In the United Kingdom, an accommodation bridge or occupation bridge is one that preserves a pre-existing private road, path or right of access when a major transport route is built across it. Without the bridge, access would be disrupted. Accommodation bridges are usually built at the cost of the route developer, as part of the conditions for obtaining the land for building the new route.
The term is not applied where the new route crosses an existing public highway.
The first accommodation bridges were built as part of 18th-century canal building. Most were provided for farmers, whose lands and grazing were separated by the canal. [1] [2] The first canals developed from rivers, with short lengths of canal built to bypass obstacles, such as weirs and millponds. The river represented a long-established and accepted boundary, but these new sections were resented by landlords. [3]
Unlike turnpike roads, drovers could not simply cross the new road but now needed a bridge. These bridges also needed to meet the standards of the canal builder, allowing the towpath through beneath, sufficient clearance for passing boats and being adequately constructed to be robust, without risk of a collapse blocking the canal. To save costs, the Kennet Navigation, in flat country, used swing bridges rather than arches. [3] Other canals such as the Oxford Canal, also used lifting bridges. [4]
Most accommodation bridges, in the UK at least, were constructed during the railway building boom of the mid-19th century. [5] British practice avoided level crossings wherever possible, except in the flat parts of the country where building a raised approach to a bridge would be more costly. Nevertheless the term is still more usually applied to canal bridges.
As the load carried by the new railway was almost always greater than the old path, nearly all accommodation bridges are overbridges, carrying the old track over the new railway.[ citation needed ] Underpasses were relatively rare, except where more convenient in hilly country, as the old track may have followed the land more closely than a gradient-sensitive railway.
In Britain an accommodation bridge is the name for a bridge connecting land that belonged to one owner severed by the railway. An occupation bridge is the name for a bridge that carried an existing private road or took the railway over an existing private road. Similar terms were applied to level crossings. [6]
Accommodation bridges were rarely needed across roads, as a road junction would be provided instead. This changed in the 1960s, with the development of the motorway network, where slow-speed local traffic is segregated from the high-speed traffic.
The Bridgwater and Taunton Canal is a canal in the south-west of England between Bridgwater and Taunton, opened in 1827 and linking the River Tone to the River Parrett. There were a number of abortive schemes to link the Bristol Channel to the English Channel by waterway in the 18th and early 19th centuries. These schemes followed the approximate route eventually taken by the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal, but the canal was instead built as part of a plan to link Bristol to Taunton by waterway.
The Chesterfield Canal is a narrow canal in the East Midlands of England and it is known locally as 'Cuckoo Dyke'. It was one of the last of the canals designed by James Brindley, who died while it was being constructed. It was opened in 1777 and ran for 46 miles (74 km) from the River Trent at West Stockwith, Nottinghamshire to Chesterfield, Derbyshire, passing through the Norwood Tunnel at Kiveton Park, at the time one of the longest tunnels on the British canal system. The canal was built to export coal, limestone, and lead from Derbyshire, iron from Chesterfield, and corn, deals, timber, groceries and general merchandise into Derbyshire. The stone for the Palace of Westminster was quarried in North Anston, Rotherham, and transported via the canal.
The canal network of the United Kingdom played a vital role in the Industrial Revolution. The UK was the first country to develop a nationwide canal network which, at its peak, expanded to nearly 4,000 miles in length. The canals allowed raw materials to be transported to a place of manufacture, and finished goods to be transported to consumers, more quickly and cheaply than by a land based route. The canal network was extensive and included feats of civil engineering such as the Anderton Boat Lift, the Manchester Ship Canal, the Worsley Navigable Levels and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.
The Grantham Canal ran 33 miles (53 km) from Grantham through 18 locks to West Bridgford, where it joined the River Trent. It was built primarily for the transportation of coal to Grantham. It opened in 1797 and its profitability steadily increased until 1841. It was then sold to a railway company, declined, and was finally closed in 1936. It was used as a water supply for agriculture, and so most of it remained in water after closure, although bridges were lowered. Since the 1970s, the Grantham Canal Society have been working to restore parts of it. Two stretches are now navigable to small vessels. A new route will be required where the canal joins the Trent, as road building has severed the original one.
