GeoGraph - photograph every grid square

St Albans: Railway bridge over a now dismantled railway (1)

The sheer size of this massive single arch bridge has to be seen to be appreciated. It was built by the Midland Railway around 1868 to take their main line to London over the already existing Hatfield & St Albans Railway which had been completed and opened three years earlier. In 1883 the Hatfield & St Albans Railway was taken over by the Great Northern Railway, but it was a very early casualty of British Railways' days being closed to passenger traffic in 1951. Freight services lingered on until 1964. The trackbed itself is now a public path known as the Alban Way and it also forms a section of National Cycle Network Route 61. For a closer view of the bridge please see TL1506 : St Albans: Railway bridge over a now dismantled railway (2).