In article ,
Paul Scott wrote:

"Paul Scott" wrote in message
...


It also looks very similar to the structure which used to take the
railway from West Wylam to Scotswood, at Hagg Bank- that dates from the
mid 19th century, I believe. A search for photos of 'Wylam' and 'Peter
Robinson' should throw something up, as he seems to have taken hundreds
there.
Brian

A good source for NE structural images is 'Sine':

http://sine.ncl.ac.uk/view_image.asp...al_doc_id=4525

Paul S
The railway bridge at Wearmouth, Sunderland also shows as a bowstring. In
fact some research using google reveals that a vast number of arched bridges
are 'bowstring' i.e. the ends are tied. The Tyne Bridge (road) is recorded
as a bowstring arch - modelled on the West Wylam Railway bridge just up the
river...

And, as has been remarked earlier in the thread, the High Level Bridge in
Newcastle (which pre-dates all of these examples) is a multi-span
tied-arch bridge, albeit with the the rail deck carried on the tops of the
arches. The High Level opened in September 1849:

http://www.cycle-routes.org/hadrians...ings/high.html

Another bowstring railway bridge (erroneously claimed to be the oldest
wrought-iron railway bridge - the High Level is wrought iron) opened a
month later over the Thames at Windsor:

http://www.thamesweb.co.uk/windsor/w.../bridges2.html

In reality, these weren't going to be the first examples of tied arches
in railway use: the tied arch was first described in the early 17th
century (1617, in fact, by Veranscics[1]) and it is surely unrealistic to
expect that such a useful and economical type of bridge wouldn't have been
used for waggonways (in wooden form).

Robert Stephenson certainly used an iron tied-arch bridge in 1833 at Long
Buckby on the London and Birmingham railway[2] - so it's safe to say that
the TfL claim that the new ELR bridge is the first bowstring bridge to
carry a railway in .uk is but flagrant flapdoodle and blatant bosh.

[1] http://www.icomos.org/studies/bridges.htm
[2] http://www.robertstephensontrust.com/time.htm

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