Clackline Bridge
Coordinates: 31 ° 43 ′ 13 ″ S , 116 ° 31 ′ 21 ″ E
| Clackline Bridge | ||
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| use | local motor vehicle traffic | |
| Subjugated | Clackline Brook | |
| place | Clackline , Western Australia | |
| Entertained by | Main Roads Western Australia and Shire of Northam | |
| Building number | 0608 | |
| construction | Wooden bridge | |
| overall length | 133.6 | |
| width | 8.98 | |
| Longest span | varies, 14.2 m (main span) | |
| building-costs | £ 9000 | |
| start of building | January 1935 | |
| opening | August 30, 1935 | |
| planner | Ernest Godfrey | |
| location | ||
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Clackline Bridge is a road bridge in Clackline , Western Australia , 77 km east of Perth in the Shire of Northam , over which the Great Eastern Highway ran until 2008 . It is the only bridge in Western Australia that spans a river and a railway line, namely the Clackline Brook and the former line of the Eastern Railway . Due to the difficult topography and the course of the earlier railway line, the bridge, which was largely made of wood, has an unusually curved and inclined construction. The bridge was commissioned in 1934 to replace two dangerous railroad crossings and a small bridge. Construction began in January 1935 and was carried out quickly, so that the bridge could be inaugurated in August of the same year. Since then the structure has been improved and repaired several times; In 1959/60 the bridge was widened by three meters, but the bridge remained a safety risk and in the 1970s and 1980s the severity and number of road accidents increased. Plans to bypass the bridge began in the 1990s, and the new building was built between January 2007 and February 2008. The locals feared, however, that the historic structure could be lost; however, it still serves local traffic and has been included in both the Northam Municipal Heritage Inventory and the Register of Heritage Places of the Heritage Council of Western Australia .
description
The Clackline Bridge is a wooden bridge that spans the Clackline Brook and the former route of the Eastern Railway . It stands in the Shire of Northam , about 77 km east of Perth . Due to the topography at this point, the course of the former railway line and the former location of the Great Eastern Highway , the bridge is unusual in terms of curve and slope of the roadway. The structure has 18 spans with a total length of 126.35 m, a curve radius of 1300 feet (around 390 m) and an incline of 5%. The pillars are numbered, with number 1 at the east end of the bridge. The double-track railway line connecting Perth and Northam ran between pillars 16 and 17. Piers 14 to 17 cut the former railway line at an angle of about 40 degrees, which leads to different distances between the individual pillars. From the western abutment , the first 7.6 m long span is followed by the longest span of 14.2 m between pillars 16 and 17, followed by a 4.8 m long and two 5.2 m long spans. The 13 remaining spans are the same length and each measure 6 m.
The bridge was changed several times, but the original pillars were retained. These originally consisted of four diagonally braced round pillars made of wallwood ; these are supported by horizontal, 450 mm thick wooden sleepers, which are 400 mm thick and attached to individual concrete foundations, with the latter sitting on the bedrock about 1.5 m below the surface. The original spans of the bridge consisted of seven rounded longitudinal beams with a diameter of at least 400 mm; they lie on brackets made of Jarrah , which are supported by bearing beams also made of Jarrah with the dimensions 600 x 150 mm. The 14 m long span over the former railway line, however, sat on four steel girders measuring 610 x 190 mm.
Originally the carriageway was 5.5 m wide, plus a sidewalk with a width of one meter. The bridge was later widened by three meters by adding two additional supports to each direction finder. At the same time, the span across the railway line was increased by pulling in eight additional steel girders and welding steel plates onto the flanges of the existing girders. The bridge driveways were also widened over a length of 150 m in the west and 60 m in the east. The bridge deck made of wooden planks was replaced by concrete slabs, which have since been repaired several times, especially on Pillar 13. Some of the connecting bolts in the construction were replaced, as well as one of the concrete slabs of the western driveway. In 2008 the structure was classified as in good condition.
