The Original Railway Bridge

The original railway bridge, demolished in the 1960’s, was a multi span steel bridge with a swinging centre section supported on a pier in the centre of the river. No drawings or other technical data relating to this structure are available but a number of photographs of the original bridge are included below.


Original Railway Bridge from the South	Original Railway Bridge from the South

The Piers

From the photographs, the pier foundations appear to be large diameter steel or cast iron tubes, generally protected by timber piles. Remains of some of the tubes are visible in front of the West abutment. The extent of the remains of the other piers is unknown.


Remains of Pier Foundations (West Bank)	Original Bridge from the North

Abutments

The abutments were not demolished with the rest of the bridge and remain. They appear to be constructed from engineering brick, however, it is typical of these types of structures to be brick faced reinforced or mass concrete.


West Abutment	East Abutment

Generally, the existing abutments are in poor condition, suffering from the following defects:

i)    Vertical cracks from the top of the abutments running down along the brick joints, indicating settlement on foundations or expansion problems.

ii)    Weathering of mortar beds resulting in loss of mortar in some places. Some patches of re-pointing are evident.

iii)    On the west abutment there are areas which have been rebuilt in different types brickwork. This indicates signs of earlier masonry problems.

iv)    Large trees and vegetation have overgrown particularly on the west abutment. These could potentially undermine the foundation.

v)    At the top of the west abutment there is a surface water manhole that runs through the abutment structure and outlets at the river bank. This may need to be diverted away from the abutment.

These abutments may be incorporated into any proposed new structure, worked around or partially or completely removed. If the existing abutments are covered so as to make future maintenance impossible, the new structure must be capable of retaining the embankment fill.