Ego in Engineering: The Quebec Bridge Collapse
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- Опубліковано 22 тра 2021
- The How & Why of The Quebec Bridge Disaster in 1907 on the Saint Lawrence River in Canada. A deep, twisted story of failure after unchecked, preventable failure that dragged on for years beforehand. The Second Collapse in 1916, receiving much less media attention was bizarre and nearly as tragic as the first.
Canada's Iron Ring: • Was the Iron Ring Born...
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Martin St-Amant - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_...
Iceberg9999 - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_...
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Hey, I'm Sam! Child of the 80s turned Parent, Traveler, & Bumbling/Stumbling Nostalgic, Sentimental Creator. Half the time I know about 50% what I'm doing!
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#CollapseSeries #PontdeQuébec #Canada - Розваги
Canada's Iron Ring: ua-cam.com/video/lWWSydwGlcs/v-deo.html
Here's another of my historical tragedies: ua-cam.com/video/O6yGf0dWPu4/v-deo.html
Here's Another Bridge Collapse Vid: ua-cam.com/video/WcEZOpUT3S4/v-deo.html
You need to cover the cause-way bridge collapse in port Isabella in Texas please.
The collapse of the second narrows bridge in Vancouver, Canada might interest you. If memory serves me, it failed because a senior engineer signed off on a junior engineer's calculations without looking at the work. The bridge has been named the Iron Workers Memorial bridge.
The iron workers memorial bridge in Vancouver BC would be a very Interesting video. You do a great job with these mini docs 🤙
You should look into the collapse of the 2 Narrows, now named The Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, in Vancouver.
Fun fact! In canada engineering graduates get an iron ring to commemorate this event. We wear it on our pinkie fingers so it touches any blueprints we make. Its to remind us that what happened at the quebec bridge was because of pride and carelessness, and that our work has dire consequences for countless other people so we had better take things seriously
Wow! Thanks for sharing this Pandora... had no idea!
yes! and for a long time it the steel used to make those rings was rumored to come from the first wreckage of the bridge. my engineer godfather told me this isn't necessarily true, maybe more of a metaphor, but it's a cool tidbit. i'm glad someone commented this! we have seen far too many times how greed and pride can kill when designing structures. cutting costs will always come back to be more expensive in the end in those instances.
It's also heavily facetted and not comfortable to wear at first and meant to have it's sharp edges worn off with experience in the field of engineering.
Wow, I knew about the ring but I never knew its history.
@@frednobel303 i dont think they were made from metal on the bridge but theyre definitely all over canada. Im an engineering student based in bc and i have other engineering student friends in alberta and ontario and we all get the iron rings. Maybe its just certain engineering schools that dont do it but its definitely a popular tradition across the country
As an engineer I always encouraged production workers to yank my chain if they saw something unusual. Dismissing worker input out of hand because "you don't have an engineering degree" is the philosophy of a fool. (And the engineer being smarter than the worker is not a given!)
Thank you. As a journeyman carpenter/piledriver ive seen engineers ignore exp workers so many times. Only to blame others later when things go exactly as workers said it would
@@captaintoyota3171 Kelly Johnston (Lockheed) used to make ALL his Engineerg design staff walk through the machine shop on the way to their drawing boards at start of work every morning.
I've done battle with engineers my entire life and once I bet them a thousand dollars that I'm right they will finally reevaluate their stance. Doctors, lawyers, engineers think they are always right leading many of them to a sure death situation.
I appreciate that. I am a new engineer and will do the same. My mom was a machine operator in a factory and would get dismissed when she noticed something off even though she probably knew the machine better than the engineers since she literally worked with it day in and day out.
As an hourly laborer with a Bachelor's Degree, I know a lot more than my current job title implies. However, I often encounter leahership which assumes they know best, despite having little to no experience with my job.
What I learn from these disasters:
1) workers are expendable
2) engineers are always right, even when physics show otherwise
3) rich project managers rarely ever get more than a slap on the wrist for blatant disregard for risks
underregulated capitalism
Sounds kind of like white collar crime on Wall Street doesn't it. Rip off millions of people destroy countless lives you get a nerf ball sentence if that and out in 2 months. The poor guy who robs a liquor store gets life. Not much as changed 120 years later.
@@ziggyzap1 or overregulated
@@staggerdagger found the freemarket dudebro
Indigenous workers especially, even to this day.
I’m not an engineer, but I’ve been in the trades for 27 years! I fully agree and concur with what you said! I’ve seen so many instances of piss poor engineering and it definitely is true that we workers get treated like we don’t know what we’re talking about and don’t possess the expertise to make determinations about shady badly thought out projects! If others would just realize that we spend 8 or more hours a day, years at a time with our hands on equipment and materials at projects! It’s asinine and belittling! Thanks for the interesting video!
