QE2 Final Time in Scotland - October 7, 2008

  October 7, 2008, QE2 anchored off Queensferry, Scotland.  This would be her final port call in Scotland and the last time the flag of Scotland would be flown from her foremast.

Here we see two icons of Scottish engineering, the QE2, built in Clydebank, Scotland, and the Forth Rail Bridge.  The Forth Rail Bridge opened for service in 1890 and was the largest cantilever bridge in existence until 1917, while it remains the second largest to this day.  This engineering feat had it's history in a previous rail bridge disaster, the Tay Bridge, designed by Thomas Bouch, who was also working on a design for a bridge to span the Firth of Forth.  After the Tay Bridge famously failed, sending a complete train into a stormy sea with massive loss of life, the designer was fired and the design for the Forth Rail Bridge scrapped. 

The Glasgow based company of Sir William Arrol and Company was hired to redesign the bridge.  The result is a massively overbuilt structure built entirely of steel, the first of its kind.  Sir William Arrol and Company are also famous for designing and building the Titan Crane, which was used to build the three great Queens as well as other famous ships such as the H.M.S. Hood.

Touching the hull for the last time.

QE2 as viewed from the tender.

Getting ready to leave.

Forth Rail Bridge at sunset from the bit beneath the bridge of QE2.