How well do you know your bridges?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

How many of these bridges can you identify?   

Please choose which you feel is the ONE most obscure and tell us about it.
Sample answer - "I can identify 8.   Number 17 is Tucking Mill Viaduct which has a public right of way across it"

1. It has 21 arches, stands 30 metres tall and featured in four ‘Harry Potter’ books.

2. Tolls were collected for foot and cycle traffic up to 2013 but this has been voluntary since 2017.

3. The largest viaduct in Britain to be constructed of concrete blocks and has created a single track crossing approximately 800 ft long and 120ft high.

4. It opened in 1874 for a single track; in 1879 its width was doubled for a second track.  It is a scheduled monument, and is one of only two surviving railway bridges in the United Kingdom that use wrought iron lattice piers to support wrought iron trusses.

5. The viaduct consists of 16 spans of wrought iron, lattice truss girders, carried on 15 wrought iron piers which are not fixed to the ground but are supported by brick and ashlar bases.

6. While it was being constructed, the innovative low-rise arches of the structure attracted considerable criticism and controversy surrounding their alleged lack of stability; as a result, the centring for the arches was left in place until its destruction during a heavy storm in late 1839, yet the arches stayed up.

7. It has been claimed that it was officially opened by Queen Victoria on 6 August 1850, but she was reportedly so frightened of its height that she refused to travel across it and left the train, using a horse-drawn carriage to travel the length of the bridge on the ground.

8. The current bridge dates from 1902–3 prior to the doubling of the track. In a typical year, it is opened 1,300 times.

9. The bridge was designed by the chief engineer of the London and North Western Railway. It opened on 2 March 1863. It carries two tracks and consists of five 120 foot lattice girder arches set on stone piers.

10. Electrified with the (750 V DC^▸ (Direct Current)) third rail system and electric services commenced on 28 February 1926. Early electric services were worked by early Southern Railway 3-car Electric Multiple Unit trains often built from old SECR carriages.

11. The headroom is 10ft (3.1m) - not enough room for a coach, let alone a double-decker bus, but that doesn't stop drivers trying the impossible.  Now officially the country's most dangerous bridge, it was hit by over 130 vehicles in the 1990s alone.  A figure that includes one double-decker on 15 October, 1996 which Railtrack deliberately rammed into the structure at 40 mph to publicise the danger of this bridge in particular and low bridges in general.

12. Its unique design consists of two 455-foot lenticular iron trusses 100 feet above the water, with conventional plate-girder approach spans.

13. This extremely unusual type of plate girder bridge, which features very tall girders that have overhead bracing, forming a giant hollow tube of riveted iron. Several examples were built, however this is the only remaining example. It also was one of the first examples built.

14. It is still in use, being the oldest railway bridge in continuous use in the world. It is a Grade I listed building.

15. Carries a river across a railway line above a station, which was opened in December 1868.

[PrestburyRoad]

I think I can identify six of them: 2, 3, 6, 12, 13 and 15.  In addition I think I've seen some of the others in the excellent TV series 'The architecture the railways built', but I don't remember their names.

As for a feature of an obscure one, if 15 is Sloane Square on the London Underground, I believe it is the only station on the 'surface' lines (as opposed to the deep tubes) that has an escalator for access to the platforms.  Not that I've ever used the station, though I've passed through it many times - and wondered to myself who would ever  go to Sloane-land - presumably the 'Sloanes', of which I'm not one, though I did meet one at work in the 1990s.

[Witham Bobby]

I can identify four of them (I think)

I think six is the bridge over The Thames at Maidenhead

[grahame]

I woke this morning (4 hours behind you - 07:00 as I write from the Bermuda Triangle) worried I had made the mechanism of this quiz too complex by having a double-barrelled question.    Proud of both respondents so far that they have understood me, and correctly identified Maidenhead and Sloan Square too.

Now time here on "Ventura" for the heavy work of choosing and eating breakfast.

[bradshaw]

Think I can get four or five, No3 is Calstock Viaduct built when the line was extended from Bere Alston to Calstock and on to link with the East Cornwall Mineral Railway which ran from the quarries in the Callington area to Calstock Quay, reaching the latter by an incline.
When the viaduct was built it had a wagon lift down to the quay to service the lines of the East Cornwall Mineral Railway at the quay.

[bobm]

Without doing an internet search I can identify five of them.

No 1 is Glenfinnan Viaduct.  It is the photo on my desktop and my wall.

[TonyN]

No2 Barmouth bridge

[Mark A]

People might already know the top of that incline. Even after many years disuse, it's still the most evocative of incline tops. Google Streetview has it well.

Mark

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.5048515,-4.2219709,3a,75y,151.91h,84.14t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sI32ERVqwSB4Bb3jfZ9t8eQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DI32ERVqwSB4Bb3jfZ9t8eQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D96.07306%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192

[grahame]

So we have ...

1 - Glenfinnan - BobM
2 - Barmouth - TonyN
3 - Calstock - bradshaw
6 - Maidenhead - Witham Bobby
15 - Sloane Square - PrestburyRoad

[ChrisB]

As for a feature of an obscure one, if 15 is Sloane Square on the London Underground, I believe it is the only station on the 'surface' lines (as opposed to the deep tubes) that has an escalator for access to the platforms.  Not that I've ever used the station, though I've passed through it many times - and wondered to myself who would ever  go to Sloane-land - presumably the 'Sloanes', of which I'm not one, though I did meet one at work in the 1990s.

Anyone attending a concert or gig at Cadogan Hall

[eightonedee]

14 - Tanfield Arch?

(Sorry - amend to say to complete the required answer - before I read the answers above I think I knew were 1, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13 & 14. I think the Tanfield Arch is the most obscure simply because it receives remarkably little publicity for an important structure)

[Oxonhutch]

13 is the Conway Bridge in North Wales and the views of the nearby castle from it are terrible. The Menai Bridge was similar but longer, and taller and comprising more tubes, but that was burned down in 1970.

[Kempis]

Anyone attending a concert or gig at Cadogan Hall

Or a play at the Royal Court.

[bobm]

I’ll name 11 if no one else does once restrictions are lifted. 

[Merthyr Imp]

I think I can put a name to seven of them but may not all be correct.

I thought at first no. 4 was Bennerley Viaduct with the description and the mention of it being a scheduled monument, but I wasn't aware of it having originally being single track.

In fact, I think no. 5 is Bennerley Viaduct.