 like the others on this line but not opened until 2011, and as you can guess it is one of the longest bridge’s in the world the longest span of this bridge is 144 feet.

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The 4th bridge in this series is already on the site and in one of our other series the Bridge series it is Bang Na Expressway

The third bridge list the first two is also in China and is also a viaduct for high speed rail.   Seems like these days China is king when it comes to bridges although this is not a bridge with a highway it is still a bridge and the 3rd longest in the world currently coming in at 49.5 miles, 79,732 m (261,588 ft) approximately 80 kilometers.

The Weinan Weihe Grand Bridge (渭南渭河特大桥) is a part of the Zhengzhou–Xi’an High-Speed Railway which connects Zhengzhou and Xi’an, in China.  The bridge crosses the Wei River twice, as well as many other rivers, highways and railways.  This bridge was once the longest bridge in the world but not for long, as the other two new bridges on Beijing–Shanghai High-Speed Railway that completed in 2010.  The bridge was completed in 2008 but the railway line itself did not open until February 6, 2010

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The second bridge on the list is another bridge built in China and comes in at a whopping 70.6 miles or 113.7 kilometers which at the moment also makes it the second largest bridge in the world.  The Tianjin Grand Bridge is another railway viaduct bridge.  This long bridge connects Langfang and Qingxian on another high speed railway, the length of the bridge in feet is 373,000 and in meters 113,700.   This bridge has small suspended portions with the remaining long portions being regular beam bridges.

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This new series will be on the longest bridges in the world, as of today July 13th 2011.  Again when you think of steel buildings most people think high rises, warehouse’s, sheds, steel homes ect.,  you’re not thinking about bridges, but this site is more then just about steel buildings, it is about buildings and structures rather it be steel, concrete, glass, wiring ect.  if we find it interesting, and think that you will as well, we will write about it. in any case almost every bridge is a steel structure or has steel in them,  in the form of cables, rebar, or the actual skeleton of the bridge or frame if you will, is made from steel so they do fit this site’s theme

Ok so lets talk about the first bridge in this series Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge this bridge is for rail traffic in fact it is for one of chinas fast rails or bullet trains just proves they are definitly series about high speed rail in china. 

Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge is 102.4 miles long or 164.8 kilometres it is a rail viaduct located on the line between Shanghai and Nanjing in East China’s Jiangsu province, part of the Beijing–Shanghai High-Speed Railway.

In June 2011 it was added to the Guinness World Records as the longest bridge in the world. The bridge was completed in 2010 but was not opened until 2011.  It includes a 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) long bridge over water that crosses Yangcheng Lake in Suzhou.

To answer everyone that is wondering how much concrete and steel was used on this bridge . that will have to come in the future as I do not have that info.  Longest span 80 metres (260 ft).  The construction of the bridge took 4 years and had a labor force of 10,000 workers at a cost of $8.5 Billion U.S. dollars.

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Moonlight Towers are unlike street lights that we see today on almost every street corner,  back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s they were common in smaller cities these electric light towers designed to cover a circle of 3,000 feet .  The light towers provided lighting for a 4 square block area.  Between 1894-95 there were 31 on of these towers installed in and around downtown Austin, of which 17 of the original towers remain and are functional.  The Moonlight Towers are listed in the National Register of Historic Places and were designated as State Archaeological Landmarks.

Moonlight towers are lighting structures designed to illuminate large areas of a city at night.

The structures were popular in the late nineteenth century among smaller cities across the United States and Europe, when standard street-lighting systems — using smaller, shorter, and more numerous lamps — were impractically expensive. The towers were designed to illuminate more city area at once via electric lighting. Arc lamps were the most common method of illumination, though they were known for their exceptionally bright and harsh light.

As regular street lighting grew more popular, the prevalence of moonlight tower systems began to wane.

Moonlight towers in Austin, Texas

Austin, Texas is the only city in the world, known to still operate a system. The towers are 165 feet tall and have a fifteen foot foundation. This type of tower was manufactured in Indiana by Fort Wayne Electric Company and assembled onsite.  In 1894, the City of Austin purchased 31 used lighting towers from Detroit. A single tower cast light from six carbon arc lamps, illuminating a 3000 foot (920 meters) radius circle brightly enough to read a watch.

