Barnes Railway Bridge - Barnes, London, UK - Railroad Bridges on Waymarking.com

Barnes Railway Bridge is a Grade II-listed railway bridge on the west side of London that links Chiswick to the north west and Barnes to the south east. Barnes Bridge Railway Station lies immediately at the southern end of the bridge, whilst Chiswick Railway Station is half a mile from the northern end of the bridge, reached via a long embankment.

The first bridge was built here in 1849 of cast iron, but has not been in use since the 1890s, when a new, two-track, wrought iron bridge was built alongside and is the bridge still in use today. The view from under the bridge gives a good idea of how this is essentially two separate bridges standing alongside each other. To the downstream side of the bridge there is a narrow pedestrian footway that gives close views of passing trains and which was built as part of the 1890s widening of the bridge. The ‘newer’ bridge is of girder construction with three graceful arches.

The bridge forms part of the Hounslow Loop Line and the frequency of passenger services has varied over the years. At the time of Waymarking there were just two scheduled trains in each direction per hour.

The book ‘Civil Engineering Heritage - London and the Thames Valley’, by Denis Smith (2001) carries a detailed history of railway bridges at this location, which I have summarised here:

“The bridge was built to carry the Hounslow and Richmond loop line of the London & South Western Railway over the River Thames. Work began on this interesting structure in 1846 and it was opened on 22 August 1849. The bridge comprised three spans formed of cast-iron arches carrying a timber deck. The arches are of 120ft span with a rise of 12ft and the ribs are 3ft deep. There are six arch ribs per span, each cast in four sections. The brick piers are faced in Bramley Fall stone. The engineers were Joseph Locke and J. E. Errington, and the contractor was Thomas Brassey. In 1891-95 the bridge was widened with wrought-iron bowstring trusses above the original cast-iron arches, giving the bridge an unusual appearance. The engineer for this work was Edward Andrews”.

The coordinates for this Waymark are for a safe viewing location at the Barnes (southern) end of the bridge.

Bridge Type: Arch Bridge Usage: Railroad Moving Bridge: This bridge is static (has no moving pieces)

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Date Logged Log User Rating   01/07/2022 Master Mariner visited it