The Wey and Arun Canal is a partially open, 23-mile-long (37 km) canal in the southeast of England. It runs southwards from the River Wey at Gunsmouth, Shalford, Surrey to the River Arun at Pallingham, in West Sussex. The canal comprises parts of two separate undertakings – the northern part of the Arun Navigation, opened in 1787 between Pallingham and Newbridge Wharf, and the Wey and Arun Junction Canal, opened in 1816, which connected the Arun at Newbridge to the Godalming Navigation near Shalford, south of Guildford. The Arun Navigation was built with three locks and one turf-sided flood lock. The Junction Canal was built with 23 locks
The Huddersfield Narrow Canal is an inland waterway in northern England. It runs just under 20 miles (32 km) from Lock 1E at the rear of the University of Huddersfield campus, near Aspley Basin in Huddersfield, to the junction with the Ashton Canal at Whitelands Basin in Ashton-under-Lyne. It crosses the Pennines by means of 74 locks and the Standedge Tunnel.
The Parkland Walk is a 3.1-mile (5.0 km) linear green pedestrian and cycle route in London, which follows the course of the railway line that used to run between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace, through Stroud Green, Crouch End, Highgate and Muswell Hill. It is often mistakenly described as 4.5 miles long, but even taking in the gap between the two sections it still only totals 3.1 miles (5.0 km). The route follows the bridges and cuttings of the line, but avoids the closed surface section of Highgate station and its adjoining tunnels, which are closed to walkers for safety reasons. The walk is almost all in Haringey, but a short stretch between Crouch Hill and Crouch End Hill is in Islington and this section incorporates Crouch Hill Park.
In civil engineering, grade separation is a method of aligning a junction of two or more surface transport axes at different heights (grades) so that they will not disrupt the traffic flow on other transit routes when they cross each other. The composition of such transport axes does not have to be uniform; it can consist of a mixture of roads, footpaths, railways, canals, or airport runways. Bridges, tunnels, or a combination of both can be built at a junction to achieve the needed grade separation.
The Montgomery Canal, known colloquially as "The Monty", is a partially restored canal in eastern Powys and northwest Shropshire. The canal runs 33 miles (53 km) from the Llangollen Canal at Frankton Junction to Newtown via Llanymynech and Welshpool and crosses the England–Wales border.
The Derby Canal ran 14 miles (23 km) from the Trent and Mersey Canal at Swarkestone to Derby and Little Eaton, and to the Erewash Canal at Sandiacre, in Derbyshire, England. The canal was authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1793 and was fully completed in 1796. It featured a level crossing of the River Derwent in the centre of Derby. An early tramroad, known as the Little Eaton Gangway, linked Little Eaton to coal mines at Denby. The canal's main cargo was coal, and it was relatively successful until the arrival of the railways in 1840. It gradually declined, with the gangway closing in 1908 and the Little Eaton Branch in 1935. Early attempts at restoration were thwarted by the closure of the whole canal in 1964. Since 1994, there has been an active campaign for restoration spearheaded by the Derby and Sandiacre Canal Trust and Society. Loss of the Derwent crossing due to development has resulted in an innovative engineering solution called the Derby Arm being proposed, as a way of transferring boats across the river.
The Somerset Coal Canal was a narrow canal in England, built around 1800. Its route began in basins at Paulton and Timsbury, ran to nearby Camerton, over two aqueducts at Dunkerton, through a tunnel at Combe Hay, then via Midford and Monkton Combe to Limpley Stoke where it joined the Kennet and Avon Canal. This link gave the Somerset coalfield access east toward London. The longest arm was 10.6 miles (17.1 km) long with 23 locks. From Midford an arm also ran via Writhlington to Radstock, with a tunnel at Wellow.
The Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal is a small network of canals in South Wales. For most of its currently (2018) navigable 35-mile (56 km) length it runs through the Brecon Beacons National Park, and its present rural character and tranquillity belies its original purpose as an industrial corridor for coal and iron, which were brought to the canal by a network of tramways and/or railroads, many of which were built and owned by the canal company.
Burton-on-Trent railway station is a mainline railway station located in the town of Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, England. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by East Midlands Railway, although only CrossCountry services call at the station.
The Buckingham Arm is an English canal that once ran from Cosgrove, Northamptonshire to Buckingham. It was built as an arm of the Grand Junction Canal in two separate phases, a broad canal to Old Stratford, which opened in 1800 and a narrow canal onwards to Buckingham, which opened in 1801. It was disused from 1932, and was dammed at the first bridge in 1944 to reduce leakage from the Grand Union Canal, as the Grand Junction had then become known, but was not finally abandoned until 1964. The remains were severed by the construction of new roads in the 1970s and again in the late 1980s. The section through Old Stratford and Deanshanger was sold off in the 1990s, and the route there has been lost to housing development. The Buckingham Canal Society was formed in 1992, and is actively pursuing a restoration programme. Some 440 yards (400 m) of the canal near Buckingham are now holding water, but the main focus in 2020 was at the Cosgrove end, where a restored channel would be accessible by boat from the Grand Union.
The BCN Main Line, or Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line describes the evolving route of the Birmingham Canal between Birmingham and Wolverhampton in England.
The Stroudwater Navigation is a canal in Gloucestershire, England which linked Stroud to the River Severn. It was authorised in 1776, although part had already been built, as the proprietors believed that an Act of Parliament obtained in 1730 gave them the necessary powers. Opened in 1779, it was a commercial success, its main cargo being coal. It was 8 miles (13 km) in length and had a rise of 102 ft 5 in (31.22 m) through 12 locks. Following the opening of the Thames and Severn Canal in 1789, it formed part of a through route from Bristol to London, although much of its trade vanished when the Kennet and Avon Canal provided a more direct route in 1810. Despite competition from the railways, the canal continued to pay dividends to shareholders until 1922, and was not finally abandoned until 1954.
The River Don Navigation was the result of early efforts to make the River Don in South Yorkshire, England, navigable between Fishlake and Sheffield. The Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden had re-routed the mouth of the river in 1626, to improve drainage, and the new works included provision for navigation, but the scheme did not solve the problem of flooding, and the Dutch River was cut in 1635 to link the new channel to Goole. The first Act of Parliament to improve navigation on the river was obtained in 1726, by a group of Cutlers based in Sheffield; the Corporation of Doncaster obtained an Act in the following year for improvements to the lower river. Locks and lock cuts were built, and, by 1751, the river was navigable to Tinsley.
The York–Beverley line was a railway line between York, Market Weighton and Beverley in Yorkshire, England. The line was sanctioned in 1846 and the first part, the York to Market Weighton Line opened in 1847. Construction of the second part to Beverley was delayed for 17 years in part by the downfall of George Hudson, and a less favourable financial environment following the collapse of the 1840s railway bubble; the North Eastern Railway revived and completed the scheme in the 1860s; the Market Weighton to Beverley Line opened in 1865.
One of the characteristics of the Isle of Man Railway are the numerous level crossings and farm crossings along the various routes; many smaller crossing places are marked only by gates the criss-cross farm land and provide access to individual private roads which connect the farms to the main roads. Being largely rural in nature the railway has many of these scattered along the existing South Line, and there were, as one might expect, many more on the closed sections of the railway. These can be summarised as follows, along with other points of interest along the line not covered in the Isle of Man Railway stations section:-
Warrington Corporation Tramways was the owner and operator of an electric tramway system in the early 20th century serving the town of Warrington, at the time a county borough of Lancashire, England.
A bridge connecting two areas of land which were under common ownership but separated when the railway was built.
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