Burnett Bridge

General

Also known as

Burnett River Traffic Bridge

Classification

State Heritage

Register status

Entered

Date entered

21 October 1992

Type

Transport—road: Bridge—road

Themes

5.2 Moving goods, people and information: Using draught animals

5.5 Moving goods, people and information: Using motor vehicles

Architect

Brady, Alfred Barton

Builder

McCormick, John & Son

Construction period

1898–1900, Burnett Bridge

Historical period

1900–1914 Early 20th century

Style

Classicism

Location

Address

Quay Street, Bundaberg

LGA

Bundaberg Regional Council

Coordinates

-24.86265765, 152.34587798

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Significance

Criterion AThe place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland’s history.

The Burnett Bridge (1900), an intact example of a hogback lattice girder steel truss bridge, was funded under the Granville and Burnett Bridges Act 1889 and is important in illustrating the growth and prosperity of Bundaberg due to the sugar boom in the district in the 1880s. Government expenditure on the bridge reflected its location in one of Queensland’s most prosperous sugar-growing regions.

Criterion DThe place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places.

The Burnett Bridge is an important example of a 19th century metal truss bridge in Queensland. Highly intact and the longest of its type in Queensland, the bridge displays the principal characteristics of its type, including its: hogback through trusses; cast metal column piers with circle bracing; concrete abutments; classical style ornamentation; cantilevered footway with metal lattice balustrade; and metal lamp posts.

Criterion EThe place is important because of its aesthetic significance.

The Burnett Bridge has aesthetic importance for its beautiful attributes. Through its well composed design of repeated elements arranged symmetrically, restrained classical ornamentation, the piers and their circle bracing, and the lattice balustrade with curved brackets to the footway, the bridge is an attractive and well-designed example of a metal truss bridge.

The Burnett Bridge is also important as a landmark in Bundaberg and has been a popular subject of photography over time. Its scale and length spanning over the Burnett River and its flood plain make the bridge an impressive feature of the Bundaberg city centre, visible from a multitude of vantage points along both riverbanks.

Criterion HThe place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland’s history.

As his longest metal truss bridge design and an excellent example of his work, the Burnett Bridge has a special association with its designer, Alfred Barton Brady (Engineer for Bridges at the Public Works Department), an important engineer who made a significant contribution to the built heritage of Queensland.

History

The Burnett Bridge, opened in 1900, is a road bridge over the Burnett River at Bundaberg. It consists of eight 51.82m spans of hogback lattice girder steel trusses (totalling 414.6m) supported on seven piers, each formed by two cast-iron cylinders filled with concrete; plus two concrete abutments.[1] Constructed by John McCormick & Son, to a design by the Queensland Government’s then Architect and Engineer for Bridges, Alfred Barton Brady, it was a result of the growth and prosperity of Bundaberg due to the local sugar industry; is an important example of a hogback lattice girder steel truss bridge; has landmark aesthetic qualities; and is the longest 19th century metal truss bridge still in use in Australia.

Bundaberg is part of the traditional land of the Bailai, Gurang, Gooreng Gooreng, Taribelang Bunda People.[2] The Burnett River area’s first non-indigenous settlement occurred in the 1840s, and by the 1860s there were five pastoral stations on the lower Burnett River: Tantitha, Kolan, Barolin, Bingera, and Branyan. In the late 1860s, agriculturalists and timber-getters arrived and the first land selections at Bundaberg were made on the north bank of the Burnett River, under the 'Sugar and Coffee Regulations' stemming from the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1860.[3] This Act also allowed for European settlers to legally dispossess Traditional Owner groups from their ancestral land.[4]

Local farmers initially grew maize and had also commenced growing sugar cane by early 1869, when a sawmill was completed on the north bank of the river. The township of Bundaberg, on the higher south bank of the Burnett River, was surveyed in 1869. Bundaberg also developed as the port for the copper from mines at Mount Perry from 1871.[5]

The local sugar industry boomed during the 1880s, with sugar plantations crushing cane at their own sugar mills, and farmers sending cane juice to refineries. The first South Sea Islander indentured labour had arrived in Bundaberg in 1879. The sugar plantation system, which relied heavily on South Sea Islander labour, reached its peak in Queensland in the early 1880s – but the Queensland Government, seeking to promote European closer settlement, passed legislation in 1885 to end recruitment of South Sea Islander workers from 1893. Although this time frame was later extended, the system of large sugar plantations, with their own sugar mills and a South Sea Islander workforce, was replaced by the 1910s by small farmers supplying co-operative central sugar mills. [6]

