The Framework of the Viaduct (on the South-Eastern Railway). Grissel and Peto, designers. Ironwork by Fox and Henderson. Source: Illustrated London News 17 (4 May 1844): 285. As the article points out, like another “timber-work structure” on the line (Roll's Bridge), this mile-long viaduct is “built in tbe American manner in which a certain rude elegance is attained at small coat. This viaduct, the work of Messrs. Grissell and Peto combines great lightness of appearance and economy of materials with prodigious strength, at a tithe of tbe cost of an embankment, or brickwork arcade. Tbe whole of this remarkable structure has been subjected to Payne's anti dry-rot process, by which it is protected not only from vegetable decomposition, but from any contingencies of fire, to which it might be subjected from the falling on it of ignited coals from the engines, as they traverse its surface.” In fact, such timber trestles, which are very typical of nineteenth-century American railroading, are unusual in Great Britain. [Click on image to enlarge it.]
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Last modified 4 December 2015