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Quebec Bridge
The Quebec bridge from the east side, with the Pierre-Laporte bridge in the background.
Official name	Pont de Québec
Carries	3 lanes of roadway 1 rail line 1 pedestrian walkway
Crosses	St. Lawrence River
Locale	Quebec City, and Lévis, Quebec
Maintained by	Canadian National Railway
Design	Cantilever bridge
Longest span	549 m (1,800 ft)
Total length	987 m (3,239 ft)
Width	29 m (94 ft) wide
Opening date	December 3, 1919
Toll	none since 1942
Coordinates	46°44′46″N, 71°17′16″W

The Quebec Bridge (Pont de Québec in French) in Canada crosses the lower Saint Lawrence River to the west of Quebec City, and Lévis, Quebec.

The Quebec Bridge is a riveted steel truss structure and is 987 metres (3,239 ft) long, 29 m (94 ft) wide, and 104 m (340 ft) high. Cantilever arms 177 m (580 ft) long support a 195 m (640 ft) central structure, for a total span of 549 m (1800 ft), the longest cantilever bridge span in the world. It is the easternmost (furthest downstream) complete crossing of the Saint Lawrence.

The bridge accommodates three highway lanes (none until 1929, one until 1949, two until 1993), one rail line (two until 1949), and a pedestrian walkway (originally two); at one time it also carried a streetcar line. It has been owned by the Canadian National Railway since 1993.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Background 1.2 First design and Collapse of August 29, 1907 1.3 Second design and Collapse of September 11, 1916 1.4 Completion 1.5 Post-completion history 1.6 Aftermath 2 Trivia 3 See also 4 External links

Before the Quebec Bridge was built, the only way to travel from the south shore of the St. Lawrence in Levis to the north shore at Quebec City was to take a ferry. As far back as 1852 a project for a bridge over the St. Lawrence River at Quebec was considered, and again, in 1867, 1882, and 1884.

A March 1897 article in the Quebec Morning Chronicle noted:

The bridge question has again been revived after many years of slumber, and business men in Quebec seem hopeful that something will come of it, though the placing of a subsidy on the statute book is but a small part of the work to be accomplished, as some of its enthusiastic promoters will, ere long, discover. Both Federal and Provincial Governments seem disposed to contribute towards the cost, and the City of Quebec will also be expected to do its share. Many of our people have objected to any contribution being given by the city unless the bridge is built opposite the town, and the CHRONICLE like every other good citizen of Quebec would prefer to see it constructed at Diamond Harbor, and has contended in the interests of the city for this site as long as there seemed to be any possibility of securing it there. It would still do so if it appeared that our people could have it at that site. A bridge at Diamond Harbor would, it estimated, cost at least eight millions. It would be very nice to have, with its double track, electric car track, and roads for vehicles and pedestrians, and would no doubt create a goodly traffic between the two towns, and be one of the show works of the continent.

The Quebec Bridge was included in the National Transcontinental Railway project, undertaken by the federal government.

By 1904, the structure was taking shape. However, preliminary calculations made early in the planning stages were never properly checked when the design was finalized, and the actual weight of the bridge was far in excess of its carrying capacity. The dead load was too heavy. All went well until the bridge was nearing completion in the summer of 1907, when the local engineering team under Norman McLure began noticing increasing distortions of key structural members already in place.

McLure became increasingly concerned and wrote repeatedly to supervising engineer Theodore Cooper, who at first replied that the problems were minor. The Phoenix Company officials were claiming that the beams must already have been bent before they were installed, but by August 27 it had become clear to McLure that this was wrong. A more experienced engineer might have telegraphed Cooper, but McLure wrote him a letter, and then went to New York to meet with him on August 29, 1907. Cooper then agreed that the issue was serious, and promptly telegraphed to the Phoenix Bridge Company: "Add no more load to bridge till after due consideration of facts." The two engineers then went to the Phoenix offices.

But the message had not been passed on to Quebec, and now it was too late. That same afternoon, after four years of construction, the south arm and part of the central section of the bridge collapsed into the St. Lawrence River in just 15 seconds. Of the 86 workers on the bridge that day near quitting time, 75 were killed and the rest were injured. Of these victims, 33 were Mohawk steelworkers from the Kahnawake reserve near Montreal; they were buried at Kahnawake under crosses made of steel beams.