As Bundaberg thrived during the 1880s, the need for road and railway bridges over the Burnett River, linking the two sides of the town, became more acute. These would replace the hand-operated punt then in use (later the steam ferry punt ‘Transit’, which arrived c1889).[7] A railway, constructed from the north side of the Burnett River at Bundaberg, reached Mount Perry in 1884, and the railway from Maryborough to Bundaberg was opened in 1888. Until a railway bridge was completed over the Burnett River, passengers travelling between Maryborough and Mount Perry had to transfer between railway lines using the punt. By the mid-1880s, local authorities were lobbying the Queensland Government for a separate traffic (road) bridge, as well as a railway bridge, over the Burnett River, or a combined railway/road bridge.[8] A railway bridge was constructed first, the tender for construction being accepted in 1889. Utilising a mix of steel lattice girder spans and timber spans (all spans since replaced), this bridge opened in mid-1891.[9]

A separate road bridge, viewed as also important for the continuing progress of Bundaberg, took longer to realise. This was funded under The Granville and Burnett Bridges Act, passed in late 1889 to finance road bridges at Maryborough and Bundaberg. Under this Act, the Queensland Government would fund up to half of the bridges’ cost (to a maximum of £22,500 for the Burnett Bridge). The Council of the Municipality of Bundaberg and the Board of the Division of Gooburrum split the remaining cost of the bridge between them, borrowing the funds from the government and repaying the loans and interest within 40 years, under the terms of The Local Works Loans Act 1880. The local authorities were allowed to form a joint local authority to manage the bridge and collect tolls to maintain the bridge and repay the loan (a Burnett Bridge Board was established in May 1900). After the loan was repaid, the tolls could be abolished.[10]

Plans for the Burnett Bridge were prepared by November 1890, by Alfred Barton Brady, then Engineer for Bridges at the Public Works Department, but the 1890s economic depression delayed work for eight years. Brady’s 1890 plans envisaged eight 170ft (51.8m) spans of ‘steel lattice hogback girders’ (414.6m in total), supported over the river by four piers, each consisting of braced pairs of cast iron cylinders; and over the land (floodplain) on the north bank by three concrete piers. The abutments and their wing walls would also be concrete. There would be a 24ft (7.3m) wide carriageway, supported by steel trough plates between the girders, and a 6ft (1.8m) footway, of corrugated steel plates on steel cantilevers, on the downstream side. Although fresh plans were prepared in 1897, the only major change was the replacement of the three concrete piers with cast iron cylinders.[11]

Alfred Barton Brady (1856-1932) was a civil engineer and architect. Born in Manchester, England, and trained as an architect from 1872, he worked on railway, gasworks, waterworks and drainage projects before he and his wife Lucy, nee Bywater, emigrated to Queensland in 1884. He served Queensland for 37 years from 1885 – initially working in the Railway Department as supernumerary Assistant Engineer, Southern Division, and later as Assistant Engineer of Bridges, Southern and Central Division from 1887. He then worked for the Public Works Department from 1889 as Engineer for Bridges; was appointed Government Architect and Engineer for Bridges in 1892 and was also Under Secretary of the department from 1901.[12]

Although Brady designed many important and handsome public buildings, including customs houses at Rockhampton, Townsville, Maryborough and Mackay c1900-02, his speciality was bridge design. Some of his notable works, other than the Burnett Bridge, include the Victoria Bridge in Brisbane (1897, six 51.8m spans of hogback lattice girder trusses) [QHR 600303, abutments only are extant]; the Kennedy Bridge over Saltwater Creek in Bundaberg (1899, single 51.8m span hogback lattice girder truss) [QHR 600367]; and the Macintyre River Bridge, at Goondiwindi (two 36.6m spans of hogback lattice girder trusses, 1914-5). His other important bridges included the Herbert River Bridge at Gairloch, near Ingham (1891, concrete) [QHR 602591], and the Lamington Bridge, Maryborough (1896, concrete) [QHR 600721]. Retiring in 1922 and dying in Sydney in 1932, Brady had proven to be one of Queensland's most important early engineers.[13]

