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 eastern one of two railway bridges and 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 North Midland Railway was a British railway company, which opened its line from Derby to Rotherham (Masbrough) and Leeds in 1840...
...The East Midlands had for some years been at the centre of plans to link the major cities throughout the country.
In Yorkshire, George Hudson was the Chairman of the York and North Midland Railway, a proposed line from York towards the industrial markets of Manchester and Liverpool. The new line would connect it, and the Manchester and Leeds Railway as part of a trunk route from the South and London to Yorkshire and the North East of England. Meanwhile, financiers in Birmingham, were looking to expand their system northwards.
George Carr Glyn was the first Chairman of the new company, with George Stephenson appointed as engineer. George Stephenson surveyed the line in 1835 with his secretary, Charles Binns. It would be 72 miles (116 km) long, meeting the York and North Midland, at Normanton, and also the projected Manchester and Leeds Railway. It received Parliamentary Assent in 1836, and was completed to Masborough on 11 May 1840, and to Leeds on 1 July.
He decided the line would follow the river valleys from Derby to Leeds, with minimal gradients and large radii curves. It therefore bypassed Sheffield, but met the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway at Masborough...
...In 1870 the Midland Railway opened a diversion through Dronfield and Sheffield, which became known to railwaymen as the "New Road", as opposed to the "Old Road". It followed a route which, in 1840, would have been uneconomic to build and difficult to work...
...All passenger services north from Chesterfield now serve Sheffield. The section north from Beighton Junction to Rotherham Masborough (the "Old Road") has been freight only since July 1954, although it is very occasionally used as a diversionary route and by excursions not calling at Sheffield. It serves as a bypass line which keeps freight trains away from the congested lines through central Sheffield."
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The bridge was originally a stone arch bridge but at some point was widened with a girder construction.