King Edward VII Bridge
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The King Edward VII Bridge is a railway bridge spanning the River Tyne between
Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...
and Gateshead, in North East England. It is a Grade II listed structure. The King Edward VII bridge has been described as “Britain’s last great railway bridge”. The bridge was designed and engineered by Charles A. Harrison, the Chief Civil Engineer of the North Eastern Railway, and built by the
Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company was a UK bridge works and structural steel contractor based in Darlington. It built landmarks including the Victoria Falls Bridge in Zimbabwe; the Tees Transporter Bridge; the Forth Road and Humber suspe ...
in Darlington. The bridge consists of four lattice steel spans resting on concrete piers. The total length of the bridge is and above high water mark. The total cost was over £500,000. The bridge was opened by
King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...
and
Queen Alexandra Alexandra of Denmark (Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia; 1 December 1844 – 20 November 1925) was List of British royal consorts, Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from 22 January 1901 t ...
on 10 July 1906, despite being still unfinished at this time. General traffic began using the bridge on 1 October 1906. Prior to its completion, to reach
Newcastle railway station Newcastle Central Station (also known simply as Newcastle and locally as Central Station) is a major railway station in Newcastle upon Tyne. It is located on the East Coast Main Line, around north of . It is the primary national rail station ...
, trains used the older High Level Bridge and had to leave the station in the same direction they entered by reversing. The construction of the King Edward VII Bridge provided four more railway tracks and a direct line through the station, enabling trains to arrive or depart from either side, greatly easing congestion.


History


Background

During 1849, the High Level Bridge, an elaborate twin-deck railway and road bridge built near the centre of
Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...
to allow traffic to cross the River Tyne, was officially opened by
Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...
. Once the bridge was completed, trains could reach the recently-built
Newcastle railway station Newcastle Central Station (also known simply as Newcastle and locally as Central Station) is a major railway station in Newcastle upon Tyne. It is located on the East Coast Main Line, around north of . It is the primary national rail station ...
. However, this arrangement was not ideal in practice as, in order to depart the station back across the High Level Bridge, trains had to reverse out of the station, a relatively tedious process. During the following 50 years, Britain's railway network and the number of passengers had expanded greatly. By the 1890s, the sheer amount of traffic crossing the High Level Bridge, roughly 800 train and light engine movements every day, had become a major concern of the NER, who operated services across it. It had become clear to many that the construction of a second railway bridge over the Tyne was now desperately needed to take the pressure off the High Level Bridge. Options considered included the building of a new bridge between Dunston and Elswick, or between Heaton and Pelaw, as well as the widening of the existing High Level Bridge to carrying six tracks instead of four. By 1898, the company had settled on its preferred option of building an additional bridge on the present site; during that year, plans for the proposed bridge were revealed to the public in the '' Evening Chronicle''. On 9 August 1899, the updated North Eastern Railway Act, which included the construction of another railway bridge over the Tyne among its provisions, received
royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in oth ...
."King Edward VII Rail Bridge."
''engineering-timelines.com'', Retrieved: 21 May 2018.
In its original proposed form, the new bridge followed a functional design developed by Charles Augustus Harrison, chief engineer of the NER. Harrison was the nephew of Thomas Elliot Harrison who, together with the pioneering railway engineer
Robert Stephenson Robert Stephenson FRS HFRSE FRSA DCL (16 October 1803 – 12 October 1859) was an English civil engineer and designer of locomotives. The only son of George Stephenson, the "Father of Railways", he built on the achievements of his father ...
, had previously produced plans for the existing High Level Bridge. The early design of the bridge called for the river to be crossed by two spans, supported by girder lattices, that would join up with several land approach arches; however, it had to be redesigned when the presence of abandoned coal workings were discovered at both ends of the intended bridge. The revised design remained a lattice girder bridge that carried four railway tracks, but featured a total of four spans over the River Tyne. These spans were supported by five
sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...
piers, which were decorated with pairs of cutaway arches, three of which are in the river itself. The northern approach featured a total of ten arches, which were used to house
workshop Beginning with the Industrial Revolution era, a workshop may be a room, rooms or building which provides both the area and tools (or machinery) that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods. Workshops were the on ...
s.