Tenders for the Burnett Bridge were called in late 1897, and again in early 1898. The contract of John McCormick and Son (also spelled ‘McCormack’ in some sources) was signed on 24 March 1898, with work to be completed by 23 September 1900. The firm had also worked on the Albert Bridge at Indooroopilly (1895, two spans of 103.7m hogback girder trusses) [QHR 600232], as well as the 1897 Victoria Bridge, and the 1899 Kennedy Bridge. Its work on the Burnett Bridge began on 14 June 1898.[14] The two cylinders forming each pier were sunk by dredging with a single chain ‘grab’, until the riverbed became too hard and compact for this method; then excavation was completed by divers, supplied with air under pressure by a steam compressor delivering into a receiver on the river bank.[15]

The Burnett Bridge, located about 230m downstream from the railway bridge, was officially opened on 24 August 1900 by Queensland’s Governor, the Rt Hon Charles Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington.[16] With a contract cost of £59,070/16s, it had a total length over the abutments and wing walls of 1430ft 4in (436m), and a clear length between the concrete abutments of 1352ft 4in (412.2m). The roadway was 33ft (10m) above the high-water mark, ordinary spring tides, and 5ft 9in (1.8m) above the height of the 1890 flood level. The ‘hog-backed lattice type’ girder trusses were 22ft (6.7m) deep in the middle, and 10ft (3m) deep at their ends, and were braced overhead with light transverse lattice girders and diagonal bars. The twin cast-iron cylinders of the seven sets of piers were filled with Portland cement concrete and connected by wrought-iron riveted ‘diaphragm’ bracing plus heavy cast-iron spandrels below high-water level. Sunk to rock 59-71ft (18-21.6m) below high-water, the cylinders were 7ft (2.1m) in diameter below high-water level, and 5ft (1.5) diameter above. The steel troughs of the bridge’s decking were filled with concrete, with ‘tarred metal’ laid above to form the road; while the cantilevered footway consisted of corrugated steel plates, covered in cement and coke concrete, finished with asphalt, and had a parapet of wrought-iron latticework with a hardwood handrail. Each span of the bridge was lit by two overhead gas lamps, with Welsbach patent incandescent gas burners, and there were four large lamps on concrete columns at the abutments.[17]

When opened, the Burnett Bridge was the fourth longest metal truss bridge (in total length of metal truss spans) in Australia, after the first Hawkesbury River rail bridge in New South Wales (1889, 7 x 126.5m Baltimore truss spans, replaced 1946); the Algebuckina railway bridge in South Australia (1892, 19 x 30.5m lattice truss spans, decommissioned); and the Burdekin River railway bridge in Queensland (1899, 6 x 76.2m Pratt trusses, decommissioned) [QHR 600442]. In 2022, the Burnett Bridge is the longest 19th century steel truss bridge still in use in Australia.[18]

The toll for the Burnett Bridge was officially abolished on 1 January 1913; and the toll collectors’ cottages, built west of the southern approach to the bridge, adjacent to the old punt ferry cutting (still extant in 2022, within Maryborough Street road reserve), were demolished in the 1950s.[19] Control of the bridge was handed from the Burnett Bridge Board to the Department of Main Roads in the early 1960s.[20]

Minor changes to the bridge over time have included the replacement of the gas lamps on the abutments and overhead lattice girders with electric lighting; and alterations to the footway, (narrowed to 1.1m, and cantilevers strengthened, in the 1950s – later widened to 1.8m, with new handrails, in 1989, and resurfaced in the 2000s). During the 1950s, brick walls were added at the abutments, to support the edges of the end troughs and the end cross girders, and inspection tunnels were cut into the side walls of the abutments. To strengthen the bridge, Macalloy tension rods were added to each lower chord, and six longitudinal beams were bolted to the troughs within the roadway. In the 1970s, drainage holes were cut into the bottom of the deck troughs to reduce corrosion; the cross girders were replaced at the piers; and a new support system for carrying cables was devised, to avoid drilling into the truss members. A vehicle guardrail was installed in 1982; the road surface was upgraded and thickened, and a pathway was formed below the southern abutment, in the 1990s. In 2002, the bridge load limit was set at 42.5 tonnes.[21]

