The Pyrmont Bridge in Sydney is an iconic bridge. It was first made of wood and included an iron centre swing span. This
was dismantled and replaced by the current bridge back in 1902 which took three years to complete
(Darling Harbour, 2014)
. The bridge was the brainchild of Percy Allen and it was one of the widest swing span bridges in the world. Because
of its size, the swing had to be powered by electricity and this was a pioneering achievement. So much so that it was recognised
as a National Engineering Landmark.
To mark this historic bridge, the Royal Australian Mint decided to commemorate it by including it in the capital bridges
collection. The collection was to focus on five historic bridges in particular; The Tom Diver Derrick VC Bridge in Adelaide,
the Pyrmont Bridge in Sydney, the Princes Bridge in Melbourne, the Story Bridge in Brisbane and the Narrows Bridge in Perth.
The artist chosen for the series was Ben Hutchings. The Sydney version shows the Pyrmont Bridge with its control tower which
operates the bridge along with the
legend
PYRMONT BRIDGE ONE DOLLAR. The obverse of the coin shows an effigy
of HM Queen Elizabeth II, right-facing and crowned. It contains the
legend
ELIZABETH II AUSTRALIA 2011. Each of these coins was struck in sterling silver and this particular
uncirculated coin had a limited
mintage
of just two thousand. The bridge spans Darling Harbour and links Pyrmont village to Cockle Bay and remains the world's
oldest surviving electrically operated swingspan bridge. By 1980, another route had been found for vehicles and the bridge
was closed to traffic and made exclusively for pedestrians. It is estimated that five million pedestrians cross the bridge
each year
(Darling Harbour, 2014)
. Before the turn of the century, the Sydney monorail was incorporated and this was another resounding engineering
success. The monorail was designed to enable it to be operated even when the swing bridge was open.
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