Built in 1868 to connect the towns of Widnes and Runcorn across the river Mersey, the bridge is still in operation on the same line today but has seen a great deal of change around it. The invention of the car led to the construction of the Widnes transporter bridge in 1905 (seen behind the railway bridge in the top photo) which proved to be inadequate for increasing traffic, and by 1961 was demolished and replaced by the Runcorn bridge (in the foreground) which again could not cope with the ever growing flow of traffic in and out of Liverpool, and was later extended and reopened as the Silver Jubilee Bridge. The bridge now carries 80,000 vehicles a day which is more than triple its intended capacity. Due for completion this time next year, a much wider bridge, the Mersey Gateway, is being built a mile down the river that will eventually ( theoretically ) solve the problem once and for all.