Although the Tallon Bridge (road) was built 800m upstream in the 1990s, the Burnett Bridge remains an iconic part of the city's transport system, linking the two sides of Bundaberg across the Burnett River.[22] It is an intact and visually impressive legacy of the engineering design skill of A B Brady

Description

The Burnett Bridge connecting Quay Street, Bundaberg with Perry Street, North Bundaberg, runs roughly south-southeast – north-northwest across the Burnett River, which is approximately 200m wide at this location. The bridge is 412m in length, spanning between concrete abutments at either end. It consists of eight spans of riveted steel trusses, supported by metal and concrete piers. Four of the spans bridge the river and the other four span across the flood plain located on the northern bank of the river. The bridge carries a single lane of traffic in each direction and a footpath on the eastern side of the bridge.

Each span consists of hogback through trusses[23] featuring curved top chords and horizontal bottom chords, of rivetted steel plates, with diagonal lattice members between. The trusses are paired along the lengths of the roadway, their top chords connected by metal braces and lattice struts. The bridge carries a 2-lane roadway supported on metal troughs, filled with concrete and located between the lower chords of the trusses. The footpath has a riveted iron lattice balustrade and is cantilevered along the downstream (east) side of the bridge.

The spans are supported on seven piers. Each pier consists of twin cast-iron columns filled with concrete, featuring a stamped arch detail to their collars. Between the columns is metal bracing forming a circular pattern. There are metal rocker and roller bearings between the piers and the bottoms of the trusses.

The concrete abutments at each end of the bridge have four square columns, a shorter pair at the road ends and a taller pair at the bridge ends; sweeping walls, and classical style decorations in cement render. The shorter columns carry metal gas lamp posts (electric lights have replaced the original gas lamps). There are also two stone plaques on the east side of the southern abutment.

Features of Burnett Bridge also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• piers with pairs of cast metal columns filled with concrete and metal bracing
• riveted metal hogback trusses consisting of curved top chords, flat bottom chords, diagonal tension and compression members, latticed overhead struts and bracing
• bearings between piers and trusses, including cast metal rocker bearings at one end of truss and cast metal roller bearings at the other
• deck consisting of transverse metal trough filled with concrete
• footpath, including cantilevered riveted metal supports, metal lattice balustrade, curved bracing, and posts at each end
• concrete abutments including walls, square columns
• classically styled decorations including: cornice, dentil, ashlar coursing to abutments; capitals and collars to piers with stamped arch detail
• metal lamp posts on abutments (electric lights not original)
• marble plaques (one dedicated to 1900 bridge opening, and one dedicated to 1913 abolition of toll)
• stone retaining walls to road approaches

 Features of Burnett Bridge not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:

• modern strengthening elements including tension rods and bolted cross girders
• modern road surface
• metal plate footpath decking
• concrete footpath and steel fencing under southern end of bridge
• non-original metal guard rails and fences on bridge, abutments and approaches
• service pipes and their support brackets
• electrical cables, supports, fittings, and lamps
• signs

