The Carlisle Bridge is a railway bridge over the

River Lune The River Lune (archaically sometimes Loyne) is a river in length in Cumbria and Lancashire, England. Etymology Several elucidations for the origin of the name ''Lune'' exist. Firstly, it may be that the name is Brittonic languages, Brittonic ...

Lancaster Lancaster may refer to: Lands and titles *The County Palatine of Lancaster, a synonym for Lancashire *Duchy of Lancaster, one of only two British royal duchies *Duke of Lancaster *Earl of Lancaster *House of Lancaster, a British royal dynasty ...

, north-west England. It carries the

West Coast Main Line The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest ...

over three spans. This section of the railway, including the original version of the bridge, was the work of

Thomas Brassey Thomas Brassey (7 November 18058 December 1870) was an English civil engineering contractor and manufacturer of building materials who was responsible for building much of the world's railways in the 19th century. By 1847, he had built about o ...

, William Mackenzie, and John Stephenson; it was built between 1844 and 1846 and opened in 1847. There is a walkway for public use attached to the east side of the bridge.

History and description

The viaduct was first built in 1846. The section of line was designed by

Joseph Locke Joseph Locke FRSA (9 August 1805 – 18 September 1860) was an English civil engineer of the nineteenth century, particularly associated with railway projects. Locke ranked alongside Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel as one of the ...

and John Edward Errington for the

Lancaster and Carlisle Railway The Lancaster and Carlisle Railway (L&CR) was a main line railway opened between those cities in 1846. With its Scottish counterpart, the Caledonian Railway, the Company launched the first continuous railway connection between the English railw ...

. The contractors for Carlisle Bridge were a syndicate of

, William Mackenzie, and John Stephenson. The spans were originally built from laminated timber beams. These were replaced with

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...

plate girders in 1866 which were in turn replaced with steel and reinforced concrete beams in 1963. The original piers were preserved through both replacements, including the iron shoes for the original timber arches. On the east side is a footbridge, which forms part of the

Lancashire Coastal Way The Lancashire Coastal Way is a long-distance footpath following the coast of the county of Lancashire in the north west of England. Its end points are Silverdale in the north and Freckleton in the south. Its length is variously asserted to ...

. The arches have a span each and are high and approached by seven masonry arches on the south bank and another arch on the north side. When surveying a route for a railway through Lancashire and into Scotland, the engineer

George Stephenson George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was an English civil engineer and Mechanical engineering, mechanical engineer during the Industrial Revolution. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victoria ...

initially favoured a more westerly route via

Morecambe Morecambe ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster district of Lancashire, England, on Morecambe Bay, part of the Irish Sea. In 2011 the parish had a population of 34,768. Name The first use of the name was by John Whit ...

and the Cumbrian coast but Locke convinced him to take a more inland route, requiring a bridge over the Lune at Lancaster. The railway company was required to handsomely compensate the Lancaster Port Commission for the disruption caused by the piers in the river. The bridge is now part of the

from London to Glasgow. The rebuilding in the 1960s was part of

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

's modernisation programme. The line was electrified at the same time and masts for

overhead line equipment An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, electric multiple units, trolleybuses or trams. The generic term used by the International Union of Railways for the tech ...

were added to the bridge.

References

{{City of Lancaster buildings Bridges across the River Lune Bridges in Lancaster, Lancashire Transport in the City of Lancaster