Bourne End Railway Bridge | |
---|---|
Coordinates | 51°34′30″N0°42′51″W / 51.57500°N 0.71417°W |
Carries | Marlow Branch Line Thames Path |
Crosses | River Thames |
Locale | Bourne End, Buckinghamshire |
Characteristics | |
Design | Box girder and cantilever |
Material | Iron |
Height | 15 feet 6 inches (4.72 m) [1] |
History | |
Opened | 1895 |
Location | |
Bourne End Railway Bridge is a railway bridge carrying the Marlow Branch Line, and a footpath over the River Thames in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, England. It crosses the Thames on the reach between Cookham Lock and Marlow Lock.
The bridge was originally constructed in wood by Isambard Kingdom Brunel as part of the Wycombe Railway, opened in 1854 and operated in broad gauge until 1870. [2] The narrow spans were unpopular with river traffic and the bridge was reconstructed in steel in 1895. A footbridge, cantilevered out from the railway bridge was added in 1992, to take the Thames Path across the river; [3] this substitutes for the historical towpath crossing point at Spade Oak ferry, about 1 km upstream of the bridge. [4]
In 2013, the bridge was restored and repainted in green, and a large number of rivets which had rusted away were replaced. The restoration took nearly a year to complete, being finished in December. [5] There was a plan to electrify the line, [6] but due to cost overruns during electrifying the GWR main line, this has apparently been postponed indefinitely.
The River Medway is a river in South East England. It rises in the High Weald, West Sussex and flows through Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Medway conurbation in Kent, before emptying into the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, a total distance of 70 miles (113 km). About 13 miles (21 km) of the river lies in East Sussex, with the remainder being in Kent.
Bourne End is a village mostly in the parish of Wooburn, but partly in that of Little Marlow in Buckinghamshire, England. It is about five miles (8 km) south-east of High Wycombe and three miles (5 km) east of Marlow, near the boundary with Berkshire and close to where the Buckinghamshire River Wye empties into the Thames.
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