It's the only spot in North America where three railways cross over each other, a situation that has prevailed since the late nineteenth century and continues today:
There's an older triple crossing in England, but this one is of three different transport modes -- road, canal and railway.
Windmill Bridge, Southall (sometimes known as "Three Bridges", even though it's obviously only two) was created by the legendary engineer of the Great Western Railway, I K Brunel, and it opened in 1859:
Obviously the road was there first, and a bridge was created when the Grand Junction Canal was cut through here by navvies. When Brunel needed to bring the Brentford branch through here he decided the best crossing point was at the same spot.
So he demolished everything, put the canal into an eight-foot wide cast-iron trough (the towing path alongside on brackets), slashed a railway cutting underneath lined with brick, and then added another cast iron bridge over the top to take the road. With a couple of strainer arches over the railway to support the retaining wall beneath the canal, his work at Southall -- in the final year of his life -- was done.
Today the branch is a single track rather than the double line of broad-gauge track laid by Brunel, but it's an intriguing testimony to the work of a great engineer.
1 comment:
I love the "cars" with their clerestory roofs in the top picture, they remind me of the old stock on the Mersey Railway which was withdrawn when I was in short trousers - same colour too. Those Victorians were great engineers, nothing daunted them
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