Bridge Numbering.

[StevieG]

In the recent year or three, I've noticed that the bores of Gasworks Tunnel (haven't looked at other tunnels) have gained near-portal signs, in a similar style to RT/NR's most recent style of bridge plate (train-facing), on which the most prominent details are Nos. like "4TC", and I think "4TW". And therefore the disused bore would probably be 4TE ; - as it would seem that the letters most probably stand for 'Tunnel, Centre'(bore), and 'Tunnel, West'.
And, although I forget the KX station area official bridge Nos. now, I presume the '4' is because the tunnel is located 'after' the site of Bridge 4 (Congreve Street?) ?.

[Mickey]

Deleted

[PinzaC55]

In recent years Network Rail in there wisdom have been fixing 'Bridge bash contact detail' plates to many of there over & under bridges that give details about the name & number of the bridge concerned and a telephone number on who to contact incase a member of the general public is involved in or does witness a road vehicle striking the bridge.

I believe some initial concerns were raised by signaller's and Power box supervisor's concerned about 'Friday & Saturday night jokers' ringing the 'Bridge bash contact number' (for a laugh?) claiming that they had just witnessed a car crashing into the bridge and then hanging up!.

Of course the report would have to be taken seriously and railway traffic would be delayed while someone (probably a MOM) would have to go to the bridge and check out the report.

Also about 5 years ago a special 'Bridge bash form' which included 4 pages of pre-set questions on A4 size paper was reqiured to be filled out by a controller after any reported Bridge bash incident although i am not sure if this requirement was 'quietly dropped' by Network Rail after raised complaints by said control staff?.

...and they say the Police are fed up with form filling??.

Health & Safety will be the death of us.

[AndyRush]

In the recent year or three, I've noticed that the bores of Gasworks Tunnel (haven't looked at other tunnels) have gained near-portal signs, in a similar style to RT/NR's most recent style of bridge plate (train-facing), on which the most prominent details are Nos. like "4TC", and I think "4TW". And therefore the disused bore would probably be 4TE ; - as it would seem that the letters most probably stand for 'Tunnel, Centre'(bore), and 'Tunnel, West'.
And, although I forget the KX station area official bridge Nos. now, I presume the '4' is because the tunnel is located 'after' the site of Bridge 4 (Congreve Street?) ?.

The GN did not number their tunnels so, as you surmise, the use of No.4 for Gasworks tunnels is a Network Rail thing (I wonder what they have called Copenhagen tunnel - No.6, perhaps)
For the record the bridges from Kings Cross were:
1 Footbridge at 0m 05½ch
2 Footbridge at 0m 12ch
2A Footbridge at 0m 14ch
3 Battle Bridge Road Bridge at 0m 14ch
4 Congreve Street Bridge at 0m 17ch
5 York Road Viaduct at 0m 44ch
6 Caledonian Viaduct at 0m 56ch

Andy

[StevieG]

Thanks Andy, as so often, for coming up trumps with data from your mine of information.
Looks like the staff subway under the platforms near te latter footbridge didn't get a number? [An LNER addition perhaps?]

[AndyRush]

I'm afraid my bridge information for the GN comes from a 1916 Bridge Book, and although there are lots of later amendments to the lists, newer bridges don't always seem to have been entered. Presumably the LNER and BR had later complete and up to date registers, but I've never been able to gain access to them. I would certainly expect any subway of more than 6ft 0in to have a number and figure in the Bridge Register.

Andy

[R. pike]

Local to me we have SBR4 and SBR4A, the latter being a road bridge just upside of Letchworth Station. There are two unnumbered and currently unidentified culverts between the two. How are they accounted for? Does the bridge book list them Andy?

[limitofshunt]

According to a fairly modern resource, the bridges around there are:

SBR/4 Spring Road
SBR/34037 Culvert
SBR/34072 Culvert
SBR/4A Neville Bridge


Don't know whether the culverts had a historical number.... Andy?

Jon

[1H was 2E]

Sincere thanks to all who contributed. It now makes a lot more sense. Andy Rush's comment that numbers weren't allocated 'til the turn of C19-C20 explains the nagging confusion I had about why there were fewer suffixed numbers than one might expect given the limited infrastructure initially provided on the early lines. And in the unlikely case that there's anyone else with an interest in the L&B it all becomes clear. As has been pointed out, the paperwork and confusion associated with renumbering makes it out of the question. And, retracting from my initial dismissal of the idea (sorry), the term L&B route was probably the cause of the confusion. I think what happened was the LNWR started bridge numbering at Euston heading for Birmingham (the most important and heavily used route) first and initially bought anonymous plates in from a supplier but soon changed to in house supplies about half way to Birmingham. This also explains why the L&B branches (Aylesbury and N'pton) had LNW ones. And the L&B put their initials on house number plates so wouldn't have been so reticent to omit them from bridges.

