Glitch closes bridge to river traffic

THE multi-million dollar reburbishment of the Bridgewater Bridge has been brought undone by by a faulty electrical component. The bridge was closed to road traffic for just over an hour on Friday because of a fault in the mechanism which re-opens the boom gates after the liftspan has been raised and lowered. Cars queued for a considerable distance and traffic was eventually divered via the New Norfolk and Bowen bridges.

After lowering into position to stop cars from falling into the river while the lifting span was raised, the boom gates failed to retract once the lift span had returned to its normal position. Department of Intrastructure Energy and Resources general manager Peter Todd said an initial assessment had shown the cause to have been a failed electrical component. "Further investigation will be done to determine a more precise cause," Mr Todd said.

"To re-open the gates it was possible to override the system. The bridge has since been opened again under the supervision of electricians, but it will not be raised again until the fault has been fully investigated and rectified," Mr Todd said. "At the time of the hold-up there was a yacht upstream of the bridge waiting to travel under the bridge and head downstream. It has since resumed its journey downstream."

Mr Todd said bridge would be closed to river traffic for about a week.

An interesting article about the recently-completed refurbishment project can be found here.