Longbird Bridge, which links the Main Island to St. George?s, will reopen for marine traffic today after feverish repairs since Sunday appeared to have worked on the troubled machine.

Government electrical and mechanical engineers and workmen replaced a sensor plate on the eastern end ? which allows the bridge to close and support traffic.

The sensor plate fell off on Sunday morning and a temporary fix was worked out to allow traffic over it within an hour. A Government spokeswoman said last night: ?We completed repairs on Monday just after 5 p.m. At 6.30 p.m. we had a few trial swings. At 6.55 p.m. Longbird Bridge was put back in service. Harbour Radio has been notified.?

It will operate at its normal schedule ? opening on the hour and half-hour to mariners ? starting at 8 a.m. today.

Explaining the origin of the problem Works and Engineering structural engineer George Peck said: ?The plate operates on an electronic detector. For whatever reason that fell off.?

Without the sensor, a computer did not trigger wedges that support the traffic in place.

When Works and Engineering staff arrived at the bridge Sunday, they manually held the plate in position, the wedges fell into place.

Workers on the bridge yesterday said they had replaced the sensor plate.

Installed by the US military shortly after the Second World War and maintained by the US until the late 1990s, Longbird Bridge is past its original predicted life, with a comprehensive rebuild by the Ministry in 2000 and 2001 giving it an estimated six years of extra use.

But the pounding Hurricane Fabian gave it on the afternoon of September 5, 2003 damaged hydraulics and computers which had been installed to replace 50-year-old technology of electronic motors and gearboxes. With the bridge reaching the end of its useful life next year, Government are in the process of undertaking a functional review of the entire Causeway crossing, including Longbird Bridge.

?The aim, according to Ministry officials, is to develop a plan to upgrade or replace the existing Causeway which will result in providing a long-term solution to the current problems being experienced,? a Ministry spokeswoman said yesterday.

Mr. Peck explained: ?An inspection was carried out by our consultant who said the bridge had reached the end of its useful life. In 2000 we did a major rehabilitation on the bridge to extend its life by six years with the view to replacing it after six years or thereabouts.

There were no major problems with the bridge for seven months until it would not close on Sunday morning.

An employee of Blue Hole Water Sports said he had to take four visitors of the Grotto Bay hotel to the airport in his Boston Whaler on Sunday, but otherwise his business had not been affected.