I'm an engineering student, but I was raised by an electrician/machinist, and live in a rural area where most people work in trades and I have a great deal of respect for them. I swear I'll do my best to listen to the people who do the job to the best of my abilities and find a compromise between the businessmen and the tradesmen.
@@greatcanadianmoose3965 I appreciate you saying that! I understand that the job of an engineer is complex and can be stressful! If everyone worked with each other and respected each other’s skills and knowledge, we’d all be a lot better off! I wish you good luck and success in your endeavors!
@@2.7petabytes Thanks it means a lot! Unfortunately the engineers kinda get tugged in all directions... but the ones with the money tug harder lol.
As an engineer, I try to always listen to any concerns the people actually working on the project have. You don’t need to have an engineering degree to notice when something is out of place.
I hope that as sentiment turns against the ridiculous costs of college and other issues with their teaching, that it will also lead to a reevaluation by a lot of the public of the skilled trades, to realize just how critical those roles are and just how much knowledge and experience it takes a tradesman to do things right, and how valuable that is.
The professionalism of this series is really impressive. The videos are impeccably produced and the meticulous research really shines through. Excellent job, Sam! Hope you are doing well. 🙂
Hey Dream! Thanks so much, yeah the research can be pretty daunting at times but it's a labor of love haha
@@BrickImmortar you do way better than some other channels I can think of. You and Plainly Difficult are two of my favorite disaster documentary channels.
Honestly, you bring the same detail, and without the cringyworth reenactment drama, as my favorite History/Discovery Channel shows like Seconds From Disaster and Mayday/Air Crash Investigations.
"And it's my personal experience from my career, that engineers and management are often close-minded to the ideas of daily laborers and assemblers, despite those assemblers having many years of hands on experience and a keen eye when something seems out of place."
Oh, yeah. In more than fifty years in the workforce in various jobs for various companies, this is almost a certainly. I watched one nice little family-owned company destroy itself by just going along with the flow while things were going south for the business. Not once did they come to the guys on the street and ask what was wrong. We could have told them.
Sadly human nature makes that statement valid both ways. Some engineers don't listen to field workers out of pride and financial considerations. Some field workers don't listen to engineers out of pride and time/effort considerations.
Everyone is attracted to shortcuts. Only experience can make us truly understand how costly even the most minor shortcuts can be.
A friend of mine was an engineer in a company that makes parts for commercial planes. They had calculated that a certain assembly required 8 bolts with specific spacing to avoid stress and tearing. When they visited the factory after a few days they discovered the workers had decided on their own that 6 bolts spread evenly should do the job. They had a serious chat about passengers safety and the fact that personal initiative was welcome as long as it was properly submitted and validated before implementation. And of course they had to trash all the parts that were built the wrong way. At least this was discovered before there were any casualties.
Engineers and manufacturers should always work together for their common good. Any company culture that allows or encourages a communication wall between desk workers and field workers is fertile ground for disasters.
@@christianbarnay2499 I've seen more than one tradesperson express contempt for engineers because they haven't had "a real job" and don't do the welding and riveting themselves. Both ends of a project have a responsibility to communicate. Somebody who's been pouring concrete for fifteen years might not know the technical explanation for why a wall is bowing, but they know when a wall is wrong. And somebody who spent years in classrooms learning the science knows why this building needs this precise number of columns assembled with eighteen bars in each, no matter how overkill that looks to the person assembling them.
This channel is criminally underrated. You're like a cross between Fascinating Horror and Plainly Difficult, I love it!
Top three short disaster doc channels on yt I reckon. :)
Smaller UA-camrs are better! 10k is recognition of work- 50k is the expression of talent, 100k is where you can call yourself a professional unironically... 1,000,0000+ is vanity, shitposts and clickbait.
Seriously, compare the quality of any 50k-500k channel to it's relevant 1mil+ counterpart - and more often than not the smaller channel provides better content.
@@lilsniper117 That's the most pretentious thing I've heard but I mean I guess you're entitled to your opinion, even if it's an objectively bad and incorrect one.
Obviously, smaller channels can have such a good quality of content as bigger channels but do you expect there to be a point where the creator is like "ok guys that's enough I don't wanna come off as vain piece of shit so please stop subscribing" ????? Not to mention that there's plenty of 1m+ channels that put out amazing content, the actual fuck are you on even?
And like- do you think they even have any kind of control over this stuff anyway? UA-camrs can just- blow up randomly when the algorithm decides to bless them one day. That's what happened to Fascinating Horror- he was getting recommended to people when he was like >15k and in about a year he's not a 609k. There's people who have been creators since the beginning of the site that still don't have that sub count.
