A 1903 Railway Clearing House map showing (left) railways in the vicinity of Cadishead Viaduct
Cadishead Viaduct is a disused railway viaduct of multi-lattice girder construction. It was built in 1892 by the Cheshire Lines Committee to clear the newly built Manchester Ship Canal to carry the new deviation of the Glazebrook to Woodley Main Line. The central span is 40 yards (37 m) long, and the clearance is 75 feet (23 m).[1]
The route opened to goods on 27 February 1893 and to passenger traffic on 29 May 1893.[1][2]
Following the withdrawal of passenger services in 1964,[3] the line became goods only, and when expensive repairs to the viaduct were needed in the early 1980s, British Rail closed the viaduct and the preceding line towards Glazebrook.
The viaduct is now blocked with containers on each end owing to anti-social behaviour and to stop people walking across it, as the deck of the viaduct is in a very bad state with major corrosion setting in on the soffits and trough decking of the major steel span of the viaduct.[4] The Hamilton Davies Trust proposes to restore the viaduct to operation as a multi-modal route, with the potential to operate a heritage railway across it.[5]
^ abDow, George (1962). Great Central, Volume Two: Dominion of Watkin, 1864-1899. Shepperton: Ian Allan. pp. 143, 145. ISBN 0-7110-1469-8.
^Bridges of the Manchester Ship Canal.[where?][when?]
^The Reshaping of British Railways by Dr Richard Beeching, 1963.
^BRB (Residuary) Visual Examination Report, 22 April 2009.
^Proposal to Re-open Cadishead Viaduct(PDF), hamiltondavies.org.uk, retrieved 18 January 2022
CadisheadViaduct is a disused railway viaduct of multi-lattice girder construction. It was built in 1892 by the Cheshire Lines Committee to clear the...
passed over the River Mersey at Cadishead and so they decided to build a deviation. Construction of the CadisheadViaduct began in 1892, approached via...
Cadishead is a village in the City of Salford in Greater Manchester, England, with a population of 10,739 in 2014. Within the historic county of Lancashire...
This is a list of viaducts and significant bridges of the United Kingdom's railways, past and present. List of bridges in the United Kingdom List of canal...
repairs to the CadisheadViaduct were required. This track was then lifted in the late 1980s and left to decay. The station at Cadishead is still extant...
Clifton Viaduct is a Grade II listed stone structure crossing the valley of the River Irwell in Clifton, Greater Manchester, and also the Manchester,...
these early examples. (Note that some bridges, for example the New Clyde Viaduct (or Second Caledonian Bridge) in Glasgow, appear to be of lattice construction...
using the soil excavated from the new canal, and included the new CadisheadViaduct. The new line was brought into use for goods traffic on 27 February...
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