[AndyRush]

The West Coast Main Line in the Willesden area is a wonderful example of how the suffix lettering of bridges gets pretty confused over the years as the following will show:
Scrubbs Lane (now A219) bridge at 5m 06ch is No.25
A services bridge (pipes and cables) at 5m 07ch is No.25K
A staff footbridge at 5m 29ch is 25P
The Down High Level line bridge at 5m 30ch is 25M (and also No.5 at 5m 45¼ch in its own line series)
The Up High Level line bridge at 5m 31ch is 25N (and also No.5A at 5m 45½ch in its own line series)
Willesden Junction station exchange footbridge (demolished) at 5m 32ch was No.25A
Willesden Junction Main Line footbridge (also demolished) was No.25B
Metropolitan Water Board bridge at 5m 42ch was 25H
Old Oak Lane bridge (now A4000) at 5m 43ch is 26

Sorting that lot out is not for the faint hearted!

Andy

[railnovice]

I recently acquired what I was told was an NER bridge plate, perhaps from around the Darlington area. It is cast iron, painted white overall (no black at all), nearly 11 inch by 7 inch, with chunky raised numberals "42". It reminded me of bridge plates on the Leeds-Liverpool canal. I foolishly thought I might find where it came from. In case it is of some interest, these are the results.

An afternoon with helpful staff in the NRM library produced many rolls of old line diagrams. Many lines were too short to have such a high numbered bridge; even so there was a wide range of NER bridge 42s, from a cattle creep to an 11 arch viaduct. I detail some in the next paragraph.

(The 11 arch viaduct is over Langley Beck on the Bishop Auckland & Barnard Castle Line; this line is to be a cycle path, but the path over the viaduct is said to be unsafe. The cattle creep underbridge is somewhere near Robin Hood's Bay on the Scarborough & Whitby Line; illustrating the statement above that passages more than 6 feet high would be dignified as bridges, this is 8' high, 8'6" wide. Another bridge 42 is a public road bridge on the South Shields branch. On the Alnwick and Cornhill branch, close to Ilderton D.P., bridge 42 is a bridge over a stream. On the Tynemouth branch, bridge 42 is the footbridge at Tynemouth Station. A road bridge in Harrogate was numbered 42 on the Church Fenton and Harrogate line. There was another (only inferred) near Staithes on the Saltburn and Whitby line. And yesterday as I travelled on the ECML between York and Thirsk, the train passed under another bridge 42. This list is not exhaustive!)

Yet I wonder if the style of the plate might narrow the field a bit. The road-bridge-plate at Thirsk station, though superficially similar, had bevelled edges to the raised numerals, and looked to be a much crisper casting. I am not hopeful of getting much further in this quest - the staff at the NRM suggested that bridges represented the conquest of impediments to rail enthusiasts, rather than objects of study in their own right!

[limitofshunt]

Care to share a photo of the plate?

[PinzaC55]

I recently acquired what I was told was an NER bridge plate, perhaps from around the Darlington area. It is cast iron, painted white overall (no black at all), nearly 11 inch by 7 inch, with chunky raised numberals "42". It reminded me of bridge plates on the Leeds-Liverpool canal. I foolishly thought I might find where it came from. In case it is of some interest, these are the results.

An afternoon with helpful staff in the NRM library produced many rolls of old line diagrams. Many lines were too short to have such a high numbered bridge; even so there was a wide range of NER bridge 42s, from a cattle creep to an 11 arch viaduct. I detail some in the next paragraph.

(The 11 arch viaduct is over Langley Beck on the Bishop Auckland & Barnard Castle Line; this line is to be a cycle path, but the path over the viaduct is said to be unsafe. The cattle creep underbridge is somewhere near Robin Hood's Bay on the Scarborough & Whitby Line; illustrating the statement above that passages more than 6 feet high would be dignified as bridges, this is 8' high, 8'6" wide. Another bridge 42 is a public road bridge on the South Shields branch. On the Alnwick and Cornhill branch, close to Ilderton D.P., bridge 42 is a bridge over a stream. On the Tynemouth branch, bridge 42 is the footbridge at Tynemouth Station. A road bridge in Harrogate was numbered 42 on the Church Fenton and Harrogate line. There was another (only inferred) near Staithes on the Saltburn and Whitby line. And yesterday as I travelled on the ECML between York and Thirsk, the train passed under another bridge 42. This list is not exhaustive!)

Yet I wonder if the style of the plate might narrow the field a bit. The road-bridge-plate at Thirsk station, though superficially similar, had bevelled edges to the raised numerals, and looked to be a much crisper casting. I am not hopeful of getting much further in this quest - the staff at the NRM suggested that bridges represented the conquest of impediments to rail enthusiasts, rather than objects of study in their own right!

If you can post a photo it sounds similar to one I used to have which came from the Wear rail bridge in Sunderland. It was the only place I had ever seen which had these and it presumably dated from before the introduction of standard NER cast iron signs in 1905. By the way the Darlington Section of the NER - known as the NER(CD) had non-standard signs before 1905.

[railnovice]

I hope I've managed to attach an image of the '42' plate.

[Bryan]

Looks like a typical style of bridge plate and could be from anywhere in the country let alone being NER / LNER.