Community Response |
Locomotive Details |
Location/Date of Photo |
| Views: 3,703 Favorited: 19 | Since added on January 30, 2013 | |
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» Tanfield Railway (more..) » none (more..) |
» Causey Arch » Gateshead, United Kingdom (more..) » January 20, 2013 |
Locomotive No./Train ID |
Photographer |
» Unknown » Unknown |
» davehewitt (more..) » Contact Photographer · Photographer Profile |
Remarks & Notes |
The oldest railway bridge in the world built in 1725 at a cost of £2000. Landowners in the North Durham area wanted a route to the river Tyne to take their coal to the ships waiting to transport it to London. They devised a waggonway with wooden rails and horse drawn carts to ferry the coal but various obstacles had to be overcome. One was this valley and a local builder was employed to build this bridge. At the time it was the largest single span bridge in the world and was considered an engineering marvel. It was only in operation for around 30 years before the line of the waggonway was altered and this bridge became redundant. At its height there would be a man leading a horse which pulled a wooden cart loaded with 4 tons of coal crossing this bridge every 40 seconds. No wonder the landowners became extremely rich and coal was known as black gold. |
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