2009 Auckland Harbour Bridge 50th Anniversary
|
|
Cat. |
Mint Unhinged |
Fine Used |
50c |
Auckland Harbour Bridge Pedestrian Open Day / May 1959 |
673a |
$0.90 |
|
$0.85 |
|
$1 |
Auckland Harbour Bridge at Dusk / Our Bridge 2009 |
673b |
$1.80 |
|
$1.70 |
|
$1.50 |
Auckland Harbour Bridge Original Girder Structure / Our Icon 1961 |
673c |
$2.70 |
|
$2.55 |
|
$2 |
Auckland Harbour Bridge Traffic at Night / Our Link 2009 |
673d |
$3.60 |
|
$3.40 |
|
|
|
|
Set of 4 |
673e |
$8.55 |
|
$8.10 |
|
|
|
50c |
Auckland Harbour Bridge Pedestrian Open Day / May 1959 (Self Adhesive) |
673f |
$0.90 |
|
$0.90 |
|
|
|
|
First Day Cover - 1 May 2009 |
673g |
|
|
$10.80 |
|
|
… Four Stamps : 50c (673a), $1 (673b), $1.50 (673c), $2 (673d) |
The Auckland Harbour Bridge is an eight-lane box truss
motorway bridge over the Waitemata Harbour, joining Saint Mary's Bay in
Auckland with Northcote in North Shore City. The bridge is part of State
Highway 1 and is the second-longest road bridge in New Zealand. The main
span is 43 meters above high tide to allow ships free access to the
deepwater wharf at the Chelsea Sugar Refinery.
In the 1950s when
bridge plans were finally realised, North Shore was still a very rural area
with barely 50,000 people living there. Opening up the area unlocked the
potential for further expansion of Auckland.
Based on the
recommendations of the design team and the report of the 1946 Royal
Commission, the bridge should have had five or six traffic lanes with the
extra lanes intended to be reversed in direction in peak traffic, along
with footpaths on both sides of the bridge. However, these features were
dropped before construction started for cost reasons and the then
government opted for a four lane bridge without footpaths.
The
bridge took four years to build - with large steel girder sections
partially pre-assembled and then floated into place on construction barges.
One of the main spans was almost lost during stormy weather when the barge
began to drift, but the steam engine tugboat William C Daldy eventually won
a 36-hour tug-of-war against the high winds, consuming 40 tons of coal
during the battle.
The bridge was completed three weeks ahead of
schedule and was officially opened on the 30th of May 1959 by the
Governor-General Lord Cobham. The 50 cent stamp shows an open day held in
the week prior to opening where 106,000 people walked the length of the
bridge.
By 1965 the rapid expansion of suburbs on the North Shore
had increased annual use to around 10 million vehicles - three times the
original forecast level and work began on adding two-lane box girder
sections to each side of the bridge. Completed in 1969, the sections were
manufactured by Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries of Japan and were
nicknamed the 'Nippon clip-ons' - attributed to anti-Japanese
sentiment 20 years after the end of the Second World War. Not surprisingly,
the costs of the additions were considerably higher than had the bridge
been designed and built with the extra lanes from the start.
The
Auckland Harbour Bridge has also appeared on stamps in the 1994 Emerging Years - The 1950s
and 2009 Year of the Ox issues.
The
50 cent self adhesive stamp was produced solely for the New Zealand
Transport Association and was only available to the public through New
Zealand Post Stamps and Collectables.
Bibliography
The Postage Stamps of New Zealand Volume X
Edited by B.G. Vincent FRPSNZ
Published 2013 by The Royal Philatelic Society of New Zealand Incorporated (ISBN 978-0-9876534-3-7)
If you have any questions or comments please contact us - we'd love to hear from
you.
This page was last updated on 15 Oct 2024
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