Mabey Bridge installed in Brisbane to honour Royal Australian Engineers of the First World War

Mabey Bridge, an Acrow Group company specialising in modular steel bridging, is pleased to note one of its bridges was recently installed in Anzac Park, Toowong, Brisbane, as a monument to Royal Australian Engineer (RAE) units that served in the First World War. The bridge was dedicated at a ceremony on Remembrance Day, 11 November 2022.

The RAE was formed in 1902 to provide combat engineering, construction and other technical support to the Australian Defence Force and its allies, and since then, has been involved in numerous global combat and peacekeeping operations. During WWI, the corps played a critical role in the Allied offensive at the pivotal Battle of Amiens in France in 1918. To honour the great contributions of the corps at Amiens and across all theatres of the war, the 1^st Field Squadron Group RAE Association undertook the project to build the monument on the RAE’s 120^th anniversary.

The choice of a modular steel bridge for the project was particularly appropriate as building and maintaining roads and bridges are among the key roles of the RAE. The bridge selected for the Anzac Park installation was provided by Mabey Bridge, which has a long and established engineering heritage with the original Bailey Bridge. First used by military engineers in the Second World War, the interchangeable steel components of the Bailey Bridge were easily and quickly assembled and disassembled, and rugged enough to support the heaviest tanks.

The many attributes of the original design make modular steel bridges suitable to numerous permanent and temporary applications, and with successive improvements, they are still used extensively around the world. Mabey Bridge was an early manufacturer of the original Bailey Bridge, and has designed and developed stronger and lighter innovations using more modern materials and technologies to enable quicker, safer and more efficient access across a range of the most challenging locations.

The Toowong monument project was completed by 19 Sappers of the 2^nd Combat Engineer Regiment based in Brisbane, Australia. Their task was to build the Mabey bridge using the minimum amount of mechanical handling equipment as possible. The Sappers built the 5 Bay 15.24m bridge in less than six hours without the assistance of a single piece of mechanical equipment.

Callum Skeat, Military Business Development Manager for Mabey Bridge, said, "It was an honour to be a part of this wonderful initiative to acknowledge the exceptional history of the Royal Australian Engineers. Mabey Bridge has a long history of delivering durable modular steel bridging solutions to military and civilian partners worldwide, and successfully addressing the most unique challenges of each project.”

The 2.1m wide footbridge features customized Smartedge™ safety infill panels with laser-cut graphics of Engineer Cap Badge Grenades, kangaroos and an inscription which states: “The Bridge of Friendship between Australia and France: Dedicated to every Australian Army engineer unit involved in World War One”.