The LNER Encyclopedia

I have been told by a contact in the county that the recent floods have caused the County Council to close every road bridge over the Derwent.

The railway bridge over that river, of course, is quite OK and so the new station has been opened. It will be interesting to see whether the TOC still has a use for it when the road bridges have been repaired!

If there is a civil engineer on this board (or even if there isn't) - does it follow that because a railway bridge must be built to carry far heavier loads than a road bridge it will therefore be far better able to withstand a river in a "once in 1000 years" spate?

In 1948 severe flooding severed the ECML and caused the premature closing of several branches in the Borders. Some routes were worked as two independent branches instead of rebuilding bridges as a through route.
Workers plant and machinery were hurriedly assembled at Tweedmouth to rebuild the ECML and meanwhile Haymarket men still kept the nonstops running by conserving water and taking a right turn just outside Edinburgh,running down the Waverley to St Boswells turning left up the Tweed valley route and regaining the ECML at Tweedmouth with water another 15 miles or so at Lucker troughs.
To the West of the ECML at Eyemouth due to a culvert collapse an enormous artificial lake was formed and the embankment was patrolled by coastguards with maroons ready to fire on any signs of the embankment giving way. If that had happened it would have been like a scene from the Dambusters with the village ending up in the North Sea.
So the Cumbrians had a little rain? Berwickshire had it 61 years ago.

The army repaired the major damaged road bridges fairly quickly and indeed one at Cantys stood for 50 years before being replaced.

I was asking a friend, who shall remain nameless, about this the other day. He works for the bridging section of the County Council and said that, in his opinion, the maintenance standards of Network Rail are much higher than those of the various local authorities and that issues such as the scouring of bridge foundations will be attended to sooner on railway bridges.
I know that this will be a generalisation, but it certainly has some credibility when you think that Cumbria has lost dozens of road bridges and not one rail bridge.
We had a problem last year when a bridge carrying a main road near here was damaged by flood water, and it was said that a problem had been identified many months before the event, but that remedial work had repeatedly been put off due to spending priorities. It resulted in a major rebuilding job costing many hundreds of thousands, when a fraction of that sum spent 6 months earlier would have prevented the damage.
Of course the railways sometimes get it wrong, there was a case a few years back when a bridge in mid Wales was weakened by flooding and collapsed under an early morning DMU, and as 52D has pointed out, there was massive disruption in the border country in 1948 when dozens of bridges and culverts were swept away, although in that case the sheer volume of rain played a part, it was possibly exacerbated by the reduced maintenance during the war.
As an aside, I noticed on the news reports of the Workington incident, that Northern Rail have had to put a large number of staff onto the stations to help people use the trains, as most of them had never been on a train before and didn't know what to do!
I lived in Workington for 2 years during the 1970's, but I don't remember the people being that thick!

Some of them alas showed themselves to be thick. The media didn't help by publicising the fact that people had to drive many miles to access Workington. It took them a few days to discover that the place was also served by a railway and that a short drive to Flimby would obviate all these miles travelled by car. Then to crown it all they followed a particularly bright specimen on the train and she was almost in tears saying she could not stand this terrible journey and not being able to get a seat. My heart went out to her having to stand for an endless 7 minutes! The railway bridge is built of steel/wrought iron (somebody help me here) with piles into the river bed, perhaps this helped in its preservation. There was much song and dance about how brilliant Notwork Fail were building a temporary station, BR did it regularly at Finningley. One last question, the train is free, who is paying I wonder?

One of the bridges to fail was a footbridge mounted on the piers of an old railway bridge. Clearly whoever is responsible for maintaining it now applies different standards to it's former owners<g>

swanpool wrote:If there is a civil engineer on this board (or even if there isn't) - does it follow that because a railway bridge must be built to carry far heavier loads than a road bridge it will therefore be far better able to withstand a river in a "once in 1000 years" spate?

As I understand it, most, if not all, the bridges that have failed had foundations built on top of gravel in the river bed. When the river is in spate the water scours out the river bed and can undermine the foundations. Modern bridges have foundations that go down to, if not the bed rock, then a stable layer beneath the gravel.
So the difference in survival is not between rail or road bridges, but between brides that have stable foundations or not.

Let me begin by saying that I have every sympathy for those who have suffered and are suffering and indeed who died as a result of the flooding, but the media - national and local - have, in my opinion, been pathetic throughout this event and so many others. Very few searching questions asked, eg the survival of the rail bridge as opposed to the road bridges, which I am sure struck many people watching the reports. Isn't that what journalism used to be supposed to be about? To educate and inform. They [the media] seem to approach all of these events nowadays with the same soft focus mindset, as in the case of the woman on the train mentioned by 52A. Much of it is just lazy,easy, journalism and reporting.

If found this after a little rummage round the net..

http://cra.photos.gb.net/p62285943.html

R. pike wrote:If found this after a little rummage round the net..

http://cra.photos.gb.net/p62285943.html

That is a really good site, some excellent photos even if they are not LNER.
If there is a (former) footpath alongside the railway across the bridge, why are the army having to build another footbridge?

A quick look at oogle gearth sugests there is not much in the way of a deck to the footbridge alongside the railway. I note there appears to be a footbridge on the Workington habour bridge..

Just been looking through my old bridging notes from service with RE's
A bridge of max span 45 metre constructed to class 80 tonne load should be constructed within 30 hrs in daylight. 60 hours in the dark.
That would be with side girders 3 wide and 3 high on both sides, a Triple / Triple.

Ok the bridge at workington is longer but not all that much is it?
I don't think it is being built to the same load class either, have army construction standards changed in the last 20 years?

R. pike wrote:One of the bridges to fail was a footbridge mounted on the piers of an old railway bridge. Clearly whoever is responsible for maintaining it now applies different standards to it's former owners<g>

That was navies bridge - consisted of sections of "lightweight" concrete walkway mounted on the old stone piers of the railway bridge that used to link through the centre of town- by the look of it one of the piers collapsed.

Realistically you wouldnt maintain piers for a walkway to the same standard as an active rail bridge

R. pike wrote:A quick look at oogle gearth sugests there is not much in the way of a deck to the footbridge alongside the railway. I note there appears to be a footbridge on the Workington habour bridge..

From memory that is correct
i used to travel on the cumbrian coast line 15 or so years ago and i think the footway on the side of the rail bridge was defunct even then.

The rail bridge footway that was damaged in the flood was the one over the port authority rail bridge
(given that ownership and/or responsibility for the port authority bridge will in all likelihood tie back into local government
kindve gives a clue as to why that bridge still had a footway and the BR/railtrack one had disappeared)

Belfast to Dublin main line, summer this year (21st August), no floods, and yet...

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/ ... 72832.html

I travelled over this structure three weeks before the collapse, while on holiday.

A local canoeist had warned IE of scour problem a few days earlier, but all they did was send someone to walk the track.

They've just finished repairs and had the line back in service on 16th November.

Didn't Scotrail lose a major bridge on the Highland main line at Invereness to flooding back in the 1980s? - yes a bit of googling and here it is, 1989, a nice primary school website with photos 'before and after' the collapse, and the new bridge:

http://cauldeenprimary.co.uk/secretloch ... ridges.htm

The road bridges repaired by the army in Berwickshire 1948 were Bailey Bridges developed for quick bridging during the invasion of Europe 1944/45.
You can bet the MOD does not have a great number of the modern equivilant units availlable as they are quite stretched in the Middle East at the moment.
ISTR that civil contractors have a few bailey bridges for temporary structures so with a bit of effort and coordination we should be able to have some structures bridged on a temporary basis quite quickly.