I really hope you're not one of those pieces of shit who stop liking media based soul on how popular it is, because if so fuck you. You're not interesting enough to be this pretentious, you're just some fucking randie.
Good point... I subscribed.
@@lilsniper117 SciShow has almost 7 million subs and all their videos are sourced and links can be found in the description, PBS Eons have almost 3 million subscribers and does the same. Invicta has a little over 1 million and shares accurate info on ancient Rome. Joe Scott has 1.35 million and makes videos on tech, science and various other topics with well researched material. Other great 1 million plus channels are Nexpo, ColdFusion, NileRed, Psych2Go, Tom Scott, Disrupt, Barely Sociable, Odd Tinkering, Ghost Town Living, Snake Discovery, Kyle Hill, The B1M, GaryVee, my mechanics, etc. Your analysis is as flawed as Thomas Bouch's bridge designs and has no basis in reality.
*(Best and Cheapest in Engineering in the same sentence)*
Grim Reaper: Whelp, there goes my weekend...
It doesn't have to be that bleak if the emphasize is on the "BEST" first and then choose the cheapest of them.
It does become dangerous when the emphasize is on the "CHEAPEST" first and then looking for the best.
@@gorilladisco9108 Order from most to least expensive and pick the second cheapest.
Otherwise there's a pretty good chance that disaster will come a-callin' sooner or later, even if it's not necessarily in the form of old mate with the scythe.
Good,Cheap,or Fast.
Pick 2 of 3.
Fast and Good,and it won't be Cheap
Cheap and Good,and it won't be Fast.
Fast and Cheap,and it won't be Good...
Best,in this equation,should equally balance all three?
Next stop- 'The Land of Make Believe'
Even worse than 'The Twilight Zone'........
hello! such a nice channel! i live in quebec and i think this is not talked about enough, because even now you have corruption and rampant cost cutting in civil structure projects. this is a beautiful bridge that is falling into disrepair, totally non-respectful to the people who lost their lives to have it build.
i also really appreciate how you mentioned the kahnawà:ke mohawk workers. first nations workers are often overlooked in our history.
Thanks, so nice of you to say Em!
First Nations peoples are often overlooked everywhere in the modern world unfortunately. :(
Hi from Australia.
Exactly right on your comment about close-minded engineers. My career was in interstate road construction, in testing, inspecting, and auditing. My co-workers and I all agreed we'd choose an experienced project manager over an engineer every time. On site conditions rarely aligned with computer-generated specifications. Likewise, engineers were rarely open to recommendations from those having to do the actual work.
I went from being an experienced aircraft technician to engineering school, so I can confirm you are 100% correct. One of my professors told me one of the worse things you can do is say "I'm an engineer" in a personal debate. I found out the hard way one of the worst things you can say in engineering school is "I worked on this as a technician". Needles to say, I have no friends in the engineering dept. as a prior technician. I'm thinking about omitting that experience from my resume, as counterintuitive as it may sound. As someone who has a passion and knack for interdisciplinary work, I had a vision of becoming an engineering technician. But apparently that profession doesn't really exist or is greatly underappreciated.
@@seth7745 I thought I would do the same, and came to the same conclusion. I’m now a technician for the simple reason that I like being hands on with my work.
seems sad and crazy for the parties in this story to ignore steel workers when they start mentioning parts not fitting and things bowing unusually. they do not have Masters and PHDs, but they could have decades on the high steel and know when a beam just aint right.
@@filanfyretracker Bingo!
I wonder if this is a US thing. Or if I didn't notice any of that because I went into electrical engineering. But I can't corroborate this apparently inate divide in my field. On the other hand my work is research heavy so I work with lab technicians a lot and serious lab work would not happen without them. So being condescending to them usually never crosses my mind.
"Hey come & travel over our bridge (that's collapsed twice)"
"No, I don't think I will."
Its not just that you need to worry about.
Most of the locals( french ) hate the english.
I once stopped for gas at a station on the north west side just below the bridge. The attendant refused to even come out to my car let alone allow me any gasoline . I was lucky to make it to the next station when i got back to Ontario.
@@ethics3 That'd be a cute story if it were remotely true.
@@65jaypee Its completely true and just WHO are you to say it isn't ?
Why don't you make like your middle name and PISS OFF !
@@ethics3 BTW, Québec City gets 4,5 million tourists every year. Do you seriously think it has a problem with English-speaking people?
Your story reaks of typical ROC Québec-bashing. And I still don't believe a single word of it.
@@ethics3 The distance between that bridge and the first town in Ontario is roughly 425 kms. So if you had stopped for gas under the bridge, meaning you were already low, I doubt that you made it to Ontario. And along the way, there are probably hundreds of gas stations.
I'm actually getting invested in this channel, glad I subbed
Awesome, thanks Kartier!