Construction

On 13 February 1902, the contract for the bridge's construction was awarded to the Darlington-based
Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company was a UK bridge works and structural steel contractor based in Darlington. It built landmarks including the Victoria Falls Bridge in Zimbabwe; the Tees Transporter Bridge; the Forth Road and Humber suspe ...
; the programme was internally financed entirely by the NER. Excluding land purchases, it cost roughly £500,000 to construct, which has been estimated as being around £55 million in 2016 prices. On 29 July 1902, work on digging out the foundations for the structure commenced at the Newcastle end. The foundations under the three large river piers were laid by
divers Diver or divers may refer to: *Diving (sport), the sport of performing acrobatics while jumping or falling into water *Practitioner of underwater diving, including: **scuba diving, **freediving, **surface-supplied diving, **saturation diving, a ...
working in caissons (large, watertight chambers) underwater in compressed air. This was known to be dangerous work even for the time; as such, no one under the age of 40 could be employed in this capacity and each man spent just four hours per shift in the caissons. Nevertheless, one man is recorded as having died, and another as having become seriously ill, that had been attributed to the effects of working in the compressed air conditions. Other workers became ill as a result of breathing in sulphuretted
hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic ...
, which seeped from the coal seams that the foundations were dug into. Rock was excavated from inside the caissons by blasting; the workers took refuge in an air-locked chamber in the access shaft while charges were being detonated. Once excavation work was finished, the caissons were filled with roughly 28,450 tonnes of concrete and piers constructed on top of them. Each pier, composed of
sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...
and
granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...
masonry Masonry is the building of structures from individual units, which are often laid in and bound together by mortar; the term ''masonry'' can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are bricks, building ...
, was built in a triple-shaft arrangement, being for the side-shafts and for the central shaft. Once the piers were finished, the spans were assembled in situ on
timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, w ...
trestles ATLAS-I (Air Force Weapons Lab Transmission-Line Aircraft Simulator), better known as Trestle, was a unique electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generation and testing apparatus built between 1972 and 1980 during the Cold War at Sandia National Labora ...
. Those spans that were above the river were erected one at a time; during this process, half of the river's width would be closed to traffic for safety reasons. The bridge deck consists of steel lattice girders of the double Warren truss type, being deep overall at spacing. The deck itself is wide, while the total weight of the steel work is estimated to be around 5,820 tonnes. Perhaps one of the more notable facilities used in the construction of the bridge was an elevated
cableway Cable transport is a broad class of transport modes that have cables. They transport passengers and goods, often in vehicles called cable cars. The cable may be driven or passive, and items may be moved by pulling, sliding, sailing, or by driv ...
which ran across the river. At the time, it was the largest cableway in the world, having a length of and being suspended above the Tyne at high water. A diameter steel cable was used to convey in excess of 23,000 tonnes of material. Following the completion of the bridge, the cableway was dismantled and the cable was transported to the
Swan Hunter Swan Hunter, formerly known as Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, is a shipbuilding design, engineering, and management company, based in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, England. At its apex, the company represented the combined forces of three powe ...
and
Wigham Richardson The Wigham Richardson shipbuilding company was named after its founder, John Wigham Richardson (1837-1908), the son of Edward Richardson, a tanner from Newcastle upon Tyne, and Jane Wigham from Edinburgh. History The Company was set up with le ...
shipyard in
Wallsend Wallsend is a town in North Tyneside, England, at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. It has a population of 43,842 and lies east of Newcastle upon Tyne. History Roman Wallsend In Roman times, this was the site of the fort of Segedunum. This f ...
, where it was reused in the launch of the ocean liner RMS ''Mauretania''. Although the structure was not even fully completed, on 10 July 1906, the bridge was officially opened by
King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...
from a temporary platform at the Gateshead end of the bridge). It was decided to name the structure after the reigning monarch, hence its name of the King Edward VII Bridge. According to the ''Evening Chronicle'', the bridge was the first to carry four main tracks, albeit the spaces between the tracks have occasionally proved to be too narrow for some modern, high-speed trains. On 27 September 1906, the effectiveness of the structure was demonstrated via the running of ten locomotives, weighing around 100 tons each, coupled together in two sets of five, over the bridge at a leisurely speed of . These locomotives were intentionally running side-by-side in order to exert the maximum possible strain upon each of the bridge's girders.


Operating life

On 1 October 1906, the King Edward VII Bridge was opened to general traffic. Shortly thereafter, those trains using the East Coast Main Line route switched to accessing Newcastle Station via the new crossing, while trains bound for Sunderland and
Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...
continued to use the High Level Bridge. During March 1907, a freight line to Dunston was opened to the east of the main line. During 1908, Harrison himself reportedly commented of the bridge that "... there was nothing very striking in the design of the bridge except that it was rather larger in span and width and greater in height above the river than most bridges that had been erected in the last few years". He did, however, think that the caissons of the structure were the largest that had been sunk since those used for the
Forth Bridge The Forth Bridge is a cantilever railway bridge across the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland, west of central Edinburgh. Completed in 1890, it is considered a symbol of Scotland (having been voted Scotland's greatest man-made wonder in ...
. During 1959, the locomotive shed at Greenesfield, Gateshead was closed; this closure allowed for the simplification of the track layout across the bridge; most notable among this work was the reduction from four lines to three across the structure. Between 1976 and 1991, British Rail electrified most of the East Coast Main Line. As part of this programme, the bridge was equipped with overhead wiring gantries. In 1994, the bridge was Grade II listed.


References


External links

* {{River item box , River = River Tyne , upstream = Scotswood Railway Bridge , upsub = Disused (now carries water and gas mains) , downstream =
Queen Elizabeth II Metro Bridge The Queen Elizabeth II Bridge carries the Tyne and Wear Metro between Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead over the River Tyne in North East England. The line is in tunnels on either side of the river and only emerges into open air to cross the b ...
, downsub =
Tyne and Wear Metro The Tyne and Wear Metro is an overground and underground light rail rapid transit system serving Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, and the City of Sunderland (together forming Tyne and Wear). The network opened in ...
, type = railway bridge , location = NZ246632 , table = end Railway bridges in Tyne and Wear Bridges completed in 1906 Buildings and structures in Newcastle upon Tyne Crossings of the River Tyne Transport in Newcastle upon Tyne Grade II listed bridges