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Forth Rail Bridge under renovation (photo by lyng883 CC-BY)

A famous idiom in the UK is liking a task to ‘painting the Forth Rail Bridge’, meaning “If repairing or improving something is like painting the Forth Bridge, it takes such a long time that by the time you have finished doing it, you have to start again.” Cambridge Book of Idioms

Its origin is from the belief that the Forth Railway Bridge, an impressive piece of Victorian bridge building crossing the Firth of Forth in Scotland, requires continuous repainting of its steel girders. It is said that the painters having started at one end and upon reaching the other end, have to start all over again at the other end.

But is this true? No, not exactly. In the past it did require constant maintenance, repairs and repainting as and when parts of the steel fabric became badly corroded.

However, this is changing, Railtrack, the owners of the bridge, are currently investing $74 million in a project to completely renovate the bridge. The old paint is being stripped off, repairs carried out to the steel, and a new paint similar to that used in the off-shore oil industry is being applied, still with its distinctive “Forth Bridge red” colour. The photograph above shows the work currently underway.

The project should be completed in 2012 and the new paint should last at least 25 years.

Bridge facts:
The bridge was built between 1882 and 1890 to take the Edinburgh to Dundee railway line. Three cantilevers with viaducts at each end making a length of 1.5 miles. Built in steel to withstand stresses. Cost just over £3 million pounds. Ingredients: 740000 cubic foot of granite, 48,000 cubic yards of stone, 64,300 cubic yards concrete, 54160 tons of steel and 6.5 million rivets, 145 acres of steel surface, 57 lives lost during its construction.

Its design is admired across the world, although William Morris detested it describing it as “the supremest specimen of all ugliness.”

Update: December 2011

The paint job is complete! If all goes well, only spot repairs will now be needed until 2036.