Caledonian Railway Bridge

A railway bridge crossing the River Clyde at Broomielaw, to the south of Central Station in Glasgow, the Caledonian Railway Bridge was built 1899-1905 at a cost of £200,000 the work of engineers Donald A. Matheson and Sir J. Wolfe-Barry, and executed by Sir William Arrol and Morrison & Mason. Originally known as the New Clyde Viaduct, it once carried ten separate railway tracks into the station. At 62.5m (205 feet), it was once the widest railway-over-river-bridge in the country. Comprising steel lattice girders, each spanning up to 59m (194 feet) between five granite piers, the bridge is built on steel caisson foundations filled with concrete and bricks. Its load has now been reduced to seven tracks.

Alongside are the Dalbeattie granite piers of an earlier railway bridge, built in 1878 and also the work of William Arrol. It carried a further four tracks into Central Station. Having become surplus to operational requirements, the tracks and girders which comprised the structure of the bridge were removed in 1966-67.


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