Forth Bridge painting to finish ahead of schedule

London: For more than 100 years "painting the Forth Bridge" has been a metaphor for a never-ending task. But now the phrase is about to be consigned to the linguistic dustbin.

A £74-million (Dh429 million), 10-year project to apply a new coating to the Forth Bridge to prevent the 8,300ft structure from rusting, will end soon, a year ahead of schedule. And it will not need another coat for 40 years.

The bridge was opened on March 4, 1890, and as soon as painting squads reached one end, it was time to start at the other again.

Carrying the East Coast main line across the Forth between North and South Queensferry, the bridge is used by as many as 200 trains a day.

Balfour Beatty, the engineering company, has been restoring the structure since 2002, blasting the 51,000 tonnes of steelwork to bare metal before applying a tough coating used on oil rigs.