Hungerford (Charing Cross) Railway Bridge

• The spans' order is from the 1862 general elevation (NRCA140024) and the Morning Post (12 January 1864): two 154 ft spans from the Surrey abutment to the Surrey brick pier, four between the brick piers, three of 100 ft from the Middlesex brick pier to the Charing Cross abutment. The Morning Post also says the brick piers are '616 feet apart', which four 154 ft spans and three 10 ft cylinders don't fit (646 ft); the sheet measures 645.6 ft between their faces, so 616 is taken as a misprint.
• The brick piers' width (33.4 ft) and the abutments' end piers (15.7 and 14.8 ft) are read off the 1862 sheet, scaled by its 164 ft cylinder centres (11.5 px a foot, the 100 ft spans giving 11.48); no published figure. Brunel's 676 ft centre span less the 646 ft between the faces gives 30 ft, near enough.
• The land cylinders under the 100 ft spans (8.4 ft) are drawn as the 1862 sheet draws them, narrower than the river cylinders' published 10 ft; what they look like today, inside the Embankment and Embankment Place, has not been seen.
• Heights are read off the 1862 sheet above its top water line (taken as high water: the Surrey shore meets it, and the cylinders widen from 10 to 14 ft at its low-water line, 17.8 ft lower, as the Morning Post says they do): girders' top 43.4 ft, 14 ft deep, so their foot 29.4 ft and the rail 30.9 ft. The Magnet (1 August 1887) gives the rails '25 ft above high-water mark', about 6 ft lower; the datum may differ (Trinity high water in 1862; tides have risen since). Not settled.
• The panels (14 a 154 ft span, 11 ft each; 10 a 100 ft span) are counted on the 1862 sheet; the photographs show the same X lattice with verticals, and plated end posts with oval holes over the cylinders (end posts drawn 5.2 ft each, read off the sheet).
• The brick piers' block above the deck: the 1862 sheet draws a block 22-25 ft wide with a cornice 5 ft above the girders; photographs from Waterloo Bridge (2018) and from the Westminster side (2009) show today's block nearly the pier's width with a segmental brick top edged in pale stone, about 10-17 ft over the girders. Drawn 31 ft wide, 5 ft over the girders to its springing and 7 ft more at the crown: an estimate from two oblique photographs.
• The piers' opening (7.9 ft wide, sill 6 ft, springing 16.2 ft), cornice (3.8 ft), string course and plinth are read off the 1862 sheet; one photograph (Waterloo Bridge, 2018) shows the opening dark today.
• The ground (about 5 ft above high water on both banks) is an estimate; the EU-DEM along the line reads buildings and trees here, so it wasn't used.
• The water runs from OSM's south river wall (144 ft (44.0 m) from the south end of OSM's bridge, taken as the Surrey abutment's face, within about 13 ft 1 in (4 m)) to the Middlesex brick pier's north face (the Victoria Embankment's wall meets the pier: OSM puts the wall 8 ft into it).
• The colours are read off photographs: the girders' green (the 2023 close photograph: lit 5B6E68, shade 46564F), the pale grey inner girder seen behind the train, the brick (backlit and hazy in the 2018 photograph: the brick colour is an estimate) and the pale stone plinth (2009).
• The 1887 upstream widening (two more girders and cylinders, 48 ft 9 in) is hidden behind this face; the far girder drawn is the pale inner one the photographs show behind a train on the downstream tracks.
• Not drawn: the Golden Jubilee footbridges either side (separate structures: a question for Kyle), the abutments' 1862 end towers above the deck (not confirmed today), the approach viaduct to Waterloo East and Charing Cross station's Embankment Place building, the conductor rails, signals and the steel collars round the cylinders at water level that carry the footbridges' tie-downs.
• The line speed (25 mph (40 km/h)) is OSM's maxspeed on the bridge's tracks (15 mph (24 km/h) on the crossovers), not checked against the Sectional Appendix.

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