Bridges and viaducts › Richmond Railway Bridge
Richmond Railway Bridge
The railway bridge over the Thames between Richmond and St Margarets, first opened in 1848 and rebuilt in 1906-08 on the old piers: three steel arch-girder spans of about 100 ft (30.5 m) in a bridge 300 ft (91.5 m) long.
- Opened
- 1848; rebuilt 1906-08 on the old piers; ribs and deck replaced 1984
- Line
- Waterloo to Reading line (the Windsor lines)
- Kind
- Steel arch-girder spans
- Length
- 300 ft (91.5 m)
- Spans
- Three, of about 100 ft (30.5 m)
- Ribs
- Four to each opening, 2 ft 6 in (0.76 m) deep; 102 ft 8 5/8 in (31.3 m) between pins in 1908
- Headroom
- 17 ft 4 in (5.3 m) (the datum is not stated)
- Train drawn
- South Western Railway Class 701
unverified Some of these figures haven’t yet been checked against an official source or a published history. What’s in doubt ↓
Four times larger
Close up
At 10 px a metre, the scale of the train drawings, so the train is the size it is on its own page. Each is cut from the same drawing.
Sources
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Show the 10 sources from Historic England, Grace's Guide, Wikipedia and 7 more
- Richmond Railway Bridge and Approach Viaduct (list entry 1393016, Grade II) Historic England, read 8 November 2026300 ft (91.5 m) long, three 100 ft (30.5 m) steel arch-girder spans; stone-faced brick arched abutments and two stone-faced brick river piers with rounded cutwaters; four shallow-arched ribs to each span, pinned at their ends and braced in two pairs, reproducing the profile of the cast-iron arches; open spandrels with vertical dividers; girders and decking replaced 1984; the approach viaduct on the Surrey side: six arches with red brick voussoirs and banded piers, the sixth blind, then plainer stock brick
- Richmond Railway Bridge (quoting the Richmond and Twickenham Times, 9 May 1908, on A. W. Szlumper's paper) Grace's Guide, read 8 November 2026the old bridge crossed by three 100 ft spans; new steel ribs, four to each opening, 102 ft 8 5/8 in span, 2 ft 6 in deep, on cast steel pins 9 in in diameter; staging in eleven spans of 16 to 60 ft for the Thames Conservancy; Horseley Co.
- Richmond Railway Bridge Wikipedia, read 8 November 2026Locke and Errington, Brassey, 1848; three 100 ft cast-iron girders on stone-faced land arches and two river piers; Jacomb-Hood, Horseley Bridge Co., 1906-08, on the old piers and abutments; 1984 replacement
- Structure 39, Richmond Railway Bridge SREmG, read 8 November 20261848: three cast-iron segmental arch spans of 100 ft; 1908: steel, its appearance to remain unchanged (Commissioners of Woods and Forests), each track on two arches; the plaque 'Horsley Co. Ltd, London and Tipton 1908'
- OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), read 8 November 2026the bridge ways 523 ft (159.5 m) long on a bearing of 41 degrees; maxspeed 60 mph (97 km/h); the river's edges cross the line 51 ft 10 in (15.8 m) and 353 ft (107.5 m) from the west end (301 ft (91.7 m) apart); Ducks Walk passes under at 35 ft 1 in (10.7 m), Cholmondeley Walk at 377 ft to 397 ft (115-121 m); the structure 30 ft 10 in (9.4 m) wide
- EU-DEM v1.1 (25 m) digital elevation model, served by OpenTopoData European Union Copernicus programme (EU-DEM), via OpenTopoData, read 8-9 November 2026the river surface 14 ft 9 in (4.5 m); the Richmond bank rising from 18 ft 4 in (5.6 m) at the towpath to 25 ft 3 in (7.7 m) in the Old Deer Park; the St Margarets side 30 ft 6 in (9.3 m) 197 ft (60 m) west of the bridge
