Stringers Railway Bridge Over Macclesfield Canal - Congleton, UK
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 53° 10.954 W 002° 09.655
30U E 556072 N 5892909
This brick built double arch railway bridge carries the Manchester to Stoke-on-Trent branch of the West Coast Main Line over the Macclesfield Canal between Congleton and Macclesfield.
Waymark Code: WMR08N
Location: North West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 04/22/2016
Views: 8
The Macclesfield Canal
The Macclesfield Canal was one of the last narrow canals to be built, indeed, it was very nearly built as a railway! A variety of ideas were proposed and the present canal was approved by Act of Parliament in April 1826. The route of the canal was surveyed by Thomas Telford and construction was engineered by William Crosley. The completed canal was opened on 9th November 1831 at a cost of £320,000.
The route takes the canal from Marple Junction with the Peak Forest Canal in the north 26¼ miles to the stop lock at Hall Green near Kidsgrove passing along the side of the most westerly Pennine hills through High Lane, Higher Poynton, Bollington, Macclesfield and Congleton, all in Cheshire, and Kidsgrove in Staffordshire in the south. Nowadays we normally regard the last 1½ miles to Harding's Wood Junction with the Trent & Mersey Canal as a part of the Macclesfield Canal although it was built as a branch of the T&MC.
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The Rail Line
The line from Stoke to Congleton was opened on 9 October 1848, with Congleton station opening on the same day and owned by the North Staffordshire Railway.
The North Staffordshire Railway (NSR) was a British railway company formed in 1845 to promote a number of lines in the Staffordshire Potteries and surrounding areas in Staffordshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire and Shropshire.
The company was based in Stoke-on-Trent and was nicknamed The Knotty; its lines were built to the standard gauge of 4 ft 8 1/2 in (1,435 mm). The main routes were constructed between 1846 and 1852 and ran from Macclesfield to Norton Bridge, just north of Stafford, and from Crewe to Egginton Junction, west of Derby.
These days the bridge carries Northern rail trains between Manchester and Stoke-on-Trent and Aviva Cross Country Trains between Manchester and Bournemouth.
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