Main Roads Western Australia leads the Clackine Bridge under construction number 0608. The length of the bridge is currently given as 133.6 m and the width with 8.98 m, between the curbs 8.75 m. The surface of the bridge is 119.73 m 2 , the longest of the spans is 14.2 m. In 2008, it was the only bridge in the state to pass both a railroad line and a watercourse.
history
The settlement of Clackline was created as a stop on the Spencer Brook - Northam section on the Eastern Railway, which opened on October 13, 1886. At this the road to Newcastle (now Toodyay ) branched off from the route from Perth to Kalgoorlie ; both railroad and road crossed the Clackline Brook. In 1926, the chief road and bridge engineer for the Main Roads Department, A. Fotheringham, described most of the road from Wooroloo to Clackline as "a simple bush path that has been widened by traffic over time."
The road crossed the railroad twice near the village and crossed the Clackline Brook by means of a small bridge, but the two level crossings were "awkward and dangerous in terms of road traffic, which was due to limited visibility," and the river crossing was declared in 1935 as “A primitive and inadequate passage”.
Although the need to improve this section of the road was recognized as early as 1926, funding was limited and only part of the necessary improvements were made, including re-routing the road along Lockyer Road by purchasing several lots and replacing the pavement ; the cost of this was £ 8,000. In March 1934, the Clackline Brook broke its banks and caused damage in Northam, Toodyay, York , Beverly and the surrounding area. The flood cut off the road and interrupted the rail link. The Main Roads Department had intended to complete the remaining improvements in November 1933, but it did not, and the flooding made the matter even more urgent. Albert Hawke , MLA for the Northam constituency , felt compelled to write to the Commissioner for Main Roads, EW Tindale, to urge work to begin, especially since the work in Northam was almost finished.
Design and construction
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Ernest Godfrey, the Roads Department's engineer, designed the Clackline Bypass and a single bridge over the river and railroad in August 1934. Godfrey was the Main Roads Department's first bridge engineer, and he will introduce concrete and steel bridges to westerns Attributed to Australia. For the Clackline Bridge, however, Godfrey suggested the use of lumber - the standard building material for bridges in Australia before - steel was only intended for the longer span over the railway line. He also suggested that a footpath should also lead across the bridge so that schoolchildren and other pedestrians could also cross the railway line more safely. The cost of construction was estimated at £ 8,500 and the walkway was to cost £ 700. Compared to the draft, the final location of the bridge was relocated a few meters to the south, because the railway administration wanted a greater distance between the road and the railway line to Toodyay, which runs parallel to the road here. This increased the radius of the curve, but some tall pine trees had to be felled in the schoolyard of the local school.
The construction work was carried out from January 1935 onwards by workers from the Main Roads Department as part of a job creation program. The Western Australian Government Railways (WAGR) were involved in various aspects of the project; On the one hand, it was necessary to acquire land belonging to the railway administration; on the other hand, WAGR provided a five-ton crane with which the span across the railway line was erected. The bridge was completed in less than a year from the start of construction, which was judged to be reasonable given the complexity of the construction work. The Clackline Bridge was opened on August 30, 1935 by Acting Secretary of State for Public Works H. Millington; £ 9000 was invested. The first vehicle to cross the bridge was Millington's, in which he and Albert Hawke sat on the bonnet; a boy rode on the rear bumper. This was followed by an official Northam lunch hosted by the Shire of Northam .
Security concerns and expansion
Within two decades, the volume of traffic, the speed and the size of the trucks increased, so that the bridge was viewed as a safety risk, mainly because of its insufficient width and tight curve radius. The bridge was reinforced and widened in 1959-60. It was suggested to remove the footpath in order to widen the roadway, but in the end it was decided to widen the entire structure by three meters, and the footpath was retained. The bridges were also expanded and new pillars were installed on both sides of the railway line. Eight new concrete bridge girders were installed, six of which had previously been used on the causeway . The work was carried out from a suspended platform that had to be pulled up when trains wanted to pass through. It cost around £ 20,000 to widen the structure under bridge engineer Gilbert Marsh.
