Forth Bridge steel railway bridge sunset, Queensferry, Scotland

Span of steel

Sounding like the makings of a tongue twister, the Firth of Forth is one of Scotland's most important bodies of water, bordering the country's capital Edinburgh near its opening to the North Sea. A little further west, the hill-bounded inlet (the word 'firth' relates to the Nordic 'fjord') narrows as we approach the Forth River. In 1882, engineers settled on this crossing—previously served by ferries—to build the Forth Bridge silhouetted in our sunrise shot. Ambitious for its time, it was the first large structure in Britain built from steel, and when completed, it boasted the longest main cantilever span in the world (today second only to Canada's Quebec Bridge).