50 Fun Facts About Sydney Harbour Bridge

At the 1932 opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, an uninvited horseman slashed the ribbon using what?

A sword did the job, swung by a man in military uniform who rode up before the premier could use the official scissors. He was arrested on the spot and the ribbon was hurriedly retied.

Which Australian comedian and film star worked as a rigger on the Sydney Harbour Bridge before finding fame?

Paul Hogan was still on the bridge crew when he talked his way onto the TV talent show New Faces in 1971, more than a decade before Crocodile Dundee made him a film star.

After the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened in 1932, which pair of baby names surged in popularity?

Archie and Bridget both jumped that year, a nod to the arch and the bridge from parents swept up in the excitement of the opening.

Nine-year-old Lennie Gwyther travelled 1,000 kilometres alone to see the Sydney Harbour Bridge open, riding what?

A pony named Ginger Mick carried Lennie all the way from rural Victoria, and thousands of cheering Sydneysiders turned out to greet the pair when they arrived.

The four granite-faced pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge were added to the design mainly for what?

Appearance was the whole point: the pylons bear none of the arch's load and were added to ease public worry about whether the bridge was strong enough.

Before the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened, engineers tested its strength by parking 96 of what on it?

Steam locomotives were lined up end to end across all four rail tracks, and after three weeks of testing the bridge was declared safe to open.

What can make the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge's steel arch rise by up to 18 centimetres?

Hot weather makes the steel expand, pushing the summit of the arch above its usual 134 metres over the water.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge's arch shape earned it which everyday nickname among Sydneysiders?

The Coathanger is the affectionate local name for a bridge that took eight years to build and carries trains as well as road traffic.

Since 1998, tourists clipped to a safety line have been allowed to do what on the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

Climb the arch to its summit: when BridgeClimb launched, it was the first tourism operator anywhere in the world to offer a bridge climb.

Which Sydney fairground now stands where workshops fabricated the steel for the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

Luna Park opened in 1935 on the cleared workshop site, with its signature entrance face set between two Art Deco towers.

Which Irish-born furniture maker upstaged the premier at the 1932 opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

Francis de Groot was fined the maximum five pounds for offensive behaviour, then sued the police for wrongful arrest and settled out of court for damages worth far more.

Which New South Wales premier, nicknamed the Big Fella, officially opened the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932?

Jack Lang insisted on opening the bridge himself rather than leaving it to the Governor, the King's representative, who dismissed him from office less than two months later.

Which vehicles crossed the Sydney Harbour Bridge on their own tracks until 1958, when road lanes replaced them?

Electric trams ran along the eastern side into their own underground terminus at the city end, which was later converted into parking for a hotel.

Which word, a tribute to pavement chalker Arthur Stace, lit up the Sydney Harbour Bridge to welcome 2000?

Eternity was the one-word sermon Stace chalked on Sydney footpaths for 35 years in flowing copperplate, an estimated 500,000 times in all.

Which event of the Sydney 2000 Olympics took its competitors across the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

The marathon started in North Sydney and crossed the bridge on its way to the stadium, while giant Olympic rings hung from the arch throughout the Games.

About 250,000 people walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in May 2000 to support what cause?

Reconciliation with Indigenous Australians was the cause, and the walkers streamed from the northern end to the southern end for nearly six hours.

For a 2009 picnic for 6,000 people, what was laid across all eight lanes of the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

Rolls of turf turned the roadway into a lawn for Breakfast on the Bridge, with live music for the picnickers. The event returned the following year.

Walkers cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge on its eastern side; who has sole use of the western path?

Cyclists have the western path to themselves, with the railway tracks running between them and the lanes of road traffic.

Which world-famous building stands on Bennelong Point, a short walk east of the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

The Opera House was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1973, four decades after the bridge, and the pair together make up the best-known view of Australia.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge's general design was modelled on which New York bridge over the East River?

Hell Gate is a railway arch that the Sydney project's chief engineer surveyed in person while he was working out how to cross the harbour.

Which British engineering firm won the contract to design and build the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1924?

Dorman Long of Middlesbrough won with an arch design that was cheaper than the rival cantilever and suspension proposals, and stiffer under the heavy loads expected.

A smaller lookalike of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, by the same builders, opened in 1928 over which English river?

The Tyne crossing at Newcastle opened four years before its Australian cousin, and it was there that the firm first tried building an arch outwards from each bank on cables.

The golden scissors that opened the Sydney Harbour Bridge had first opened a bridge in which New Jersey city?

Bayonne opened its arch four months before Sydney's, with a main span 25 feet longer. After the Australian ceremony the two scissor blades were separated and one was sent back.

What is the official name of the natural harbour that the Sydney Harbour Bridge crosses?

Port Jackson is the proper name for the whole inlet of the Tasman Sea, taking in Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and two rivers.

The southern end of the Sydney Harbour Bridge lands in which historic convict-era quarter of Sydney?

The Rocks, settled soon after the colony began in 1788, lost many of its homes in the 1920s to clear the way for the bridge's southern approach.

Southbound trains leaving the Sydney Harbour Bridge run straight into which underground city station?

