Shrewsbury and Chester Railway
The Shrewsbury to Chester Line, also known as the Severn - Dee Line (after the rivers on which Shrewsbury and Chester stand), was built in 1846 as the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway. The engineer for the line was Henry Robertson while the contractor was Thomas Brassey in partnership with William Mackenzie and Robert Stephenson[1] - presumably Brassey, Mackenzie and Stephenson.
1847 An accident occurred to one of the company's trains crossing the River Dee on the Chester and Holyhead Railway, when the cast iron girder bridge collapsed, depositing some coaches of the train into the river, killing 5 people[2]. Robert Stephenson, the designer, was chief engineer of the Chester and Holyhead Railway; the engineer for the Chester and Shrewsbury company was Henry Robertson[3]. The design of the trussed girder bridge was ill-conceived. The failure belatedly drew attention to the wider dangers inherent in cast iron girder bridges. A subsequent Royal Commission, which reported in 1849, condemned the design and the use of trussed cast iron in railway bridges. See Wikipedia.
The railway became part of the Great Western Railway's main line from London Paddington to Birkenhead Woodside until nationalisation when it was part of the Western Region until later transferred to the London Midland Region of British Railways. It runs from Shrewsbury to Chester. Of the intermediate stations, Gobowen is in England but the remainder are in Wales.
See Also
- Alexander Mackintosh
- Benjamin Piercy
- Cefn Viaduct
- Chester and Holyhead Railway
- Chirk Viaduct
- Dee Railway Bridge
- Edward Alexander Jeffreys
- Henry Robertson
- History of the Great Western Railway by E. T. MacDermot
- James Grierson
- Joseph Armstrong
- Joshua William Coddington
- Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway
- The Engineer 1924/09/19
- Thomas Truss
- Williams and Mowle
- Wolverhampton Works
Sources of Information
[1] Wikipedia