BOB is Nelson’s Big Orange Bridge.
Alas, its truss design is more functional than lovely. Even when built in 1957, I remember thinking that a more beautiful bridge would better suit its setting. Curiously, the bridge’s ugliness did not prevent it from becoming — indeed, may have encouraged it to become — a local icon.
Although the truss design suffers from industrial unsightliness, it does offer some interesting mapping projections of a full-sphere image. I might explore these from time to time.
The centre of this full-sphere image of BOB looks west towards the afternoon sun.
As I recall, when BOB was first constructed it was painted silver, which I thought a bit nicer. I grew up with a number of Balfour children who were born as their parents waited for the cable ferry that BOB replaced. Full-sphere BOB looks far more interesting!
Marie, you are correct: silver it was. Then it became orange, and now it is two tone with orange on the upper portions and a colour I cannot identify below.
Your pictures never cease to amaze me. Thank you.
Do you know its big sister, the really big orange railway bridge across the Firth of Forth in Scotland?
Irene, curiously I thought of the Forth Bridge, which I have seen, when I wrote about BOB. The Forth Bridge (which predates modern bridges) has an interesting sinuosity that BOB lacks.