It was big, bright green and not exactly pretty, but everyone wearing not so sensible shoes to Albury’s Gold Cup Festival loved it.
Affectionately dubbed ‘Kermit’ by AlburyCity staff, a shipping container – cum–bridge was an ingenious and cost effective way of improving pedestrian safety at Albury’s Gold Cup – the Melbourne Cup of the bush.
As Australia’s biggest and fastest growing country race meeting, the Gold Cup has won New South Wales’ Country Racing’s Meeting of the Year award and is even giving the Darwin Cup a run for its money in terms of crowd figures.
It took two cranes to hoist the bright green container into place over the top of a stormwater drain, ensuring that people travelling by bus to the Gold Cup arrived safely and in style.
Kermit kept racegoers disembarking at the bus stop high and dry as they headed over the drain and along a path to the main entrance.
“In providing safe access to the Cup, we had to work out a cost effective way of getting people safely across the stormwater drain and into the racecourse,” said Council’s Civil Services Team Leader, Lindsay Pearson.
“The shipping container was a significantly cheaper alternative to a bridge, and after the event we can move it, so there’s scope for it to be reused elsewhere.”