Me too
Same, just found it, great stuff!
Agreed, very well done research and presentation. How do you get so many more views than subs? Anywho,just found you, but I'm here now.
Better late than never.
Subbed just after reading your comment.. time to dive in
My father in law is an aviation engineer & he said they've got a saying “ safety regulations are written in blood.”
He's not wrong, and it applies to all aspects of our society (unfortunately).
Aviation, transport, heavy industry, manufacturing, chemical processing/handling, building & fire codes, electrical standards, plumbing/sewage/drainage regulations...
If there's a rule, there's a good chance that at some point in history, somebody had to give their life for us to learn the lesson the hard way.
Some of these regulations seem foolish or over-the-top at first glance, but that's usually because they exist to prevent compounding or time-dependent effects that nobody could have predicted but reared their ugly heads years later. Aviation is full of examples of this, as I'm sure your father-in-law would agree. Cheers
After a nasty procedure, or Not, of 'communication', including difficulties created by extra stages (A to B messages being routed thru decision-node C). Bad mechanix w/in the comm process.
In Honduras, most engineers teaching over at school would always remind us that it´s the workers insight the one that usually finds irregularities and small problems inside the process or structures, not mangement, nor HR, neither the company executives. Most workers tend to have been involved in their line of work for decades, meaning they know the little things that make som things tick, and what makes them crack, and while us as engineers know most of the technical terms and protocols to corrects this things, it´s them that have the knack for finding those little problems.
here here. I've been a construction manager for 10+ years and we regularly find errors in engineering - from the simple miscalculation of a pipe run to the enormous load design error. Engineers aren't perfect and most have no real-world experience for their designs coming to life, so they have to rely on the field if something doesn't look right.
San, My son graduated high school 2 days ago and is highly driven towards the deeper realm of Construction Management. I love you channel so much, even as a Paralegal so I had to share your channel with him.
Thanks Evil Queen, that's so kind of you to say 🙂
That's cool.
Teaching one of the best lessons for him to learn: those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
Have him work as a construction laborer to gain a real world experience and perspective. I’ve worked under many construction managers, some of whom inspired little confidence. The young ones.
As a young Mech. Eng., I always ask from the welders, benders etc. for their recommendations. I remember when I started my job that factory manager actually really sharpened it to me to talk to the guys because they know their jobs. This talk was a bit odd to me, because I had presumed that of course engineers would ask the guys first. I was amazed to learn that my engineering collegues in fact didn't. I left that job due to the high up management being idiots (especially CEO), but the workers liked me - I always asked their opinions and tried to make sure all the designs were safe, even if it would cost a bit more.
As an architect.. ( relatively green in terms of experience) I have learnt to listen to those on site, even when the principal says otherwise. 😅 Stay humble!
This is real horror to me.. the biggest mistake that ever happened to me was the contractor placing the beams supporting the first floor cantilever and the column in the wrong place meaning it would collapse. I was given a dress down by my boss.. however it turned out to be the contractors error.. thank God I had evidence that my revisions and original drawings were to the specification of the structural engineer.. I almost had a breakdown and never got an apology for the blame. 😩
This won't be the last time you have to take on confrontation. Perhaps a night class on this subject will help you in the future.
I had a 27-year career in a 96% male-dominated work environment in aviation. As a child, I was very shy and soft-spoken. The *one* thing that grew my confidence was being right and being able to prove it. I did find "taking on the boys" stressful though so I took a night course at our local college. I didn't learn anything I didn't already know, but in my early twenties, that gave me the confidence that I knew what I was talking about.
In the 1980s, a group of women working in our field vowed that we would encourage each other and other women coming up behind us.
The hardest part is taking the dressing down from your boss when you *know* he is wrong. It takes courage to proceed in the face of that. Well done!
Honestly... If youre workers are refusing to show up to work because they dont like the way things are shaping up... You might wanna take a step back and figure that out.
If you narrated an audiobook, I would buy it immediately and let you read me to sleep every night. Your voice is incredible AND I love your videos on engineering disasters
It is sorely in need of a paint coat and my guess is that there is plenty of other maintenance to be done with all the corrosion that has set in. It is in a rather sad state, especially given the history of this bridge and what it took to build it.
My dad is an engineer but learned engineering before you needed a college degree to really do it. And he was a laborer before becoming a engineer and while studying to be one. I think all engineers should learn engineering this way.
Completely agree, I’ve been in the engineering industry now for 5+ years as a mechanical fitter on various projects for airport machinery, a lot of men starting straight out of uni with very good knowledge on paper which I don’t dispute. But they have absolutely no skills in assembling the machines, how it really works or how to use basic tools... I may not have gotten as good an education as them but I wouldn’t change the route I took for love or money... well maybe money💰
Total agreement, get some practical groundwork before the class room.
