- In half an hour, Tower Bridge is going
to open its bascules. ...the bascules are the bit that
the road sits on down below. A sailing barge called Will
wants to pass through the bridge, and so the bridge must lift. That's going to delight the tourists, but it's going to delay thousands of
drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians, and cause tailbacks for miles. And the team here are going to let me push
the button to do it. But before we get to that point, there's a lot of work to be done
by a lot of different people. - Sailing barge Will, Tower Bridge radio. - "Tower Bridge radio,
sailing barge Will, good morning." - Yeah, good morning to you. Just to let you know
that we are standing by for your 10:30 bridge lift. - We work really closely
with a number of agencies, with the Port of London Authority,
responsible for the river, with Transport for London, with the police as well,
and also the local boroughs. The bridge is sat between
two boroughs of London, half of it's in Tower Hamlets,
and half of it's in Southwark, so, in terms of transport network, we need really close
working relationships. If we know that, for example,
there's an ambulance on the way, we'll hold off from starting the process. - Tower Bridge is a tourist
attraction these days. That's why they've got the
behind-the-scenes tours and the glass floors up on the walkways, but it's still a working bridge,
and it can be opened, must legally be opened, to let river traffic through
any hour of any day. - There was this one time, back when
Clinton and Blair were in power, and I think their timings
ran over slightly, and the motorcade started to
come back across the bridge, from the south side to the north, and got cut off by a bridge
lift that was due to take place. Now at that point, the bridge
driver on duty received a call, "there's a very important person in the car "that's stuck on the
south side of the bridge", Bill Clinton, at the time. The person in charge said, very bravely, "No, we can't do that I'm afraid. "The river traffic has
rights over road traffic, "but also, physics. "There's a boat bearing down on us, "if we don't raise the bridge,
it'll strike the bridge." So, they raised the
bridge, it came through, and they received a lovely
letter from the White House a couple of weeks later saying, "Thank you for arranging the
brilliant spectacle for us "of Tower Bridge raising"! - When Tower Bridge was built, cargo was unloaded all around here,
straight into warehouses on the riverbank, so it was important that ships could
get through the new bridge here. River traffic comes first.
Trade must not be interrupted. That was laid down in law in 1885 when
the bridge was commissioned, and, even there's no cargo being
unloaded around here these days, that law hasn't changed. Boats have a right to pass through here and removing a legal right of way
is very difficult. There have been a couple
of grumbles about it in Parliament over the years,
but as far as I can tell, no one's ever seriously
thought about changing it. So, with 15 minutes to go, the engineers are getting
ready for the lift. - We do have pre-checklists to make sure that there's no
obstructions in the bascules. We check the oil levels.
We check the electrics, because we've got high voltage
electricity coming in here. So, when the bridge actually moves, it's the initial torque that
you've got to get, once it actually starts moving, it's quite straightforward
and nice and easy. We've got four packs on
each corner of the bridge, and one hydraulic pack has
two hydraulic motors with two hydraulic pumps. Back in the day, up until the early '70s,
it was steam operated. What we actually use today is very similar to what the
Victorians actually put in, and these days, it's just
the electric hydraulics. - If you've got a tall enough boat, then you can call Tower Bridge
24 hours ahead, ask for a bridge lift,
and they will fit you in. Even though you can't really get very far. The next bridge is only about 900 metres
down the river, and it doesn't move. And never mind that lifting Tower
Bridge causes tailbacks and massively inconveniences a lot of people! If your boat's tall enough, then you've got a right to
get the bridge lifted, and about five minutes' time, someone's going to use that right. - Official numbers are six bridge drivers, and so there's only six of us in the world
that can actually do it. It takes, on average, about two years
to train up to be a bridge driver. The main part of being a bridge driver is not actually raising
and lowering the bridge, it's knowing what to do if it goes wrong. If you've got the bridge up in
the air, and it breaks down, it's a matter of: you've got to be able
to fix it as quick as possible, so that you're not
blocking up half of London. [announcing] "Bridge driving control systems
about to be switched on. "Stand clear of moving structures,
machinery, and controls." - All right. - Hi, Tom.
