Manchester And Leeds Railway Bridge – Middleton, UK - Railroad Bridges on Waymarking.com

The bridge stands next to lock 58 on the Rochdale Canal. The railway gave improved communications and freight carrying capacity and ultimately led to the canal's demise as a working canal, although it was reopened in 2002 for use by leisure boaters..

The Rochdale canal, which opened in 1804 is 32 miles long and connects Manchester on the west side of the Pennine Hills and Sowerby Bridge on the east side. Although revolutionary in its day, the necessity of crossing the Pennines meant that there was a total of 92 locks in its relatively short length.

The railway was longer than the canal but ran largely parallel with it, but crosses the canal a number of times. Very close to this bridge the railway has just crossed the canal and is therefore at a higher level than the farm access road. The road itself has just crossed a small road bridge at the end of the lock.

This Wikipedia page has details of the line, but this extract is a short summary. "The line climbed out of Manchester with an average gradient of 1 in 260 (0.38%) until it arrived at the summit and a 2,860 yards (2,620 m) long tunnel at Littleborough. From there it descended towards Normanton. The rails were of 15 feet (4.6 m) lengths laid at a gauge of 4 ft 9 in (1,448 mm) with a mixture of stone blocks and, on the embankments, wooden sleepers. The locomotives were provided by local manufacturers, six-wheeled Stephenson pattern. Carriages were all four wheeled. The average weight of a train would be about 18 tons, with an average speed of about 25 MPH (40 km/h), reaching approx. 42 MPH (67.6 km/h) downhill."

The railway line and this bridge are still in use and these days it forms part of the Caldervale Line.

Bridge Type: Arch Bridge Usage: Railroad Moving Bridge: This bridge is static (has no moving pieces)

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