Kelly Johnson was not a pilot or built aircraft on the assembly line at Lockheed or any other aerospace company before attending college and getting his degree in aeronautical engineering.
He went from college to working at Lockheed as an aeronautical engineer. He is considered as arguably the greatest aerospace engineer history of aviation and ramrodded some of the most iconic aircraft to fly; this long list includes the SR-71.
The people designing super carriers or large container vessels or the 100 story sky scrapers today never spent one day toiling as laborer in the shipyards or as an iron worker walking the I-Beams doing the labor/grunt work on these projects in the modern era.
Since about the 1940s the main engineering projects were mostly designed by university degreed engineers or technical school educated engineers who went to college to learn the 'nuts-n-bolts' of large scale civil, mechanical and aeronautical engineering projects.
Most projects today are computer simulated and tested for various conditions and stresses before one shovel of dirt is moved. And those doing the design and computer simulated testing never have probably ever moved a wheel barrow full lawn clippings, let alone work in the trenches. The designers for the new Corvettes or Range Rovers were probably never an automotive assembly line worker and probably most today have never changed the oil on their own vehicles.
@@johnbasiglone1219explains a lot about current land and range rovers!
The arrogance of the Engineering community involving "lowly technicians" is well and alive today. I was a military aircraft technician for 12 years before going to college for Mechanical Engineering at UW. I was thrown off and demoralized to a great extent because of how arrogant professors and even "industry professionals" were when immediately dismissing my experience as having any value in terms of input. this was demoralizing to me because I recognized the problems of this disconnect between technicians and engineers as a technician and this drove me to become an Engineer. Now I only find myself amongst peers who I may never be able to relate to.
This is such high quality! Can't wait to see your channel explode
This channel is so well done. It feels like a television show! Thank you for the effort you put into research, collecting and/or making the really excellent visuals, and the un-sensationalized delivery of it all. The way you present it allows the emotion to come directly from the horror of these events, and not through manipulative storytelling.
These collapse stories are so sobering. I lost a blue-collar family member to a workplace accident that he had warned the owners about several times prior to his horrible death. I think you're right that managers and bosses often consider themselves too many steps removed from the (intelligent and experienced!) laborers to take warnings seriously, to the detriment of everyone. These videos make me value integrity even more than I always have.
I could watch your documentaries all day! I'd love to see more about the wild and wooly creations of Victorian engineers if you have an interest. It was such an incredible period of history. Keep up the great work!
I find this fascinating. Thank you for creating this channel. I look forward to all future videos as well as going through all older ones.
Came over from Facinating Horror's link, and after watching a couple of videos, you have a new subscriber. Very well done videos!
Such a great channel.. I hope you get the recognition that you deserve soon. Your videos are high quality and I enjoy watching them.
Thanks so much Michael, glad you're enjoying it!
"...didn't start gaining steam" over image of steam paddleboat.
It's the little touches.
Thank you for such a well detailed retrospective on this bridge and the tragic accidents during its construction. I just drove over it twice last week. Amazing how we take things for granted.
I lived in Quebec City for many years and studied there at Laval University. Such a beautiful city with a splendid old town that looks very European. I recommend everyone to visit.
As for the Quebec bridge, although it's still in use today, I think trucks with a heavy load are no longer allowed to use it. Every now and then in the media you see examples of the bridge being very worn out and tiny parts of it falling off, but apparently it is still safe. It seems obvious that after 100 years, the bridge is nearing the end of its life and it should be replaced. But there are already enough quarrels as it stands to just have it repainted. The CN railway company owns it and does just the bare minimum to maintain it, creating an uproar with local politicians. The CN is probably going to end up just getting rid of it by reselling it to the Canadian federal government for nothing.
It's going to be a huge drama to replace the bridge. It's considered a hot potato in local politics.
I much prefer to use the Pierre Laporte bridge just besides. That bridge, when coming to Quebec city from the Canadian national highway (autoroute 20 in the province of Quebec), gets you directly into boul. Laurier, which is now probably Quebec City's "main street". The Quebec bridge gets you up Chemin Saint-Louis, which is not a highly trafficked road anymore.
as a resident, thank you! this city has its flaws but i really love it here and i miss interacting with tourists and visitors, i think it was very nice to have them here. i was about to start as a street artist there but eh, pandemic...
i think the cantilever design is beautiful and they should try to restore it. maybe for pedestrian and cyclism so the loads will be kept at a minimum. but yeah fuck the cn company xD
@@ysucae I first traveled to Quebec City as a 7th grade student from Ontario (8th grade we went to Saint Donat skiing) and I loved it so much I've been back dozens of times. Wonderful city, beautiful province.
