Adam Viaduct
Coordinates: 53 ° 32 ′ 28 " N , 2 ° 38 ′ 51" W.
| Adam Viaduct | ||
|---|---|---|
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| use | Railway bridge | |
| Convicted | Kirkby branch line | |
| Crossing of | River Douglas | |
| Subjugated | Southgate Road | |
| place | Wigan | |
| construction | Prestressed concrete bridge | |
| overall length | 36.6 m | |
| width | 9.07 m | |
| Number of openings | four | |
| Longest span | approx. 9.0 m | |
| completion | 1946 | |
| planner | LMS, William Kelly Wallace | |
| location | ||
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The Adam Viaduct is a railway bridge that spans the Kirkby branch line in Wigan , Greater Manchester over the River Douglas and Southgate Road.
The bridge, built in 1946, is believed to be the first prestressed concrete bridge in the UK .
The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and their chief civil engineer William Kelly Wallace built the bridge as a test object to test whether the untested construction would be suitable for railway bridges in the United Kingdom. The LMS had developed pre-stressed concrete beams based on Eugène Freyssinet's system as early as the late 1930s and used them for emergency repairs during World War II , but the Adam Viaduct was the first opportunity to test their use as part of a full bridge.
The double-track bridge has four openings approx. 9.0 m wide. Its superstructure consists of six prefabricated double-T prestressed concrete girders under each track and one girder each on the outside, each 0.81 m high, built close to one another and also braced transversely. A total of 16 girders were laid next to each other on which the usual ballast for the track bed lies.
LMS expressed its satisfaction with the short construction time and the smoothness of the wagons on the high beams. The bridge is still in operation.
It was as 2001 Grade II building under monument protection provided.
Between 2012 and 2013 the road under the bridge was widened.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Adam Viaduct on Historic England.org.uk
- ^ Robert William Rennison: Civil Engineering Heritage: Northern England . 2nd Edition. Thomas Telford Publishing, London 1996, ISBN 0-7277-2518-1 , pp. 239 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- ↑ History of Prestressed Concrete in UK on archive.org
- ^ New road relief on Wigan Today.net