Tinsley Viaduct

[Guest SheffBlade]

Miss 'em

[Guest SheffBlade]

[ukelele lady]

Miss 'em

What a beautiful picture, Tinsley Towers at their best.

[Guest SheffBlade]

Thankyou

[Guest carlie167]

Love your photos SheffBlade, keep em coming. :)

[Guest SheffBlade]

Thankyou, I certainly will. I just wish I had some more from the past. I've only really been into photography for about 4 or 5 years.

I'm getting a new camera next week though so plenty more to come. I take them pretty much daily as it is lol

[Guest Falls]

Plenty of information on the Rotherhamweb site about the viaducts building and history.

http://www.rotherhamweb.co.uk/tinsley/viaduct.htm

This account is accurate, but starts in 1965 - part way through the story. I can't find the reference that would tell the full history so I'm relying on memory.

If this isn't playing tricks again, I recall the first Tinsley viaduct design was by the West Riding C.C. under the direction of Col. S. Maynard Lovell, County Engineer and Surveyor. I believe it was to be in R.C. concrete.

They selected concrete because it was a low maintenance material; however it would have cost about 8 million pounds. They went out for bid with this design but Freeman Fox/Cleveland Bridge came back with the steel box girder design which they said would be roughly half the price. I think their original estimate was about 4.5 million but it end up being six million plus.

The Ministry of Transport bought the box girder design because of its SIGNIFICANT cost savings (doesn't this all sound terribly familiar) Col. Lovell was highly regarded the highway design community and had sufficient stature that he could tell the Ministry of Transport that he wanted nothing to do with their design or their consulting engineers (Lovell didn't like consulting engineers - he wasn't alone in this opinion).

Of course Lovell and the WRCC did eventually have to take-over maintenance of the viaduct in the early 70's, just as all the problems were coming to light.

Incidentally, if you want an appreciation of Lovell, his boys and their best work, read-up on the design and building of the Yorkshire section of the M62, specifically the high level section west of Huddersfield.

If I find the article I'm looking for on the net, I'll post the link.

Just to keep the record straight, I never met Col. Lovell, never worked with or for him and I'm not related.

Regards

[SteveHB]

[RichardB]

Early photo of the viaduct.

Rare action shot; these are the actual two vehicles that made it across the viaduct between its opening and its subsequent on/off closure for the next 20 years or so ... probably ...

[Guest Carveti]

Thank goodness these two twin eyesores were eventually blown up. What an ugly reminder that travellers were passing Sheffield.

On the subject of the Viaduct. I remember a TV programme about them some years ago. I believe the original tenders called for a concrete viaduct as the steel box-girder bridge was totally unsuitable, due to corrosion from local steelworks and the cooling towers themselves.

However the minister in charge of the project deciding that a box-girder bridge would be far cheaper in the short term and the money saved would do his career no harm, accepted a tender for the building of such a viaduct.

No doubt, over time, the cost of maintenance has far outstripped the cost of a concrete viaduct but, for the sake of political expediency the box-girder tender was accepted. No doubt the minister in question was suitably rewarded for his decision.