Light Support System

Roof repair scaffolding in Waverley station, Edinburgh. I commented on this a couple of days ago so only fair to share. The bright sunshine highlighted the scaffold and I bumped into another snapper trying to get a good angle.

Apparently this station renovation costs £130m, fitting the new glass roof being a fair chunk of that. So, eh... why don't they just clean the glass roof we've got? "Some of the panels are cracked," a friend pointed out. Well, we could replace those ones I suppose. And are they going to clean the new roof? Hmm?

AAaaaanyway, Network Rail's current message, "Replacement of the 34,000m2 station roof with clear, strengthened glass to shed new light on the station concourse and platforms," is not necessarily all to do with aesthetics it seems. A couple of years ago The Scotsman newspaper reported:

Stronger Waverley roof will save public from bridge jumpers ... after a 'near miss' involving a man who jumped to his death from a bridge above.

You couldn't make it up! =)
But this gets better, read on...

British Transport Police said it was only through luck that other people who had jumped from the bridge in the past had not fallen into the station.

Chief Superintendent Martyn Ripley, the force's Scotland area commander, said: "My fear is that someone is going to be killed. Four people have jumped (from North Bridge] this year, and one narrowly missed some passengers.

"We do not want someone else to die as a result of this."

Laugh? I nearly died.

Here's a decent picture of North Bridge and Waverley which illustrates why people might jump here.

Imagine the mess though. As I said before, I really hope they clean the new roof...