Old railway bridge, Staverton, Northamptonshire - East Midlands, UK - Railroad Bridges on Waymarking.com

The 'London Extension' of the renamed Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway was opened in 1899 and was built to a slightly more generous loading gauge than the other 'Stephenson Gauge' lines in the country in anticipation of a connection to the continent through a Channel Tunnel and was the brainchild of Sir Edward Watkin.

The new line, some 92 miles (147 km) in length, was opened for coal traffic on 25 July 1898; for passenger traffic on 15 March 1899, and for goods traffic on 11 April 1899; (from Wikipedia). It was designed for high-speed running throughout and ran from Annesley in Nottinghamshire to join the existing Metropolitan Railway (MetR) Extension at Quainton Road, then on to return to GCR metals at near Finchley Road for the final section to Marylebone. Passenger trains on this section of the line, Aylesbury to Rugby, were completely stopped on 3 September 1966.

This viaduct carried the line across the River Leam valley in western Northamptonshire not far from the village of Staverton, and is some 155m long, 11m high, and 5m wide. Nowhere was the line's gradient greater than 1:175 and the curves were of large radius, which allowed for faster sustained running but resulted in expensive works to tunnel and bridge obstacles which would otherwise have been skirted by sharper curves and steeper gradients.

Bridge Type: Arch Bridge Usage: Abandoned/Not Active Moving Bridge: Not listed

Visit Instructions:
Please provide a photo taken at the time of visit.

Recent Visits/Logs:

There are no logs for this waymark yet.