- Hello! - Come on in.
- Thank you! - Welcome to the northeast control cabin.
- Thank you very much. - As you know, we're
about to do a bridge lift. - Yep. - It's going to be for
the Sailing Barge Will, which is just down the
river, just down there. - All right.
- Time is now... - 10:26.
- Yeah. - Four minutes.
- So we're going to go straight into this. - Let's do it.
- No time to waste. - I'm actually nervous. - So the first thing I want you to do
is start the power hydraulic pumps. - Okay.
- So, press that button. That will now start the pumps. "This is a public announcement. "Bridge lifting operations
are about to commence. "Stand by bridge staff,
stopping road traffic." If you could just press
the red traffic light? - Traffic lights changing to red.
[brakes squeal] - That's it, let go. So, now we can press them
together, at this juncture. - Done.
- Now we'll press for the pedestrian gates. - All right. Closed?
- Yep. - Just got to wait for two casually
sauntering tourists going across there. - Yeah, this is why we
start a little bit earlier. - Are you ever tempted to just
start it raising at this point? - [laughs] No. Press that now. - All right, that's disengaging. - Yep, so the indication will show...
- That light's gone off. I'm terrified I've pushed
a wrong button already. - No, no, you've done nothing wrong. Next one is the nose bolts. - Retract the nose bolts?
- Yep, press that button. - I feel like I should
hold it down for longer, but it's just a quick tap. - It's just a quick tap. - Bridge ready to move.
- Yep. - Grab hold of the joystick,
pull it back slightly, - Whoo!
- Little bit more. - All the way? All the way. - That's it, all the way. - Tell me...
- You're now raisin' the bridge. - Yep, tell me when to slow it down. - It's going to be a matter of
once we get to the angle, you just let go of the joystick. - Now, to me, from here,
that looks like 45 already, but we're only at 26. - That's right.
- It's deceiving. - The way to see, at the
corner of the bridge there, you see that bit of iron with riveting?
- Yeah. - When that gets horizontal,
that's actually 45 degrees. - And here comes the barge. That is much taller than
it looked from a distance. - It does. - 39 degrees and 41. - Right, so if you let go of it now, and press the green river light...
that's it. - And Sailing Barge Will, is good to go. - Yep.
- It's a shame I'm wearing the mask, because you can't see the
grin on my face right now. - It's a great feeling when you
do it for the first time. - Yeah. Thank you so much! - You have completed a bridge lift. - That was much more nerve-racking, than just pushing some buttons
should have been. There's so much riding on that. I know it's all automated.
I know that, at any point, you could have pushed me out of the way
and stepped in and that's fine, but it's still nerve-racking when
there are so many people waiting and so much riding on that
for, you know...London working. - But even now, I've done
hundreds of lifts, and I still get a buzz out of it. - Yeah! Right, how do we get this back down?
Funny that the bridge is stuck open right now literally the same moment this was uploaded
Can anyone who lives in London explain the part where he says, "you can't get very far, the next bridge 900 meters away is fixed." Basically, where are these boats going past this Tower Bridge if they can't get much further? Is there a marina or something?
From the thumbnail I thought Tom would be in the boat.
Damn, that's actually pretty cool. I can't imagine having a job where you get to do and learn about random stuff like he does. Doing youtube videos where you get invited to learn about and do certain parts of jobs is one of the neatest things in my opinion. Sure, the travel, editing/taping and all that isn't always fun, but much better than many jobs people have, and you're generally always going to be doing something new too.
Is this ACTUALLY stuck open??
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58149716
So... I just need a tall boat and I can piss off a shit ton of people just for fun?!
I'm impressed by the button layout, so simple and efficient.
I am so jealous of Tom Scott actually getting to do this. That seems like it would be an awesome to do.
Fun Fact: During the 2012 London Olympics there was a huge Olympic logo hanging from the upper walkways. When a boat needed to get through, not only did the bridge rise, but the logo had to swing up and out of the way.
Tower with rings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Bridge#/media/File:Chithrubar.jpg
Rings raised: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Bridge#/media/File:Cmglee_Tower_Bridge_tall_ship.jpg
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykiwz9o-YqA