The bridge will collapse, we are just waiting... I think the collapse is cheaper overall for the people in authority over that; don't forget, they have their BMW's to fix and their mortgages to pay...and BBQ's to attend... they don't use that bridge, they don't live near it.
I am amazed those two bridges are the only ones across that river for a whole city. unless Google maps is outdated.
@@filanfyretracker That needs to change.
This is a very well produced channel. I'm not an engineer, but it's put together in a manner that I can understand. I think I will subscribe.
I appreciate your informative and objective approach to telling these engineering stories/tragedies.
Excellent video. Much better than others I’ve seen on the subject. Thank you.
It is chilling to hear of that unsent telegram.
The lessons learned from that collapse made better bridges everywhere. Their lives were not lost in vain.
It is a sign of progress that projects of this kind no longer have a body count upon their completion.
I don't understand how 15 minutes can pass in the blink of an eye but I suspect it is connected to the facinating horror of your stories and your skill as a story teller.
Oh hell, I've just spentt the evening watching your videos and missed dinner!
Wow. Well done!
DOUGout
I'm a builder and I'm very happy to hear you add the part that management often neglects the experience of the people on the site generally thinking that there education and higher paying jobs mean that they know more about a building than people who build them every day
Thanks for the content, I really enjoyed it. Hope your channel keeps growing. Looking forward to more!
Thanks for this video. Excellent research work! I am from Quebec and I knew, like the majority of residents, that the Quebec Bridge had fallen twice. However, I did not know the full story behind the disaster. Good work!
I've always believed that engineers should be required to have a couple years of hands on, actual shop work before the start of designing structures.
Great old footage! Never get enough of that...TY *Brick Immortar*
Really loving these building collapses, it's why I subbed. Really looking forward to seeing more!
Thanks Moon, really nice of you to say!
I must applaud you on your pronunciation of Kahnawake! I too am Mohawk but from Ohsweken, Ontario, not Kahnawake. Usually I cringe when non-native people try to pronounce some of our words (Iroquois is the one I hear mispronounced most often) but you did an admirable job. Thank you for mentioning them in this video.
I actually crossed it once!! In 2008 on my way to the Gaspé area (with my then girlfriend (now wife) and mother-in-law (now dead)). It is a beautiful bridge. I hope those dead Rest In Peace.
The statement of "engineers are closed minded to the opinions of laborers and assemblers" is beyond true
- mechanical engineer for automated manufacturing
😉
-Robotic Systems Integrator for Automated Manufacturing
@@BrickImmortar at least my company took my request to work on assembly for 3 months seriously and let me work with the guys. It was a good change for once and I got a little bit more respect from them afterwards. Still amused that they blame engineering for all of the issues they have that aren't design related
I work as a technician for building automation, mostly on controls? and I often see a lot of stuff that I frown upon. I'm sure there are things behind the scenes that I don't know but that doesn't stop me from trying to reach out to them. Subcontracting makes communication difficult, sadly.
Brilliant video, great information told in a fitting fashion. Top shelf. 👌
So super interesting. I always wonder how things like this happen. So interesting to see the checks and balances be missed out on, even before all the tech they use today. Really enjoyed this.
Also in Vancouver, Canada, the second narrows bridge collapsed while under construction killing 79 workers in 1958. The failure was very similar to the Quebec failure. In my hometown of Victoria BC the Point Ellice Bridge collapsed under an overloaded trolley in 1896 killing 55. According to my father, my grandmother who was 19 at the time watched the rescue efforts from the shore.
These collapse videos are perfect. Please do more and I Love how you focus on what went wrong architecturally
I past next to it everyday (on the newer pierre laporte bridge) and didn't know 90% of this video! Very informal and well made.
Always a professional and nice video, thank you bricky!
12:30 This is something which infuriates me to no end. It happens everywhere, and I'm so freaking tired of it. It's especially prominent in companies which hire outside managers instead of promoting people from within. Pisses me off to no end when some foppish know-it-all with a fancy degree and no practical experience or common sense deigns to come down from on high and tell me how things work or how to do my job, when they've clearly never done it. AAAAARRRGGHHH!
Engineering is one of the most abused disciplines on Earth - becoming 'qualified' as an Engineer makes one a _servant_ and _guardian_ of all who are touched by your work...not the other way around, and nor is one a mere servant of a mercantile boss.
I know of one 'qualified' engineer who was supposed to be overseeing a lime quarry. As he was guiding a heavy tipper along a soft shouldered track, he saw that the tyre was near the edge and _held his hands against the tyre to 'brace' it with his weight!_ It was unbelievable. A ticket alone is not a qualification.