References

[1] A truss bridge’s load-bearing superstructure utilises trusses, which are rigid structures, typically comprising triangular units constructed with straight members whose ends are connected at joints. The top and bottom of the truss are referred to as the top and bottom chords. The members connecting the chords are referred to as the web of the truss. A hogback (or hog-back/hogsback) truss has an outward-curving top chord. A lattice girder consists of a web of latticed metal. Although the top and bottom chords of the trusses of the Burnett Bridge are formed by steel plates, the supporting web is formed by lattice girders. The clear distance between the Burnett Bridge’s abutment faces, 412.2m, is slightly less than the total length of the trusses, as the spans at each end are inset slightly into the abutments’ superstructure.
[2] Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, Cultural Heritage Database and Register, https://culturalheritage.datsip.qld.gov.au/achris/public/public-registry/home (accessed 16 August 2021)
[3] QHR 602852, ‘Branyan Road State School’; H Davies, ‘Wide Bay Burnett Pastoral History’, Environmental Protection Agency, 2007, pp.1-4; ‘Conservation Management Plan, June 2011’, Environmental Resources Management Australia, for Department of Transport and Main Roads, p.6.
[4] Val Donovan, ‘Exploration and Settlement: Conflict in Queensland, an Overview’, Queensland History Journal, Volume 23, 2018, p.584.
[5] ‘Conservation Management Plan, June 2011’, Environmental Resources Management Australia, for Department of Transport and Main Roads, p.6; Department of Resources Survey Plan B1582, 1869 (township of Bundaberg); ‘Lower Burnett River’, Maryborough Chronicle and Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 9 February 1869, p.2 (cotton, maize and sugar cane being grown, sawmill about to commence operation).
[6] QHR 602852, ‘Branyan Road State School’; ‘Burnett Bridge Conservation Management Plan, June 2011’, p.6; H Davies, Thematic Study, ‘Sugar in the Wide Bay Region’, Environmental Protection Agency, 2007, pp.1-4. Central sugar mills were financed by government loans under the Sugar Works Guarantee Act 1893. In 1889 there were 202 cane farmers in Queensland; this rose to 2,610 by 1901. By 1911, over 4300 small farmers had replaced the 140 Queensland plantations that had existed in 1888.
[7] ‘Burnett Bridge Conservation Management Plan, June 2011’, p.8; ‘Maritime Matters’, The Week, 3 November 1888, p.15 (‘Transit’ launched at Maryborough).
[8] ‘Burnett Bridge Conservation Management Plan, June 2011’, pp.7-8; ‘Opening of the Mount Perry Railway’, Maryborough Chronicle and Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 23 May 1884, p.3; ’Bundaberg’, Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 2 May 1885, p.2 (sought combined bridge, or a separate traffic bridge); ’Bundaberg’, Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 29 December 1885, p.2 (traffic bridge or a combined bridge); ‘Bundaberg’, Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, 25 February 1886, p.2 (combined bridge sought, not just a railway bridge); ‘Opening of the Maryborough-Bundaberg line’, Maryborough Chronicle and Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 21 February 1888, p.2.
[9] ‘Burnett River Bridge’, Queenslander, 21 September 1889, p.536 (tender for superstructure and erection of railway bridge accepted, John Johnstone); ‘Local News’, Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 13 June 1891, p.2 (railway bridge had opened, trains now running Maryborough to Mount Perry). The railway from Bundaberg northwards to Gladstone opened in October 1897 (‘Gladstone Railway, Coast Line Extension, Official opening on Saturday’, The Week, 22 October 1897, p.21).
[10] Queensland Government Gazette, 8 November 1889, supplement, pp.843-846; ‘Burnett Bridge Conservation Management Plan, June 2011’, p.9 (Bridge Board established).
[11] ‘Burnett River Bridge’, Queenslander, 1 November 1890, p.847 (Brady’s original plans); ‘Burnett River Bridge’, Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 30 September 1896, p.3 (work delayed by financial crisis, but was time to revive the bridge project); ‘The Burnett River Bridge’, Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, 21 January 1897, p.4 (fresh plans to be prepared). In October 1896, Brady noted that replacing the three concrete piers with iron cylinders would cost an extra £6000 (‘The Burnett Bridge’, Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 28 October 1896, p.2). By early 1898, the plans included seven piers with cast-iron cylinders (‘Burnett River Bridge’, Week, 11 March 1898, p.21).
[12] Paul D. Wilson, 'Brady, Alfred Barton (1856–1932)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/brady-alfred-barton-5334/text9017, published online 1979 (accessed online 5 August 2021); RL Whitmore (Ed), Eminent Queensland Engineers Volume 1, Brisbane, Institution of Engineers, Australia, Queensland Division, 1984, pp.12-13; ‘Burnett Bridge Conservation Management Plan’, pp.18-19. From 1901 to 1919 Brady had responsibility under a Federal-State agreement for the construction and maintenance of Commonwealth buildings in Queensland.