Wynyard opened in February 1932, timed to coincide with the bridge, and Milsons Point is the first stop on the far shore.

During the Second World War, what did the military install on the pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

Anti-aircraft guns and parapets were added in 1942, and the tourist lookout stayed shut while the military held all four towers.

From 1948, the Sydney Harbour Bridge's lookout pylon had a rooftop attraction housing which animals?

White cats lived in a rooftop cattery kept by Yvonne Rentoul, who ran the pylon's exhibition and souvenir shop until her lease ran out in 1971.

Roughly how many hand-driven rivets, each heated until it glowed red, hold the Sydney Harbour Bridge together?

6 million rivets hold it together, the largest of them weighing 3.5 kilograms. Structural welding was not yet developed enough to be trusted on a job this size.

The highway across the Sydney Harbour Bridge is named after which engineer, known as the father of the bridge?

John Bradfield became the project's chief engineer in 1914, and the bridge was only one part of his grand scheme, which also put an underground railway loop beneath central Sydney.

The horseman who cut the Sydney Harbour Bridge's ribbon early belonged to which paramilitary group?

The New Guard loathed the Labor premier, and its members resented that no one from the royal family had been asked to open the bridge.

Who became the first members of the public to cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge by rail, a day early and by mistake?

Two clergymen boarded a test train by accident and were found too late to be put off, beating the 632 passengers who paid a premium fare on opening day.

Which nickname did the Sydney Harbour Bridge earn for keeping so many workers employed through the Depression?

The Iron Lung kept many workers in a job when work was scarce, but it was dangerous employment: sixteen men died during construction.

Which French wire-walker crossed between two Sydney Harbour Bridge pylons a year before his Twin Towers walk?

Philippe Petit made his unauthorised Sydney crossing in 1973, two years after pulling off the same stunt between the towers of Notre-Dame in Paris.

Which Australian driver took a Williams Formula One car across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 2005?

Mark Webber had just joined Williams for the 2005 season, the year he scored his first podium finish, at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Which country's Port Mann Bridge ended the Sydney Harbour Bridge's 80-year reign as the widest long-span bridge?

Canada took the record in 2012 with a 65-metre-wide crossing near Vancouver, beating Sydney's 49 metres. San Francisco's Bay Bridge claimed the title a year later.

The granite facing the Sydney Harbour Bridge's pylons was quarried near which New South Wales south-coast town?

Moruya, 300 kilometres south of Sydney, housed some 250 stonemasons and their families, and three vessels were built specially to carry the cut blocks north.

What name was given to the giant machines that inched along each half-arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

Creeper cranes crept outwards as each half of the arch grew, met in the middle in August 1930, then worked back down so the deck could be hung from the centre.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge's own debt was cleared in 1988, but its toll stayed to help fund what?

A road tunnel under the harbour opened in August 1992 to take the pressure off the bridge, which could no longer cope with the traffic of the 1980s.

Which form of transport lost more than half its passengers when the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened in 1932?

Ferries saw their yearly passenger count fall by more than half once the bridge opened, and the biggest vessels on the main cross-harbour run were made redundant.

The chief engineer behind Sydney's great harbour crossing later designed which Brisbane landmark, opened in 1940?

Story Bridge is the longest cantilever bridge in Australia, and the road across it carries the same name as the highway over Sydney's arch.

Since 2022, what has flown permanently above the Sydney Harbour Bridge alongside Australia's national ensign?

The Aboriginal flag had flown there on only nineteen days a year until then. It took the pole of the state flag, which was promised a new home on Macquarie Street.

Robots nicknamed Rosie and Sandy were put to work on the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 2013 doing which job?

Blasting off old paint by robot was meant to keep workers clear of lead, asbestos and grit jets strong enough to cut through clothes and skin.

When the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened, a car paid sixpence to cross; which traveller paid threepence?

A horse and rider crossed for half the car rate. Six toll booths at the southern end collected the coins until sixteen replaced them in 1950.

In March 2023, more than 50,000 people marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to close which global festival?

WorldPride was being held in the Southern Hemisphere for the first time, and the walk over the bridge came on the final day of the festival.

Which sports venue, opened in 1936 beside the Sydney Harbour Bridge, has seen 86 world records set?

A swimming pool, the North Sydney Olympic Pool, went up on land the bridge builders had used for workshops, and it hosted the 1938 Empire Games.

Which woman, officially just a secretary, managed the worldwide tenders for the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

Kathleen Butler was the first person appointed to the project team, and in 1924 she travelled to London to supervise the work from inside the winning company's offices.

Which fireworks effect debuted on the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1986 and has returned at many New Year's Eves?

The waterfall made its debut at a review marking 75 years of the Royal Australian Navy, alongside a salute to the navy spelled out in fireworks on the bridge.

Which Scottish architect designed the granite-faced pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

Thomas Tait also designed the Art Deco headquarters of the Scottish Government on Calton Hill in Edinburgh.

Which cricketer gave Lennie Gwyther a signed bat after the boy rode 1,000 km to see the Sydney Harbour Bridge open?

Don Bradman met the nine-year-old at the Sydney Cricket Ground two days after the opening. On his way north the boy had already taken tea with the prime minister.