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Disused Railway Bridges over Motorways


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3 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

 

Still, at least the gap is still there in case the line ever reopens or is used as a footpath etc.

Trouble is that there are various housing and other developments built across the formation both there and elsewhere.  Reopening that piece of railway is really an impossibility without major demolitions of business premises, a school, and numerous houses.

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If we're allowed motorway over rail, there's always the M1 in Leeds where it crosses the Middleton Railway that the planners THOUGHT was closed. 'You'll have to close, then, as we're not building a bridge now we've worked out all the levels' said the planners  -  'We'll compromise with a level crossing, then' said the Middleton ........................... and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

 

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On 25/01/2020 at 18:20, jpendle said:

There's the old Bridgewater collieries line over the M61 near just before the A666 junction.

I must've been under that bridge hundreds of times without ever knowing that's what it was.

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On 25/01/2020 at 21:22, figworthy said:

 

I think that the sections have since been scrapped as they were found to be unsuitable.

 

Adrian

I'm not surprised, that turned into a nightmare job to load them, turned out the concrete was far denser than expected and took a lot more pecking out. what was planned to be 4 hours to go a few miles down the road to load them ended up being a 10hour shift for the crews! i had a look round them when we got them back before delivering and they had definately seen better days before the demolition crews did there bit! 

 

Dave

redmire1.JPG

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23 hours ago, chris p bacon said:

Ok this is a slight diversion from the OP's original topic, but what about railway bridges re-used for roads.

 

This was the flyover on the Oxford to Cambridge where is crossed the ECML at Sandy.

s-l1600-35.jpg.c20fe03bf1ed959ad42b2287059500a6.jpg

 

It was originally an LNWR lattice bridge but was rebuilt in the late 50's/early 60's by Dorman long with the strengthened beams you see here.

 

The Ox/Cam closed at the end of 1967 and the bridge was demolished in 1975/6. The story goes that the beams were sold to a scrapman who cut them up on site except the 2 large one's. These were supposedly sold back to BR as they were utilised for the Sandy to Potton road bridge when the bottleneck at Sandy was removed in 1977. Whether the story is true or not I don't know.

New_Bridge.jpg.2e55fcbae66211ef306d693d51429084.jpg

 

Here is the widening in 1977 with the refurbished beams in place.  They had less than 10 years in railway use but have now had 40+ years as road. 

 

As a footnote the new footbridge in the foreground is closed at present while it is repaired and shot blasted meanng passengers for the Up have a 500yd detour via the road bridge.

If you are including old railway bridges used as roads, then Connel Bridge on the Ballachulish branch is a prime example (it was partially used as a road bridge before the branch closed):

 

Connel bridge P1000050s.jpg

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2 hours ago, Mark_A said:

Neither overbridge nor underbridge: as it passes the site of Tiverton Junction the M5 rises on an embankment then down again.

 

The embankment was built, but the Hemyock branch, which passed beneath, closed before the bridge that would have accommodated it was constructed.

 

So, a bridge site, but never a bridge.

That was to serve the creamery at that stage wasnt it, passenger traffic having finished, but the creamery was closed before the M5 opened

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16 hours ago, Coppercap said:

 

Not quite in accordance with the original subject, but still a good one.

Actually, having checked the dates, I was wrong:  that part of the M40 opened, as an isolated section between the present J2 and J4, in March 1969, and the railway closed a little over a year later, on 4 May 1970.

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the bridge that carried the Spen valley line from Cleckheaton to Low Moor. This crosses the M62 i mediately west of Junction 26 (Chain Bar).  I never saw a train on this but ut's last regular yse was Healey Mills to Bradford Exchange parcel vans as far as I know. It now carries the Spen Valley Greenway cycle and footpath.

 

I read somewhere that it carried only around 20 trains before the line was closed.  Wasn't there a plan to have the route over it open as a preserved line when the "Transperience" transport museum was still open?  Before my time of moving to West Yorkshire, but I'm sure my father-in-law mentioned something.

 

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Of course, on the Walsall to Dudley section of what was the same arterial freight route, there are a number of structures bridging the abandoned alignment in the vicinity of Great Bridge, near to Ikea at Darlaston, and south of Dudley tunnel/ Blowers Green.

 

I suspect the line was still just about open when the planning for the Dudley Bypass and the spine road were done; I seem to remember in the Express and Star a mention that the company building the bypass were meant to re-instate the track around Blowers Green (but a lot of the rails were pinched by metal thieves anyway on this stretch).  Being as there was always a plan to reopen either to freight or tram, I reckon they'd have been in a spot of bother if they'd just put a solid concrete wall over the trackbed…  Just a shame it's taken them until now to get on with the tram building.