- Richmond Railway Bridge (photograph) N Chadwick, via geograph.org.uk, 6 March 2018the middle span's downstream face square-on from Twickenham Bridge: proportions of the piers, pilasters, rib and deck to the pier spacing (research/readings.json); the round-headed spandrel openings; colours under overcast sky
- Richmond Railway Bridge 333r1 (photograph) Patche99z, via Wikimedia Commons, 18 February 2008the upstream face from the Richmond towpath, a Class 450 crossing: the abutments' faces and pier centres along the line (a 1-D perspective fit through the 450's doors and the shared vanishing point), the levels in pier 1's upright, the brick pilasters and the Richmond abutment, colours in sun
- Richmond railway bridge 2024-05-08 (photograph) Matt Brown, via Wikimedia Commons, 8 May 2024the Richmond-side span and pier from Twickenham Bridge at about high water: the springing about 7 ft 10 in (2.4 m) above the water
- Thames bridges: Teddington to Chelsea riverthames.co.uk, read 8 November 2026Richmond Railway Bridge headroom 17 ft 4 in (no datum given); 1908 by J. W. Jacomb-Hood
unverified
- Pier centres 103 ft (31.3 m) apart: the ribs' published span (102 ft 8 5/8 in, Szlumper 1908 via Grace's Guide) taken as pin to pin at the pier centrelines. Historic England gives 300 ft (91.5 m) and three 100 ft (30.5 m) spans (100 ft each, probably the 1848 spans); the drawing has 298 ft (90.7 m) between the abutments' faces. A dimensioned drawing (Network Rail's archive, The Engineer 1906-08) would settle it.
- The piers' thickness (10 ft 8 in (3.25 m) at the springing), the pilasters (6 ft 9 in (2.07 m)), the cap (6 ft 3 in to 10 ft 2 in (1.9-3.1 m)) and the ribs' rise (13 ft 5 in (4.1 m) at the centre line, 13 ft 9 in (4.2 m) at the intrados) are read off one square-on photograph (geograph 5882731) scaled by the pier spacing above; no published figure was found.
- The levels hang on the water: the springing is 7 ft 10 in (2.4 m) above the water on a high-tide photograph (2024-05-08) and 15 ft 1 in (4.6 m) on a lower-tide one (333r1, 2008); h 0 is taken as high water at EU-DEM's 14 ft 9 in (4.5 m). A river guide gives 17 ft 4 in headroom with no datum; the drawing has 19 ft 8 in (6.0 m) under the ribs' crown.
- Rail level: the drawing puts the rail 3 ft 3 in (1.0 m) over the girders' top (29 ft 2 in (8.9 m), level with the deck slab's top edge); 333r1, read with a 450 crossing, puts it about 1 ft 8 in (0.5 m) lower. Not checked on a level photograph of a train on the bridge.
- The ribs' visible depth is about 3 ft 11 in (1.2 m) on the photographs against 2 ft 6 in (0.76 m) published for 1908: the 1984 ribs may be deeper, or the published figure is the web alone.
- The spandrel posts: drawn 2 ft 7 in (0.8 m) wide; the photographs show about 0.3 m at about 4 ft 1 in (1.24 m) pitch. Drawn at a 8 ft 2 in (2.5 m) bay so the open look of the spandrels reads.
- The abutments' face blocks are drawn up to the railing's top (32 ft 6 in (9.9 m)): on 333r1 the Richmond one rises above the deck slab, but trees behind it hide its top. The towpath arches in both abutments and the approach viaduct's arches on the Richmond side (Historic England: six arches with red brick voussoirs, then a plainer stock-brick viaduct) are drawn as estimates: spans, springing and piers aren't published or measured.
- The ground: EU-DEM 82 ft (25 m; smoothed); the towpaths' levels and the embankment on the St Margarets side are estimated.
- Colours: read off 333r1 (sunlit) and 5882731 (overcast); the paint's green in particular.
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