On Spanner the following question was asked:

On page 29 of the MECCANO SUPER MODELS BOOK there is an article about a model of the Barendrecht Lift Bridge built in the mid 1930's by a Belgian boy called Marcel De Wilde, whose staggering Meccano skills clearly matched the size of his staggering Meccano outfit!

Does anyone know if the subsequent life of this boy is known, and if the real life bridge is still in existence?

There's hardly any information available on the internet about this bridge.
After a night of googling I found only the pictures presented here (see below).

The first bridge was build during 1885 - 1888. (photos BB 01 and 02)
One part of the first bridge was build on a turntable and provided ample space for passing ships in those days.
The lifting part was added in 1930- 1932 (photos BB 03, 04 and 05).

A record from August 1889 shows that from 04:00 - 22:00 hours (the bridge was closed at night) the bridge was used by:

3528 foot passengers
1426 horses
694 carriages on 2 wheels
543 carriages on 4 wheels

In 1927 the crossing fee (toll) was no longer required.

In May 1940 in the first days of WW2 in Holland this bridge (and many other Dutch bridges) was fiercely defended by the Dutch troops but to no avail as German troops were more powerful.
After the bombing of Rotterdam all military activities ceased and the bridge came (almost) undamaged in German hands. An allied bomb destroyed the engine room on 9-9-1944 but as far as known, that was the only war damage.

Due to the increase of traffic it was decided to build a tunnel (Heinenoord Tunnel).

(Photos 06 traffic que mid 60-ies , 07 and 08 a view on the bridge) The bridge closed for all traffic on 22-07-1969.
A first part of the bridge was lifted on a barge and transported to a scrap yard on 24-07-1969. A second part followed the same path in the last week of July 1969.
In the winter of 1970 the piers were demolished.

All that remains now is one piece of the original construction, erected at the location of the old bridge (photo 09).

I could not find any trace about the Belgian boy called Marcel De Wilde.

The information and the photos on this page were "nicked" from various Dutch web pages. I will update the credits in due course.

The pictures with the "gridding" are probably scanned from newspaper(s) hence the poor quality.

BB 01.jpg	BB 02.jpg	BB 03.jpg
BB 04.jpg	BB 05.jpg	BB 06.jpg
BB 07.jpg	BB 08.jpg	BB 09.jpg