Abandoned Midland Railway Bridge On River Don Navigation - Masbrough, UK
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 53° 25.598 W 001° 22.403
30U E 608079 N 5920963
This bridge carried a short length of track between two railway lines until the 1980s.
Waymark Code: WMT0FX
Location: Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 09/03/2016
Views: 1
The River Don Navigation
"The River Don Navigation was the result of early efforts to make the River Don in South Yorkshire, England, navigable between Fishlake and Sheffield. The Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden had re-routed the mouth of the river in 1626, to improve drainage, and the new works included provision for navigation, but the scheme did not solve the problem of flooding, and the Dutch River was cut in 1635 to link the new channel to Goole. The first Act of Parliament to improve navigation on the river was obtained in 1726, by a group of Cutlers based in Sheffield; the Corporation of Doncaster obtained an Act in the following year for improvements to the lower river. Locks and lock cuts were built, and, by 1751, the river was navigable to Tinsley.
The network was expanded by the opening of the Stainforth and Keadby Canal in 1802."
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The Bridge
There are two railway bridges close together here that cross the Stainforth and Keadby Canal part of the overall River Don Navigation.
"This bridge is the western one of two railway bridges and was built in 1869, but the line it carried was truncated by the building of the Holmes Chord in the 1980s, and it is now unused. The eastern of the two bridges was built in 1840 as part of the North Midland Railway. This carried the "main line" from Derby to York until the diversion via Bradway and Sheffield was opened in 1870. The line is now freight-only."
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The railway line on this bridge carried a curved stretch of track connecting the North Midland Railway on the bridge just to the west of here and the Sheffield to Rotherham line on the north bank of the navigation.
The tracks have been removed from the bridge.