Swaithe Viaduct - Swaithe, UK
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 53° 31.742 W 001° 26.267
30U E 603551 N 5932258
This tall girder bridge carries the Hallam Railway Line over the former Worsbrough Branch Railway line and the River Dove.
Waymark Code: WMZ91Y
Location: Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 10/02/2018
Views: 0
"The Hallam Line is a railway connecting Leeds and Sheffield via Castleford in the West Yorkshire Metro area of northern England. It is a slower route from Leeds to Sheffield than the Wakefield line. Services on this line are operated by Northern. Services from Leeds to Nottingham also use the line..."
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This section of the line opened in 1854.
The viaduct is supported on brick columns and originally only spanned the River Dove and its wide valley but in 1880 the Worsbrough Branch line of the Grand Central railway opened that ran along the valley floor, underneath Swaith Viaduct.
"The Great Central Railway's Worsborough (or Worsbrough) Branch was a goods only branch running from West Silkstone Junction on the Penistone to Barnsley line to Wombwell Main Junction on the South Yorkshire Railway. A number of coal mines were served along the route, but principally it was a bypass route to relieve congestion at Barnsley and there were no intermediate stations. The line was an engineering nightmare. There were two tunnels -- Silkstone No. 1, 289 yards and Silkstone No. 2, 74 yards -- and the grades were quite horrendous. The 7-mile Worsborough Bank included a 3-mile section at an average grade of 1 in 40. With the mining subsidence that took place over the years the grade was in places even worse, making this the steepest incline on a main line in Britain. The line opened to traffic on 2 August 1880. It was electrified as part of the Manchester to Sheffield and Wath electrification of the 1950s, but closed with the rest of that system in the 1981."
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The route of the Worsbrough Line is now a rails to trails route and forms part of both the Dove Valley Trail and the Trans Pennine Trail.