THE RECORD FACTS Longest LEGO BRIDGE: 29 METRES (1141 inch) Biggest span:12,45 METRES (490 inch) NO steel, wood, ropes, glue etc.:100 % LEGO!! Altitude: 4 metres (157 inch) Parts: ca. 200.000 Weight: ca. 450 kilo Ours of work: 350 h. THE PREPARATION As a member of the Dutch independent LEGO-club "de Bouwsteen" we've got the oppurtunity from LEGO Benelux to build the "GIBRALTAR LEGO BRIDGE". When we've got the green light the drawing and counting begins! With help from the TV-documentaire we made a work-drawing in scale 1 to 20 cm. In that scale the drawing is 1,5 metres wide! (59 inch) In the Brickshelf-folder you can see the drawings we made ("B-Gibraltar-bridge- sideviews") With help of the first LEGO-designs (see the Brickshelfpictures "C-first-design frame and C-first-design-traindeck") and the scaled drawing we could decide the sorts and the numbers of the LEGO parts and make the order-list of ca. 250.000 parts, with a total weight of 650 kilos! THE IDEA The Project is inspired on the documentaire 'Engineering the impossible' seen on Discovery Channel in which the engineers want to span the Gibraltar Street with an enormous bridge of 1 km (40000 inch) high and a total lenght of ca. 14 km (550000"). This should be the highest and greatest bridge ever build. The reason to use this bridge as inspiration is that this bridge has a huge span compared to the altitude, because only 3 main towers can be placed due to the enormous depth of the Gibraltar Street. With the LEGO bridge the depth isn't a problem, the altitude is. We create a similar problem: making a span as long as possible with a low altitude in proportion. The designers solved this problem to combine two classic bridge-designs: the cable-stayed bridge and the suspension bridge. The main-towers with the revolutional 'diagonals' work as a cable-stayed bridge; Between the ends of the 'diagonals' the main cable of the suspension part is attached. De LEGO bridge has in contrast to the real project two in stead of three main towers. THE SHOW When after a lot of work all the LEGO compartments were ready, the exciting Try-out day begins: Will the LEGObridge hold it's 12,45 metres long traindeck? In the "Try-out-day pictures" you will notice that after 8 hours building with 4 people the bridge works! Who would have thought that? Minimal alterations and improvements were made and the bridge is displayed on the big LEGO-event in Zwolle, the Netherlands, called LEGOWORLD. The bridge is shown on national television in three different programs and it's pictures occured in many papers. What a great project. Enjoy the pictures! Benny Efde (Stanley Efu) and Marco de Vries