When first installed, the towers were connected to their own electric generators at the Austin dam (near present day Tom Miller Dam). Over the years they were switched from their original carbon-arc lamps (which were exceedingly bright and time consuming to maintain) to incandescent lamps in the 1920’s, and mercury vapor lamps in the 1930’s. Mercury vapor lighting allowed the installation of a switch at each tower’s base. During World War II, a central switch was installed, allowing citywide blackouts in case of air raids.

In 1993 the city of Austin dismantled the towers and restored every bolt, turnbuckle and guy wire as part of a $1.3 million project, the completion of which was celebrated in 1995 with a city-wide festival.

Each tower weighs in at 2 tons. Most of the structure consists of a triangular metal lattice, commonly used for radio antenna supports today. The lattice sits on top of a single 15-foot pole and so must be secured by guy wires attached to each of the three corners of the lattice and strung outward away from the structure.

above is the Moonlight Tower in Zilker Park the lights are connected to the wooden post seen in the back.

Since 1965 the Moonlight Tower in Zilker Park has served as Austin’s Christmas Tree. The normal guy wires are supplemented by additional strands that contain over 3,300 lights that form a conical “tree” for the entire city. A favorite pastime of young and old alike is to spin under the tree while looking up at the lights, then trying to stand upright and fight off the resulting dizzying sensation.

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The 10th longest bridge in the world as of this posting and 10th on our list is  the 6th October Bridge in Cairo, Egypt.  The bridge is 12.74 miles long, connection part of the city highway to the Cairo International Airport.  The people of Cairo call this bridge, the spinal cord of Cairo because half the city travels on it daily.  The bridge is usually croweded due to everyone useing it and can take as long as 45 minutes to cross when traffic is heavy.  The bridge was under construction for 30 years and was finnaly finnished in 1996.

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The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (CBBT) is a 23 mile long bridge and tunnel system that connects southeastern Virginia with Delmarva Peninsula in the United States.  The bridge connects the following independent cities Virginia Beach, and Norfolk, Virginia to Cape Charles in Northampton County along the eastern shore of Virginia.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel uses a combo of tunnels and bridges over two separated shipping channels using four artificial islands built in the bay as portals.

The bridge-tunnel was opened on April 15th, 1964, in August 1987 it was officially named the Lucius J. Kellam Jr. Bridge-Tunnel after one of the civic leaders who worked for its development.  However, it still is best known as Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. 

The bridge part of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel as far as I can know is 15.6 Miles long which is why this bridge is placed at number at the worlds 9th longest bridge and 7th longest over water and 4th longest bridge in the USA and 8th longest that is used by autos. 

The above water part of the bridge was upgraded in 1995-1999 from 2 lanes to a 4 lanes at a cost of $200 million

After the bridge-tunnel opened in 1964, it was selected as One of the Seven Engineering Wonders of the Modern World by American Society of Civil Engineers, however it has been replaced on this list since with more recent engineering wonders. 

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The Tianjin Binhai Mass Transit (BMT) (滨海快速) or Jinbin light rail (津滨轻轨) is not like the other bridges on the list so far this one is a light rail fast transit line or a rapid metro train line.  The longest all bridge part of this train line is 16.03 Miles long which makes this the 8th longest bridge in the world and first longest train bridge.  This bridge connects Metropolitan Tianjin to TEDA which are both located in China.

The length of the eastern part of the bridge, from Zhongshanmen to Donghailu, is 28.22 miles, of which, 24.8 miles is elevated, and 3.41 miles is on ground, taking a total of around an hour in either direction. A big portion of the service is alongside with the Jintang expressway. The west part, from Zhongxinguangchang to Zhongshanmen, will be 4.57 miles long, of which, 0.36 miles will be elevated, 0.17 miles will be transition, 4.14 miles will be below ground. The total length of the line will be 32.78 miles, and the Binhai line is the longest rapid transit line in China. The construction work of the west part began in 2004, to be completed in 2008.

The train used for the Binhai Mass Transit can travel up to 62.14 miles per hour, which is the record speed for any rapid transit system in China.  Construction of the bridge/rapid transit line began on May 18th, 2001 and was finished on September 30th, 2003.  The lines where opened in 2004.

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