It’s my first blog entry for a couple of weeks I think, but I’ve been acquiring digital material like a loony. A forthcoming meeting on 31st August requires that the cameras be relinquished, so the blog will change character after that in some ways, although there are plenty of unfinished projects left to edit.
Anyway….
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the famous Victorian engineer designed this unique railway bridge, completed in the year of his death 1859.
The bridge spans the river Tamar, which marks the border for crossing from England into Cornwall. This is the point where the rain usually starts, but not always of course. Sometimes it begins in Devon. Here’s a short movie clip from that part of the journey.
The harbour and village on the Cornish side is Saltash. Try to ignore the upstart 1960s road suspension bridge, it’s the double span compression arches which carry the Great Western Railway.
Andy Roberts is a writer who initiated DARnet. Contact me on aroberts@gmail.com or @aroberts on twitter
I love to see this Victorian ‘battleship engineering’. Totally over the top, but these guys didn’t have standards and regulations to work to. They found the limits when things fell down!
Brunel and the Great Western Railway is a name synonymous with Swindon. We have a statue dedicated to him and a shopping centre named after him (though I’m not sure the latter is a worthy dedication!) I think he designed the Clifton Suspension bridge too didn’t he?
My father, grandfather, and great grandfather all worked on the GWR, either in Swindon or London, which is how we came to live in Swindon when I was a teenager.
In 1835 the Great Western railway built a station in Swindon and later chose to build its locomotive works in the town. By 1846 it had produced the Great Western locomotive designed by Daniel Gooch.
Interestingly the locomotive works are now a designer shopping outlet, but it retains some of the equipment used within the works, even the ‘Caerphilly Castle’ locomotive is housed there. Adjacent to the outlet centre, is the Steam Museum, (website at http://www.steam-museum.org.uk/ ) which is a fascinating insight into the world of GWR (God’s wonderful railway’ as it was known by many people fortunate enough to be employed there at the time! A good place to visit if you’re ever lucky enough to be passing Swindon
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Yes, the Clifton Suspension bridge was Brunel’s, together with the Thames Tunnel, Paddington Station, The Great Eastern, and loads of viaducts and bridges. I spotted the railway museum at Swindon as I passed on teh way to Cardiff last week. It is even said that Brunel invented ‘the bar’ as a faster method of serving beverages to railway customers, because the only method known before would have been waiting at tables.
Wikipedia entry
wow-I sailed under this two weeks ago!! It seemed like our mast wasn’t going to fit under it but it did!
Some mast!
The railway is 110 feet above high water, and the Tamar at Saltash is 1,100 feet wide and about 70 feet deep.
The outstanding features of the bridge are its large dimensions, coupled with the economical character of the design and the form of superstructure; while the method by which the foundations of the piers were secured and the girders erected was unique.
read more here…