Rail Bridge 40 LTN1 - Grove Road, London, UK
N 51° 31.659 W 000° 02.228
30U E 705515 N 5712666
The rail bridge carries four sets of electrified tracks across Grove Road in east London. The tracks pass from Bethnal Green to Stratford.
Waymark Code: WMPJCB
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 09/07/2015
Views: 3
The co-ordinates given are for a point on the south east side of the bridge. There are footpaths that pass beneath the bridge on either side of the road allowing photographs to be taken safely and from a number of different angles.
There are notices attached to the bridge that advise:
In case of emergency
If you witness a vehicle striking
this railway bridge
please contact Railtrack using
Telephone No: 020 7247 1292
and state
Bridge strike: at Grove Road
Bridge No: 40 LTN1
Immediately afterwards inform
the Police using 999 system
The Flying Bombs & Rockets website tells us that the first V1 rocket to hit London, during the Second World War, hit this bridge:
The people of London had become used to bombing and hardened to its horrors during the Blitz of 1940-41. Since then,bombing had become much more sporadic. There were some heavy hit and run raids in 1943 and in February 1944 there were a series of attacks which caused further damage and death in London. These are known as the mini blitz.They were not on the scale of the main 1940-41 Blitz but still caused further death,suffering and material damage.
After D day there was great relief and an expectation that the war would be over very quickly There had been rumours for some time about Hitler's secret weapons but these were taken as a joke and civilians did not believe that there was a serious threat.
It was a cold, damp, grey summer and the days following the Normandy landings were marked by the severest summer storms that anyone could remember. The greyness of the summer accentuated the mood. Fatigue after five long years of war, deprivation, rationing and suffering. Londoners were desperate for the war to be over but had no idea that they would shortly be in the front line again. They thought that their part of the war at the home front was finished.
On the night of the 13th June 1944 Londoners heard a strange sound in the sky. The sound was later described as sounding like a motorbike without a silencer or a badly maintained steam train going up hill. Some also saw, what they thought was a burning enemy aircraft crossing the sky with a sword of flame emanating from its tail. Others knew that this was the first of the Vengeance weapons code named "Diver " by British Intelligence. For a year Bomber command had been engaged in a campaign to destroy the V1 launch sites in Northern France. This met with a great deal of success and had delayed the launch of the first missile by about 6 months. This was at the cost of the lives of 2000 allied airmen.
The first V1 dived to the ground and exploded in Grove Road,London E4 at 04.25 on the morning of 13th June 1944. It hit the railway bridge which carries the Great Eastern Railway across Grove Road, from Liverpool street to Essex and East Anglia. The bridge was badly damaged, as was the railway track. A number of houses were demolished and six people were killed. London had its first taste of what a V1 could do. he Grove Road V1 was one of five launched that night which were probably a range finding exercise by the Germans. After that nothing much happened for about 48 hours as the next wave of the attack was prepared.
A blue plaque has been installed on the northern side of the bridge to mark the event.
