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Old November 3rd 04, 09:32 PM posted to uk.transport.london,uk.railway
Clive D. W. Feather Clive D. W. Feather is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Jul 2003
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Default What is the oldest object or construction in the world...

In article , Mark Brader
writes
I believe that includes the only ever railway swing bridge.

Nope.


Indeed, far far far from "only".

The Oxford Companion to British Railway History says:

# Opening bridges were built across some navigable waterways,
# allowing shipping to pass. They were usually swing bridges,
# like Thowse Bridge, Norwich (one of the earliest),


Trowse (note spelling) is still in use, and has a 25kV overhead power
rail.

Selby over
# the Yorkshire Ouse,


That's still there as well, though it's no longer on the ECML. At one
time the tracks had four rails each, so that the point blades could be
on the same side of the bridge as the rest of the interlocking, even
though the divergence was on the other side.

[There have been swing bridges where the signal wire "pull" actually got
transmitted across the bridge to a signal on the far side. A neat
mechanical solution.]

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