 

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If we're allowed motorway over rail, there's always the M1 in Leeds where it crosses the Middleton Railway that the planners THOUGHT was closed. 'You'll have to close, then, as we're not building a bridge now we've worked out all the levels' said the planners  -  'We'll compromise with a level crossing, then' said the Middleton ........................... and the rest, as they say, is history

 

I hadn't realised that; the Middleton were lucky to get the tunnel under the motorway!  I gather the planned Oswestry-Gobowen line are having similar problems, I think they've been told they've got to fund a bridge over the dual carriageway (or tunnel under), to replace the slightly ludicrous mothballed level crossing on the outskirts of Oswestry.  The same line has a similar situation with the old ungated tramway-style level crossing on the edge of Llynclys too.  A pity, as it's a very characterful bit of track with an old halt still extant, the line snaking around behind the houses, but I suppose it's a busy road and nobody wants new level crossings these days.

 

A narrow gauge example and not on a motorway, so apologies for the slight thread-drift; the extra arches for the Ffestiniog Railway under the main road out of  Blaenau Ffestiniog (near the old LNWR station).  According to one of the Middleton Press books, they were put in for a proposed (but never built) branch line to the quarries around Llechwedd when the FR extended to the new-build Joint Station in the 80's.  An interesting one, because I heard the railway is looking at the idea again now, being as the zipline place at the old quarry is drawing so many visitors.

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21 minutes ago, Ben B said:

 

I read somewhere that it carried only around 20 trains before the line was closed.  Wasn't there a plan to have the route over it open as a preserved line when the "Transperience" transport museum was still open?  Before my time of moving to West Yorkshire, but I'm sure my father-in-law mentioned something.

 

I hadn't realised that; the Middleton were lucky to get the tunnel under the motorway!  .

 

 

The Spen valley bridge must date from when that section of the M62 was built which was IIRC about 1970.  That section was from J29 at the M1 to Junction 25 Brighouse. Though the J27 stretch to Huddersfield wasn't opened for a while due viaduct problems at Brighouse.  However a work colleague told me in the early 80's that a train went past her house every morning at about 5.30am. The parcel vans were still running to the Interchange in 1985 when I started to work Bradford. Yes Transperience did want to use thd trackbed as a tram track from it's base at Low Moor but it went bankrupt after about a year in, I think, about 1990 and never got the ,ine diwn the valley built. I have since cycled over the bridge many times.

 

The Middleton were fortunste in that they were established by Act of Parliament in 1758.  Apparently  the late Prof Fred Youill turned round to the men from the Ministry and said that the only alernative to a tunnel was for them to build a level crossing. Their faces were apparently  very interesting.

 

A similar situation exists with the Middleton's main line connection.  Though it isn't used at present it still exists as they have a contract signed by the Midland Railway garunteeing it.

 

Jamie

Edited by jamie92208
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1 hour ago, Ben B said:

I suspect the line was still just about open when the planning for the Dudley Bypass and the spine road were done; I seem to remember in the Express and Star a mention that the company building the bypass were meant to re-instate the track around Blowers Green (but a lot of the rails were pinched by metal thieves anyway on this stretch).  Being as there was always a plan to reopen either to freight or tram, I reckon they'd have been in a spot of bother if they'd just put a solid concrete wall over the trackbed…  Just a shame it's taken them until now to get on with the tram building.

I was involved on one of the many tram feasibility studies in about 1997 and I believe Centro had just got the bypass design modified to include a ramp for the tram via central Dudley to join and leave the rail alignment in that area. At the time the section through the tunnel was protected for heavy rail use with the bits towards Merry Hill and Wednesbury being possible tram-train sections.  We did notice how many of the rails had disappeared in the photos of different site visits a few months apart.  

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We also have an example which is the exact opposite of the question asked by the OP.  When I wanted the line from Stoke Gifford to Hallen Marsh restored to double track in the early 1990s one minor stumbling block was the M5 because the line had been singled before the motorway opened.  Thus there was a single track bridge where I wanted a double track railway.  A rather clever chap in the Civil Engineer's dept delved out the original agreement between BR and the 'Ministry of Roads' which was drawn up when the motorway was built and found the excellent little clause that if the line were ever to be re-doubled the cost of a new or additional bridge would be borne by the roads people, and not by BR.  The roads bunch of course objected very strenuously to paying for the bridge but legal advice was called in and a new bowstring girder bridge was built alongside the original concrete bridge - with payment coming off the highway budget.

 

Very interesting, and a canny bit of legal work!  Shame the same provision for costs doesn't apply to the line to Wrexham, which I've gathered cannot be doubled because a single-track tunnel under the road was built when they did the road?

