Bridge worker Scott Bennett has been maintaining Tower Bridge for so long that he “can tell by the sounds it makes when it’s going up what needs to be fixed. I can tell if our gears need to be greased by the noises they make,” he says.
Bennett does visual checks daily and greases the bridge’s gears every 40 to 70 openings. But with the drought lowering water levels (and therefore increasing clearance under the bridge) and fewer shipments traveling upriver as a result of rising fuel prices and a soft economy, these days most maintenance is done to exercise the gears and keep the cables from stiffening. “In the last three years we’ve gone from like 160 openings a month to just a few,” Bennett says.
Tower Bridge was erected in the early 1930s, during the Great Depression. “If we’ve learned anything from history, it’s that infrastructure can still be done,” says Caltrans Public Information Officer Dennis Keaton. “They were able to construct this bridge during the bleakest of economic times.”
According to Keaton, the bridge is about 730 feet in length from one bank to the other. “This is actually State Highway 275, the shortest highway in the state of California,” he says. The bridge towers are 160 feet tall.
The two electric motors that power Tower Bridge are housed in the control center above the highway. Their names are Fred and Ethel. “So we know who is who,” says Bennet.
Scott Bennett walks along the catwalk of Tower Bridge, cleaning the spotlights and doing a general visual inspection.
Bennett has been a bridge worker for 12 years, and has gotten used to the complaints. Tower Bridge is a vertical-lift span, not a drawbridge, which means that when Bennett goes up to work, he takes the roadway with him, leaving traffic stopped. “Obviously we can’t (put the bridge up) during peak commuting hours, but still people will say, ‘Why are you going up if there are no boats?’ Well, it’s for maintenance. So the bridge doesn’t fall into the river.”
How one worker keeps operations at Tower Bridge golden
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A peek at Bill McAnally's NASCAR
Bill McAnally owns 70,000 square feet of shop space – split between his race shop and automotive care business – and 31 race cars built on site at Bill McAnally Racing NAPA AutoCare Center in Roseville.