Thank you for a great video. The video was so informative and interesting. Great job. A lot work for this video 😊
I was promoted from production crew to producer. Fortunately, I knew that those who worked on a project knew what they were doing and their suggestions could be very wise. I had to make the final decisions, but I knew from my days as a crew member that the crew had a perspective and experience that were worth listening to. Suits are convinced they have all the answers; those who actually do the work know better.
It would be great to see a video from you about Vancouver's Second Narrows crossing aka "Ironworker's Memorial Bridge". I grew up hearing about the collapse every time we drove over it but have never learned the details, and you'd certainly do it more than justice. Thanks for your hard work. 🌉🍍
It's not often when I vibe with the music chosen for these types of videos. Good job on the soundtrack choices.
Hi! I live in Québec, but I never heard this story about our good old bridge. Thanks for sharing it with everyone.
When I saw the title "the bridge that collapsed twice" I immediately thought it was about the Québec bridge, since I live there.
Unfortunately it might now collapse a third time, given the current state of disrepair.
As the son of a civil engineer and an engineering student myself, I can tell you one thing.
Sometimes I get paranoid, oh the floor is resonating, oh I can feel the ac compressors kick on, oh that bridge looks heavily corroded.
Oh, that column seems undersized.
Non-engineer people will tell you to shut up and stop making them anxious but, based on your channel, well IF SOMETHING seems wrong it most likely will go BOOM one way or another....
I am not a qualified bridge designer.
I am also not stupid.
Sometimes you just have to look at something, and it’s obviously ‘not right.’
‘That is not going to work.’
‘It’s fine.’
Walks off.
BANG.
‘Told you so.’
While this is a great case study on conditions that can lead to failure, I think the greatest thing about this video is the evocative title: "Ego in Engineering."
My favorite analogy is my friend the mechanical engineer who helped me build a fence: he naturally assumed he knew how to design and do it, but the resulting fence was vastly inferior to fences built by those with practical experience.
I live little over an hour drive from here. Thank you for sharing this history
When management tells everyone to stop questioning things, that is sadly a common thing then, as it is now. And that's the time questions are needed the most. I used to have a file of 'don't question us' disasters for times when a boss would say don't question a process. It used to drive them a little more insane
Great video. Love all your old and new videos. ❤
I noticed on the later cantilever bridge they assembled both the north and south support sections before attempting to install the suspended section. Where as the earlier bridge it seems they were trying to build from the south support to the north one.
I just came across this video about the Quebec Bridge collapse. As someone who grew up in the Quebec City area, and who knew some of the story, and now lives right beside Kahnawake, where the Mohawk ironworkers came from, I am very glad to see someone bringing attention back to this event. I have an engineer in the family, and has been pointed out, the Iron Ring is meant as a tangible reminder that poor decisions can cost lives.
A great demonstration of how engineering is taken seriously in Canada / Quebec... Just look at our roads near Montreal... do you hear the whispering voice: 'corruption'. Why build something if cuts are to be done everywhere so a few people make some money and others die? My blood is boiling and am sad that our world is full of this...
Loving the channel, I really enjoy the ocean tragedies.
Very detailed report. You do excellent work.
Thank you for you research and vid from a person born in Fife who used to travel on the Scottish bridge mentioned.
Great job, I really enjoy these videos! Id like to suggest a bridge collapse that seems to be little known but has all the elements from poor design, corners being cut, huge collapse with major loss of life, a cover up, and even murder...... the Ashtabula Ohio bridge/train disaster of 1876. Great videos, thanks again.
02:08 As you mentioned the very first cantilever bridge in Germany, just as fyi that the bridge was in service for almost 100 years from 1867 to 1961 when it was replaced by a modern concrete bridge which is also now scheduled to be replaced during the next few years.
How many lives have to be lost before people are willing to admit failure. Hopefully with modern technology this will happen less and less.
It happens when people value money over lives. Happens everytime smh
hopefully but our infrastructure really needs some TLC. I remember a overpass collapsing in my city on a sunday when I was a teen. This was just outside of montreal. Only 5 people were killed and I still remember the newspapers pointing out that if it had occured on a weekday, with the highway beneath at gridlock, it would have killed dozens m
during my years designing project I always asked the opinion of contractors what they thought of my design. I also suggested to my peers to get out of the office and actually see their projects. I retired 14 years ago and still see my designs working and I know that they will last.
The first thing I learned as a young mining engineer some 50 years ago, always listen carefully to the opinions and advice of experienced coal miners. They may know little of electricity, ventilation or mechanical calculations, but when it comes to ground control, they are the masters !
He was able to keep his office in New York City, for a job being done in Quebec??? Americas 1st remote worker!!
I bet they weren't monitoring his computer, or making him take part in zoom meetings. It's good to be at the top.
You know that American companies do business in Canada and Canadian companies do business in America all the time lol
I’m currently in Quebec City on vacation and happened to drive over Pont de Quebec on our way back from the aquarium which we were visiting. I had wondered why it looked familiar. Then I remembered that I watched this video a few weeks ago.