 

I got told a (possible conspiracy) theory last year by a photographer in the Borders, when we were discussing the Waverley Route, that the M6 north of Carlisle was specifically built flat over the trackbed of the route -with no provision for a bridge- on Department for Transport instructions, to block any possible 'easy' reopening.

 

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2 hours ago, Ben B said:

 

 

I got told a (possible conspiracy) theory last year by a photographer in the Borders, when we were discussing the Waverley Route, that the M6 north of Carlisle was specifically built flat over the trackbed of the route -with no provision for a bridge- on Department for Transport instructions, to block any possible 'easy' reopening.

 

 

That does indeed ring very true, as several photographs of the 'slash and burn' nature of the A74/ M6 'early works' contract scope ably testify.

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6 hours ago, MidlandRed said:

If we're allowed under-bridges, the M6 crosses the formation of the Littleton Colliery branch near Penkridge (just north of J12).

 

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4257889

 

The 'Salt Line,' now a footpath at Hassall Green, south of Sandbach services is another prime example, in this case resembling the arrangement mentioned up-thread at Lilbourne on the M1.

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On 26/01/2020 at 23:13, 4069 said:

For a really short life, look no further than the M40 bridge over the Maidenhead - High Wycombe line, which closed before the motorway opened:

 

W55024~NC1879.jpg

 

 

Now that's a fascinating picture - I always assumed (wrongly, obviously) that the line was severed by the motorway construction, causing the closure

 

Not on a motorway, but how about the bridge over the A498 just outside Beddgelert - built for the original alignment of the Porthmadog, Beddgelert and South Snowdon Railway which was to have featured electrification. When the scheme was revived by the Welsh Highland after WW1, they bypassed the original bridge, which has now stood for over 100 years, and never used

 

 

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3 hours ago, D1059 said:

Not on a motorway, but how about the bridge over the A498 just outside Beddgelert - built for the original alignment of the Porthmadog, Beddgelert and South Snowdon Railway which was to have featured electrification. When the scheme was revived by the Welsh Highland after WW1, they bypassed the original bridge, which has now stood for over 100 years, and never used

 

Not to mention the stone work in the adjacent field; two bridge abutments which never had the embankments either side built up, let alone the bridge arch, and just stand as rather pristine tall walls.

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4 hours ago, D1059 said:

 

 

Now that's a fascinating picture - I always assumed (wrongly, obviously) that the line was severed by the motorway construction, causing the closure

 

Not on a motorway, but how about the bridge over the A498 just outside Beddgelert - built for the original alignment of the Porthmadog, Beddgelert and South Snowdon Railway which was to have featured electrification. When the scheme was revived by the Welsh Highland after WW1, they bypassed the original bridge, which has now stood for over 100 years, and never used

 

 

 

Likewise, although now demolished, a bridge built by the Manchester and Milford Railway next to the 'Blue Bell' pub at Llangurig lasted into this century despite (as far as I know) never seeing a revenue train. It was of course part of the aborted line from Llanidloes via Devil's Bridge to Strata Florida (and hence over the built M&M to Carmarthen).

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There is also the famous viaduct at Tadcaster built for an aborted line to make a faster route between Leeds and York. It was connected to the network to serve a quarry but never carried the intended through trains. It is now disused.

 

Jamie

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2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

There is also the famous viaduct at Tadcaster built for an aborted line to make a faster route between Leeds and York. It was connected to the network to serve a quarry but never carried the intended through trains. It is now disused.

 

Jamie

 

I think it got pressed back into service for foot traffic when the road bridge was badly damaged by the floods a few years back.

 

Adrian

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As a slight aside the former Dee marsh to mickle Trafford line as a new bridge over the A494 near queensferry which replaced the former road over rail bridge near ‘drome corner’ at the entrance to the RAF camp 

 

the old bridge was a 4 lane dual carriageway but was practically a hump back bridge with no visibility beyond it until you were at the top of it, add to that a set of traffic lights a mile or so up the road at shotwick and it being the main road out of north wales in the summer there was always incidents there with cars coming over the bridge at 60+ mph to find stationary traffic the other side so it was decided to remove the bridge and widen the road etc

 

as the former trackbed is now a cycle path they needed to put a bridge in over the new road layout road however the bridge they had to put in needed to be strong enough to carry a railway again should the line ever reopen (as is I believe the case with sustrains cycle paths) hence why the new bridge is such a substantial feature (and is quite a nice welcome into wales too) 

 

Dragon Bridge
Deeside CH5 2LT
https://goo.gl/maps/VnYXY1Vwrt8R9LXR8
 

3369B330-2461-42A8-9C54-C9F7E4BE9F82.png.6a783502e363f2ea46498116a4f05103.png

 

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