| Pontifex Bridge | |
|---|---|
| 220px|link=Bridge_side.png|thumb|center | |
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Carries |
Roadway, rail track |
|
Crosses |
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Total length |
338 meters |
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Designer/Builder |
|
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Opened |
19 May 2014 |
Pontifex Bridge or Bridge of the Pontifex is a girder bridge designed and built by Molster, with help from tudor. It crosses the Baldic Sea and connects Unterganger City to the northern region (includes villages such as Niggersville).
The bridge consists of 8 long spans, a short span and 10 supports; and measures 4 meters wide and 338 meters long in total, with a height of 4 meters above the sea level. It carries a road for pedestrian and riders, with the North Line on both sides, one for each direction. Usage of the roadway is tolled, with booths on the northern side for both directions; the fare is one emerald.
The bridge replaces the unnamed bridge and underwater glass tunnel built by MTM that carried the North Line across the sea.
"Pontifex" is Latin for "bridge builder". The bridge thus is a homage to its builders (namely Molster and tudor) as well as all other bridge builders in history.
History[]
The first bridge to cross the sea to the north was built by MTM in the same location. It was a 2m wide railway bridge for the RT North Line that connects directly to an underwater glass tunnel; the two meet in the middle of the water some distance from the shoreline. Both the bridge and tunnel are unnamed.
With the release of the weekly snapshots for the upcoming Minecraft version 1.8 in early 2014, Molster planned to upgrade the tiny floating bridge with a better design, taking advantage of the upcoming /clone command to build whole sections of the bridge. A template of the new bridge, consisting of 2 spans, was built by Molster beside the existing one on the northern shore. As of the completion of the current girder bridge (19 May 2014), 1.8 is still in development.
Around mid-May 2014, Molster had another plan in mind - to provide a roadway bridge on the place of the railway-only bridge then in its place. Molster went for a girder bridge design, a design widely used in colonial Malaya especially for rail bridges e.g. the Guillemard Bridge. After granted permission by MTM, the old bridge was dismantled and the new bridge was built in its place. Partway through construction tudor helped Molster in building the spans, as the latter was having intervals of client-side game lag. The bridge was finished on 19 May 2014.
The North Line track was doubled on 25 June, now occupying both sides of the bridge. This was done to alleviate risks of minecart collision at the cost of reducing available roadway space to just 2m wide.
In September 2015, a new underwater rail tunnel for the North Line was added below the bridge by RDPIsOnCrack, in order to alleviate the issues caused by a bridge at max rail capacity, and to link the North Line to the Baldaqua branch line. Another line is expected to be added to the bridge later on.
Trivia[]
- Some earlier suggestions for the name of the bridge include Myro (for Malaysia-Romania) and Molster-Tudor-Victor (MTV).
- Each span is 41 meters wide.
- Originally Molster planned to build a shuttle rail line to transport players as well as the mob they're riding from both ends of the bridge. There is little room on the present bridge for another track, so the plan was scrapped.
- Part of Molster's reason for the rebuilding of this bridge is his lamentation of how many of the bridges across the server world lack architectural taste, and the uncomfortably low height from the water level (or even blocking watercourses entirely).
- In retrospective, Molster likened the bridge to the Guillemard Bridge located at the Malaysian state of Kelantan.
Gallery[]
