Albert Bridge is a heritage-listed railway bridge of steel truss design crossing the Brisbane River between Indooroopilly and Chelmer in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Henry Charles Stanley and built from 1894 to 1895 by John McCormick & Son as a replacement for an earlier bridge lost to flooding in 1893. Both bridges were named in honour of the Prince of Wales, Prince Albert. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
The Albert Bridge links Indooroopilly and Chelmer railway station. The structure consists of two steel spans supported by masonry abutments and a central concrete pier that is encased in an iron caisson. A footway was provided on the upstream side.
History
The first Albert Bridge on the site was completed in July 1876 and enabled the Main Line railway from Grandchester to Ipswich to be extended to reach Brisbane itself. In the early days of settlement, the Brisbane River at Indooroopilly provided an obstacle to the construction of a railway between Brisbane and the mining centre of Ipswich. At this time, a river boat service linked the two centres. The completion of the first Albert Bridge enabled the Ipswich railway line to open in 1875. The bridge facilitated the mass transportation of goods between Ipswich and Brisbane, which previously was only possible through shipping. The first bridge was destroyed in the 1893 flood. In the meantime, ferries were used to transport people and goods across the busy river. This, however, led to the capsize of the ferry Pearl disaster in 1896 with the loss of more than 40 lives.
The second and current Albert Bridge was built in 1895. It was designed by Henry Charles Stanley, Queensland's Chief Engineer of Railways from 1891 to 1901 and is considered his major work. He designed a "hogsback" steel truss bridge on masonry piers. In designing the bridge as two long spans with one central pier, he tried to minimise the obstruction to flood waters created by multiple piers, which had been the downfall of the first bridge.
Innovations in the design included the attachment of cross girders, protection against derailment, provision against strong wind gusts, and provision for free expansion under varying temperatures. The working drawings and specification were prepared by FL Keir of the Chief Engineer's office, and were completed by mid-1893. Keir was also the resident engineer on the site.
In August 1893 the contract was let to Brisbane contractors John McCormick & Son, with a price of . McCormick & Son also later won the contract for the ironwork on the second permanent Victoria Bridge, 1896–97. Expiry date for the Albert Bridge contract was set at 14 December 1894, but it was not opened to traffic until August 1895. A Scottish coal strike held up delivery of the rolled steel for eight months, and removal of the river bedrock for the central pier alone took four months.
A condition of the construction contract was that as much of the work as possible be done in Queensland. Messrs McCormick erected a workshop adjacent to the site at Indooroopilly, and imported machinery necessary for constructing the superstructure and the caisson for the central pier. Up to 240 persons were employed on site at any one time, and quarry workers provided freestone from Pearson's quarries at Helidon, the bluestone in the concrete from Jenkin's Bundamba quarry, and the granite for the bedstones and cutwater quoins from Mount Crosby. In 1895 the bridge was the largest in Australia of local manufacture.
The most difficult aspect of the work was the construction of the central pier and its foundation caisson. The latter weighed about , rested below high water mark, and was sunk into the rock. The riverbed sand and gravel could be dredged, but divers extracted the rock manually.
The southern span was erected above what remained of the former bridge, and was extended to the centre pier. The old pylons were then removed.
The northern truss was floated into position. The shore end rested on two trolleys, and when the tide was at its highest, specially constructed staging on an old barque took the weight of the other end of the truss from temporary piles. Winches were then used to pull the hulk across the river toward the centre pier, to which the truss was attached.
The cores of the earlier bridge abutments were widened and heightened to take the new superstructure. Parapets were constructed after the trusses had been fixed in place, and were completed in November 1895.
When opened the bridge also catered for pedestrian traffic, until the construction of the nearby Walter Taylor Bridge in 1937.