I love old footage like this, really brings it home how advanced it was for its time, we've prob crossed that hundres of times without thinking bout it. Amazing.
Certainly Duke St. What was the last building project in Birkenhead that could get so much excitement going? All concrete and glass and steel now and goes rusty within 12 months and more often than not has to come down within 20 years. Sometimes you have to think that Prince Charles is quite right. Smashing find by the way.
An interesting find, if in fact that is Duke Street Bridge it would be the same as "A" bridge on Tower road, in 1956 new switch rooms were built at the foot of the tower 1 low tension switch room, a transformer room and 1 high tension switch room. When the cables were diverted to the new switchrooms, the power for the bridges was off for 48 hours and "A" bridge was operated using water, the ballast tanks were filled to raise the bridge and the water drained to lower it again from memory it took about 30 minutes to raise and 40 minutes to lower.
Duke street bridge isn't the bridge a Bascule type bridge.
Quite right. It's a 'rolling bascule' type, meaning it doesn't hinge about one point but is pulled back so that the curved portion is rolling along the big teeth you see on the ground each side. There's a balance weight high overhead at the back and the effect is to even out the power required as it moves. The mechanics of it are simpler and above ground. This photo shows the arrangement, where the horizontal beams are drawn into and through the building by a sort of rack and pinion system driven electrically. Simple, and they've lasted well!
I reckon that it's Egerton Bridge at the end of Shore Road. The main Line locos such as the two in the film didn't go over Duke Street or the Four Bridges route due to the curves, but did go over Egerton Bridge ,as this was the access to Morpeth Dock yards from the main line from Chester.If you look carefully you will see that one of the railway wagons carries an advert for the Great Western Railway. Having been over this bridge once or twice on the footplate of steam locos I can assure you that there were 2 tracks on this bridge.
have a nosey 
![[Linked Image]](http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g193/ibizachic/ChiccyIG.jpg)