Glad I found this, criminally undersubbed channel. Love your mall collapse video too
Your assessment on the attitudes of engineers and upper management is spot on, golf clap is well deserved.
Loved the acknowledgement of the Mohawks of Kahnawake in this video. Top quality in general as well.
I'm from Québec and never heard of this. Thank you!
Asking questions no matter how stupid or ridiculous it might sound and learning something is the smartest way to go instead of being smart and not asking anything but not knowing anything
With this disaster in mind, the Minnesota Bridge Collapse and Crack on the I-40 bridge could be future topics.
8:43 HEY! I'm from Manitoba haha (great vid as usual, I had always heard of this collapse but I never felt like Investigating it...truly sad that these disasters often boil down to money, greed, or incompetence...)
Met a Chinese Canadian family in Blarney, Ireland whose son had just graduated from an engineering college as a mechanical engineer. He showed me his ring made from steel from this bridge to remind Canadian MEs of this tragedy.
Excellent video in all regards! WOW.
Hey thanks so much tieck!
Today, it has been 105 years since the center span of the Quebec Bridge collapsed into the St. Lawrence River.
Really enjoying your work! You have the makings of a _really big_ channel here.
P.S. With absolutely zero offence intended, @ 13:49 I think you meant 'consistent' rather than 'concurrent'. I'm honestly attempting to be helpful, hopefully not pedantic.
I suppose the lesson here is: if you want some love, stick to compliments and refrain from the slightest criticism (even when you're genuinely trying to assist).
This is an excellent video and involved lots of research to produce it. But there are a couple of other important issues, that led to this collapse, that were explained in the great book "A Bridge at Quebec, by William Middleton.
If you look at the profile drawing of the original plan you can see that the bottom chord describes an arc, obviously done for aesthetic reasons. Those bottom chords were in compression on this structure. At every joint in that bottom chord those 2 meeting chord members had to come together at a slight angle, in order to describe that designed curve. At that time no equipment existed to properly face the ends of those chord members at the precise angle needed. This was a major issue for the Phoenix company. Also each of those chord members were made up of several structural steel members side by side and connected together by angled latticework. No machines existed to test one of these chord members to destruction. After the collapse a machine was devised to test a half sized model, but that did not exist when the original pieces were made. Later testing showed the original latticework to be greatly deficient.
When the pieces were originally assembled they were bolted together in order to save time. The rivet crew came along later replacing those temporary bolts with the rivets. Those riveting crews had great trouble getting the holes to line up in the existing chord members showing that some amount of deflection had already taken place. When a member of a bridge is in compression it is generally accepted that the member will be straight. You will notice that the second bridge was built with straight bottom chords and much heavier components.
This bridge was built as a railroad bridge. No roadway on the original. Theodore Cooper had been one of the most outstanding bridge engineers in America for over 4 decades. He came up with the design system still used to rate new railroad bridges today, the "E" method. A railroad bridge with an E-75 rating is designed to carry a load of 75,000 lbs per axle. Cooper was elderly at the time of this project, not in good health, but possessed of a large ego. He never visited the site. Yet he would not have any of his work viewed by any other engineers. This was a recipe for disaster. David Steinman, who designed the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan, a 5 mile long structure was often on the site to keep up on how things were going. There have been other spectacular failures of bridges who's designers thought their work was beyond question. Check out the Tacoma, WA collapse of the bridge over Tacoma Narrows in the fall of 1940.
Deflection upon deflections. That "on account of losing these men" was harrowing knowing how exactly they were going to lose many men, just not the way the memo meant. & omg the tragedy of McClure working so hard to stop the bridge project then simply forgetting to forward the telegram...that poor man, that would've haunted him. Horrifying.
Amazing teaching videos. Thank you.
Would love to see a video on either or both of the Seattle area's two sinking floating bridges.
YOUR CHANNEL IS AMAZING 🤩
What a creepy looking bridge to begin with...
This is a grade A presentation. Cheers!
Ignorance greed and impatience always bites you in the ass eventually ... 💯
Amazing well done video I cannot believe it has such few views
Your videos are great, subscribed 👍
Thanks, that's so kind of you Shawn!
Nice of you to give a shout-out to our Mohawk brothers.
I was surprised that Kahnawake was pronounced properly! Non-native people usually get messed up with the “K” that sounds like a “G” and Bricks here nailed it. Definitely deserves a round of applause.
I worked in Montreal for a couple of years and commuted over that bridge often. It was frightening sometimes, with added car lanes cantilevered off each side. Glad I did not know the history then!
Any relation to Hamilton legend Angelo?
@@fintanoclery2698 not that i know of!