After a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the collapse, construction started on a second bridge. Three engineers were appointed: H.E. Vautelet, a former engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railways, Maurice FitzMaurice from Britain, who worked on the construction of the Forth Bridge, and Ralph Modjeski from Chicago. Vautelet was President and Chief Engineer. The new design was still for a bridge with a single long cantilever span, but a much more massive one. On September 11, 1916, when the central span was being raised into position, it fell into the river, killing 13 workers.

Construction was ultimately completed in August 1917, at a total cost of $25 million and 88 bridgeworkers' lives. On December 3, 1919, the Quebec Bridge opened for rail traffic, after almost two decades of construction. Its center span of 549 meters (1800 ft) remains the longest cantilevered bridge span in the world and is considered a major engineering feat.

The bridge was built and designed primarily as a railway bridge, but the streetcar lines and one of the two railway tracks were converted into automobile and pedestrian/cycling lanes in subsequent years. In 1970 the Pierre Laporte Suspension Bridge opened just upstream to accommodate freeway traffic on Autoroute 73.

The Quebec Bridge was declared a historic monument in 1987 by the Canadian and American Society of Civil Engineers. On January 24, 1996, the bridge was declared a National Historic Site of Canada.

The bridge was built as part of the National Transcontinental Railway, which was merged into the Canadian Government Railways and later became part of the Canadian National Railway (CN). The Canadian Government Railways company was maintained by the federal government until 1993, when a Privy Council order dated July 22 authorized the sale of Canadian Government Railways to the Crown corporation CN for one dollar (CAD). On this date, the Quebec Bridge also came under complete ownership of CN. CN was privatized in November 1995, making the bridge privately owned.

Despite its private ownership, CN receives federal and provincial funding to undertake repairs and maintenance on the structure.

In Canada, and many other countries, the aftermath of the Quebec bridge scenario still affects many today. This disaster showed what unquestionable power an engineer had in a project. This led many to question this power. Engineers worried about government intervention acted on their own and founded multiple independent engineering groups.

Eventually these groups formed together in their respective areas and created what are now recognized as organizations of Professional Engineers. P.Engs are under different rules and regulations based on the organization to which they belong. General guidelines include that an engineer must pass an ethical examination, be able to show good character through the use of character witnesses, and have applicable engineering experience (in Canada this constitutes a minimum of four years' practice under a certified Professional Engineer).

A recent ceremony for the lives of the 33 Mohawk casualties was held in the Kahnwake reserve were a statue resembling part of the bridge and a plaque was unveiled.

• The next longest cantilever bridge spans are on the Forth Bridge over the Firth of Forth in Scotland, completed in 1890. It has two main spans each just 90 feet (27 m) shorter than that of the Quebec Bridge.
• Some have claimed that a portion of the collapsed bridge has been used over the past century to smelt rings used in the Iron Ring issued in the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer ceremonies, administered for graduating Canadian engineering students. This is possibly apocryphal, as the bridge was steel, not raw iron, and certainly wasn't true from 1925 onward. Nonetheless these rings, voluntarily carried on the little finger of the working hand of professional engineers in Canada, are meant to serve as a reminder to engineers of their social responsibilities to follow the ethical requirements of their profession.

• List of crossings of the Saint Lawrence River

• Pont de Québec timeline (in French)
• The Collapse of the Quebec City Bridge
• Familiarity breeds forget
• Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer
• The Iron Ring (archive link, was dead)
• http://www.civeng.carleton.ca/ECL/reports/ECL270/images/p62.gif
• Quebec Bridge (1907) in the Structurae database
• Quebec Bridge (1917) in the Structurae database

v • d • e Quebec City
Boroughs	La Cité (1st) · Les Rivières (2nd) · Ste-Foy—Sillery (3rd) · Charlesbourg (4th) · Beauport (5th) · Limoilou (6th) · La Haute-Saint-Charles (7th) · Laurentien (8th)
Districts	Gay Quarter · Old Quebec · Saint-Jean-Baptiste · Saint-Roch
See also	List of articles about Quebec City · History of Quebec City · Municipal reorganization in Quebec

Bridges of the St. Lawrence River
Upstream Pierre Laporte Bridge	Quebec Bridge	Downstream Île d'Orléans Bridge