High Level Bridge
54.966944444444 - 1.6085Koordinaten: 54 ° 58 '1 " N, 1 ° 36' 30.6 " W
F1
Tyne
The High Level Bridge is a combined road and railway bridge over the Tyne between Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead in North East England.
Construction
The bridge was built to a design by Robert Stephenson in the years 1847 to 1849 and is the first major example of a wrought iron tied arch bridge. It's a permanent technical solution to a difficult problem: the crossing of a 408 m wide valley with a 156 m wide river in it. The High Level Bridge has six fields of 38.1 m in length, resting on brick pillars with a cross section of 14 x 4.9 m and a height of up to 40 m. The brick approach bridges on both sides each have four openings of 11 m length. The roadway and two footpaths occupy the lower deck of the bridge, 26 m above the high water mark, and the railway the upper deck, 34 m above the high water mark. The total weight of the structure is 5000 tonnes.
A contemporary encyclopedia describes the bridge as follows:
History
The bridge was built for the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway and closed, along with Stephenson's Royal Border Bridge in Berwick -upon-Tweed, one of the last gaps in the railway line from London to Edinburgh, which is now called the East Coast Main Line. The bridge was opened without any special ceremony on August 15, 1849 for rail traffic. It was officially opened on September 27, 1849 by Queen Victoria and released on February 4, 1850 for road vehicles and pedestrians.
Construction costs totaled £ 491,153, broken down as follows: The actual bridge cost £ 243,096; this includes £ 112,000 for metal work that has been carried out by Hawks, Crawshay & Co ( and subcontractors). The approach bridges cost £ 113,057, and the purchase of the necessary land and compensation - including those for 650 families in Newcastle and 130 in Gateshead, which had to be relocated - accounted for £ 135,000.
Stephenson's High Level Bridge was later constructed but not completed earlier than his equally innovative Britannia Bridge (built 1846-1850 ) on the Menai Strait. They can be used as a second and more elegant version of the Britannia Bridge are considered and influenced Isambard Kingdom Brunel in his design of the Royal Albert Bridge (built 1855-1859 ) over the Tamar at Saltash.
In 1906 the construction of the King Edward VII Bridge, about 650 meters west of the High Level Bridge, completed. This accounted for the trains between London and Edinburgh, the need to change in the direction of Newcastle. Since then, the High Level Bridge is no longer a part of the East Coast Main Line. Instead, she now serves trains to Sunderland and Middlesbrough. Occasionally, it is used by trains from London, returning to the same direction as the two bridges are connected to the side of Gateshead in the form of a loop. For this reason, the western railway is electrified over the bridge.
Rehabilitation
In order to secure the long-term future of the bridge, she was detained in February 2005 for road traffic. Among the most important maintenance replacement of wooden construction counted under the roadway. Although the re-opening was planned for the end of 2005, the bridge remained until June 2, 2008 closed, as in some of the iron carrier cracks were found. In March 2006, was also the walk over the bridge, which was supposed to remain open during the renovation, concluded at the request of Network Rail due to vandalism and the increasing extent of work required. On both sides of the roadway guard rails were installed, so that today is only one lane is available. Today the road bridge is back for buses and taxis in the south ( Gateshead ) and for pedestrians in both directions open.