[13] Wilson, 'Brady, Alfred Barton (1856–1932)', Australian Dictionary of Biography (accessed online 5 August 2021); Whitmore, Eminent Queensland Engineers, pp.12-13; C O’Connor, Spanning two centuries: historic bridges of Australia, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1985, pp.178-80; ‘A Bundaberg Function. Opening of the Kennedy Bridge’, The Brisbane Courier, 27 November 1899, p.6 (one 170ft (51.8m) span); ‘Burnett Bridge Conservation Management Plan’, pp.18-19. The 1897 Victoria Bridge (demolished 1969) was shorter than the Burnett Bridge but had two carriageways between its three sets of hogback lattice girder trusses, compared to the Burnett Bridge’s single carriageway and two sets of trusses.
[14] ‘Burnett River Bridge’, The Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 22 December 1897, p.3 (tenders called); ‘Burnett River Bridge’, Week, 11 March 1898, p.21 (tenders called); ‘Queensland News’, The Capricornian, 26 March 1898, p.23 (contract signed, Messrs. McCormack & Sons [sic]); ‘Burnett Bridge Conservation Management Plan, June 2011’, p.9 (work commenced); ‘A Bundaberg Function. Opening of the Kennedy Bridge’, The Brisbane Courier, 27 November 1899, p.6; ‘The Burnett Bridge, opened by Governor’, Queenslander, 1 September 1900, p.512 (contractor had also worked on the Victoria Bridge).  Work on the steel superstructure of the Burnett Bridge was carried out at John McCormick & Son’s West End Bridge Works, in South Brisbane (‘Burnett River Traffic Bridge’, The Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser, 26 October 1898).
[15] ‘Burnett Bridge Conservation Management Plan, June 2011’, p.10.
[16] ‘The Burnett Bridge, opened by Governor’, Queenslander, 1 September 1900, p.512. Lord Lamington noted its similarity to the Victoria Bridge in Brisbane and that Brady had designed both. The superintending engineer at Bundaberg, A J Goldsmith, had also worked on the Victoria Bridge.
[17] ‘The Burnett Bridge, opened by Governor’, Queenslander, 1 September 1900, p.512. The earthwork approaches, pitching, metaling and fences were included in the contract. Casting of cylinders for the piers was sub-let to Messrs. A Sargeant and Company, Brisbane.
[18] Australian Heritage Commission Listing 15986, ‘Burnett Bridge’, in Department of Environment and Science, site file for QHR 600368 (the AHC listing claimed that the Burnett Bridge was the fifth longest when it opened, mentioning the 1862 Moorabool Viaduct in Victoria – but although the total bridge length was 1450ft (442m), the original 10 lattice girder truss spans, of 130ft (39.6m) each (since replaced), only totalled 396m (‘Opening of the railway’, The Star (Ballarat), 12 April 1862, p.5; State Library Victoria, item 1801041, text accompanying c1910 photograph ‘Moorabool Viaduct, Geelong - Ballarat line [picture] / Victorian Railways’)); ‘Hawkesbury River Rail Bridge and Long Island Group’, NSW Heritage Inventory, https://www.hms.heritage.nsw.gov.au/App/Item/ViewItem?itemId=5012052 (accessed 19 August, 2021); ‘Algebuckina Bridge’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebuckina_Bridge (accessed 19 August 2021); QHR 600442 ‘Burdekin River Rail Bridge (former)’. The Burdekin Bridge also had spans of other types of construction, including plate girders and timber trestles (latter have been removed).
[19] Plaque on outer side of east abutment, south end of bridge, (toll abolished); ‘Burnett Bridge Conservation Management Plan, June 2011’, p.10 (cottages demolished). Two cottages are shown between the southern bridge approach and the ferry cutting upstream (cottages’ site a car park in 2021) in an early photograph of the railway and road bridges (Queensland State Archives item 3579858, ‘Glass plate negative – bridges: old Burnett River Bridges, Bundaberg – old Burnett rail bridge’).
[20] ‘Burnett Bridge Conservation Management Plan, June 2011’, p.9.
[21] ‘Burnett Bridge Conservation Management Plan, June 2011’, pp.12-18, 25.
[22] ‘Breakfast on the Bridge to celebrate Bundaberg’s Centenary’, See Central Queensland, https://seecq.wordpress.com/2013/12/06/breakfast-on-the-bridge-to-celebrate-bundabergs-centenary/ (accessed 3 September 2021); ‘Burnett Bridge 120 years old this week’, Bundaberg Now, https://www.bundabergnow.com/2020/08/25/burnett-bridge-120-years-old/ (accessed 3 September 2021); ‘Exhibition Videos’, Arts Bundaberg (A Bridge Through Time: A Brief History of Bundaberg Iconic Bridges – Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads), https://www.artsbundaberg.com.au/galleries/exhibitions/video-vault/a-bridge-through-time (accessed 3 September 2021).

[23] ‘Through’ truss: the roadway passes between the trusses, rather than above them (deck truss).

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