The Scott Russell Aqueduct is an aqueduct carrying the

Union Canal Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

over the

Edinburgh City Bypass The Edinburgh City Bypass, designated as A720, is one of the most important trunk roads in Scotland. Circling around the south of Edinburgh, as the equivalent of a ring road for the coastal city, it links together the A1 towards north-east Eng ...

, west of

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

History

The aqueduct was opened in May 1987 to carry the canal over the new Edinburgh City Bypass. This required a great deal of faith in the future of the canal, which culminated with the Millennium Link project when the Union Canal was connected with the

Forth and Clyde Canal The Forth and Clyde Canal is a canal opened in 1790, crossing central Scotland; it provided a route for the seagoing vessels of the day between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde at the narrowest part of the Scottish Lowlands. This allowe ...

to form a coast to coast link. One proposal had been to not build an aqueduct to carry the canal across the new road, but instead build a marina to the west of the bypass. It was named after the Scottish naval engineer

John Scott Russell John Scott Russell FRSE FRS FRSA (9 May 1808, Parkhead, Glasgow – 8 June 1882, Ventnor, Isle of Wight) was a Scottish civil engineer, naval architect and shipbuilder who built '' Great Eastern'' in collaboration with Isambard Kingdom Brune ...

in a ceremony on 12 July 1995, who had discovered the

soliton In mathematics and physics, a soliton or solitary wave is a self-reinforcing wave packet that maintains its shape while it propagates at a constant velocity. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medi ...

or solitary wave near Bridge 11 on the Union Canal in 1834. Russell had observed a bow wave continue to travel forward at a speed of when a boat stopped moving, and called it the "

wave of translation John Scott Russell FRSE FRS FRSA (9 May 1808, Parkhead, Glasgow – 8 June 1882, Ventnor, Isle of Wight) was a Scottish civil engineer, naval architect and shipbuilder who built '' Great Eastern'' in collaboration with Isambard Kingdom Brunel. ...

Design

The aqueduct is the width of a single canal boat, and crosses the Bypass at a slight angle. It has five spans supported on three piers.

References

External links

{{commons category Navigable aqueducts in Scotland Bridges in Edinburgh Bridges completed in 1987 1987 establishments in Scotland