Clackline Bridge continued to be a safety issue, and several accidents occurred in the 1970s due to the narrow road width and radius. In addition, the transition of the road surface between the original and the widened sections was rough. In 1978 a new reinforced concrete bridge deck was installed and initially provided with gravel ; it was improved in 1987 by applying a 40 mm thick asphalt concrete surface . In the 1980s, the Perth – Northam railway line was closed and dismantled. During this time there were a number of major and in some cases fatal accidents involving articulated lorries . There were also several traffic accidents, and the “screeching brakes of cars and the hiss of air brakes” could often be heard in clackline, especially at night. After each accident, the damaged parts of the bridge - mostly guard rails and railings - had to be repaired. The sidewalk was badly damaged in a truck accident in 1989. After that, the sidewalk was not renewed, but rebuilt below the bridge because the tracks of the railway line had already been dismantled.
When a bushfire swept through the area in December 1993, the former railway bridge over the Clackline Brook was destroyed. The Clackline Bridge survived the fire weakened, but in a satisfactory condition. The damage related to, among other internal joints , cracked wooden beams and other damaged pieces of wood. In 1998 a concrete slab was installed adjacent to the western abutment, and in 2013 the concrete bridge deck on pillar 13 was repaired. The Clackline Bridge was used to cross the Great Eastern Highway until February 2008, when the Clackline bypass was opened. The bridge is still in use for traffic and is part of the local road network.
Successor building
As a result of the accidents in the 1970s and 1980s, a replacement for the Clackline Bridge appeared necessary; however, both the Highways Administration and the Shire of Northam received letters from local residents asking for the bridge to be maintained. In 1988, the Shire asked the Highways Administration to consider the value of the bridge as a monument and to consider the preservation of the structure in the new construction plans. Ten years later, in 1998, the bridge was added to the Northam Municipal Heritage Inventory and classified in Category C, which requires preservation if possible . In the same year, the bridge was also included in an Institute of Engineers' study of larger timber structures in the state that "the current structure and its features are significant" "valuable to preservation. At this point, the construction of the bypass was already in progress Planned for the Great Eastern Highway, but maintenance continued as necessary. Construction of the Clackline Bypass began in January 2007 and was completed in February 2008. The population of Clacklines were satisfied with the construction of the Bypass but still feared that The historic Clackline Bridge was added to the Register of the Heritage Council of Western Australia in November 2008. On the new route, the Clackline Brook crosses the road through a large box culvert , making this new construction safer than the old one Clackline Bridge.
Web links
supporting documents
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Heritage Council of Western Australia: Register of Heritage Places - Assessment Documentation: Clackline Bridge ( English , PDF) Government of Western Australia. November 18, 2008. Archived from the original on November 27, 2013. Retrieved January 31, 2014.
- ↑ a b Road Information Mapping System ( English ) Main Roads Western Australia. Archived from the original on September 28, 2013. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 28, 2013.
- ↑ a b c Clackline Bridge . In: The Daily News (Perth, WA: 1882-1950) , National Library of Australia, August 30, 1935, p. 5 Edition: LATE CITY. Retrieved December 1, 2013.
- ↑ a b c Great Eastern Highway (Clackline) ( English ) Highway Construction. Archived from the original on August 13, 2013. Retrieved December 1, 2013.
- ↑ Clackline community backs plans to realign highway (English) . In: ABC News , January 24, 2007. Archived from the original on November 28, 2013. Retrieved on November 28, 2013.
- ↑ Budget highway bypass for Clackline (English) . In: Avon Valley Advocate , 2006-18-05. Archived from the original on October 27, 2009. Retrieved November 28, 2013.
- ↑ Heritage Council of Western Australia: Register of Heritage Places - Permanent Entry: Clackline Bridge (PDF) Government of Western Australia. November 18, 2008. Archived from the original on November 28, 2013. Retrieved on November 28, 2013.
- ^ Judi Moylan: Moylan announces Clackline Bypass to be constructed on Great Eastern Highway ( English ) Judi Moylan . January 18, 2007. Archived from the original on November 28, 2013. Retrieved on December 1, 2014.
