Dinting Viaduct
on the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway
Opened in 1844 as part of the original Woodhead Line by the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway. The viaduct has been modified a number of times, most notably by the addition of seven brick strengthening piers in 1918–20. Arrangement: From the south end, there is a series of seven stone arches, each 50 feet (15 m) wide. This is followed by the central section, having five openings (later divided by strengthening piers), and then further four stone arches. It is of similar design to the shorter Broadbottom Viaduct on the same line, which crosses the River Etherow at Broadbottom.[1]
1844 August 8th. Opened. Sixteen arches, five of which were of wood, springing from stone piers with 125 feet span. The rest of the arches were of brick with stone quoins of fifty feet span...[more detail]. Contractors were Buxton and Clarke of Sheffield.[2]
The timber viaduct was well-illustrated in 'Laminated-timber-arch bridges of Joseph Locke (1805–60) and his assistants' by Nicholas A. Bill.
1861 THE MOTTRAM AND DINTING VIADUCTS.
The following communication has been kindly prepared for insertion in our paper by Mr. Thomas Wagstaffe, practical architect and surveyor, of this town: Much doubt has recently been entertained the public respecting the safety of these viaducts. About 20 years ago, the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway Company constructed the wide-spanned arches of timber, and a finer conception in carpentry was never brought out. The elegance, lightness, and strength were magnificent in the highest degree, but the durability doubtful. Alarming indications of decay began to appear in the woodwork, and about 15 months ago it was wisely considered necessary by the company that more permanent structures should substituted for the safe transit of life and property over these dizzy heights (nearly 140 feet).
Messrs. Fairbairn and Co., of Manchester, the eminent engineers, were consulted, and sent in designs, with an estimate of the cost, for sets of wrought iron girders or tubes to be fixed on the piers in place of the timber work. The designs and estimates were, after due consideration. accepted, and the work commenced. These girders are composed of rolled sheet iron, or boiler plates rivetted together, those at Mottram being 12 ft. deep and 3 feet wide, and those at Dinting 10 feet deep and 2 feet 6 inches wide, thereby forming hollow tubes. The plates are three eighths and one sixteenth of an inch thick at the ends, increasing to five eighths of inch in the middle of the span (two girders to each span), over which are fixed wrought iron transom beams, 12 inches deep and four feet apart, on which lie the longitudinal wooden sleepers—20 inches by 10, covered with zinc—to receive the permanent rails.
The tubes of the Mottram viaduct are 160 feet long, and weigh over 80 tons each : those at Dinting are 135 feet long, and weigh nearly 70 tons. Their deflection does not exceed one eighth of an inch when the heaviest train passes, and they are calculated, by practical experiments, to sustain a weight of 400 tons in the centre, or 800 tons equally distributed, or about ten times the weight that will ever, under any circumstances, cross over at one time.
Allowance for expansion or contraction, (which varies over an inch in length, in each tube, from the hottest to the coldest day), is amply provided for by means of a number of rollers, 1 3/4 inches in diameter, and 3 or 4 inches apart, being fixed into what is called dead-plate, of cast iron, firmly bedded in the masonry ; over which the girders are placed, thereby allowing for expansion or contraction, without pushing or straining the pins. Side-plates, or check-rails, are placed the whole length of the viaduct ; thereby forming groove for the flanges of the wheels, out of which it is impossible they can ever be thrown, consequently making transit over the viaduct safer than even over other portions of the line where such check-rails are not used. The smooth surface of the rails, and the manner in which they are fixed, would not allow of a stone, or piece of iron or wood, — maliciously or accidentally placed thereon, — having any influence in throwing off train : such impediment would glance away before the flange of the wheel, no matter at what speed the train might be proceeding.
The Mottram viaduct was commenced in the early part of last spring, and was completed in an almost incredible short space of time. The works at the Dinting viaduct were commenced in October last; and, surprising as the statement may appear to those who have not witnessed the progress of the work, the whole of the ponderous tubes are now fixed, the permanent rails and balustrades completed, and all the old timber-work taken down.
Too much praise cannot possibly be given to Mr. George Lockwood, to whom the management and carrying out the work has been entrusted, inasmuch not a single train—passenger or luggage—has been prevented crossing during the whole time it has been in progress. Signal-men and points-men have been stationed at each end of the viaduct to turn both up and down trains on to one line of rails, while, on the other line, the massive tubes have been in course of construction, rivetted together, down to their final resting-place. Not a broken bone, nor scarcely a trapped finger or scratch, has been sustained, while the slightest mishap workmen or train would have been as fearful to contemplate as dropping from the Blondin’s rope into the yawning abyss of Niagara. Mr. Lockwood has managed his men in manner which points a moral to those who too often exercise a spirit of tyranny ; good wages, kind words, and general good treatment, being his motto, rewarding them occasionally with a barrel of the beverage which enlivens and cheers all hard working men ; for although they have had a most severe winter and exposed situation to contend with, they have worked on with a devotion seldom witnessed, and the shortness of time occupied in the execution of the works has astonished every beholder.
Doubts have been entertained in reference to the safety of Mr. Peter Mather’s residence, the gable end of which is almost perpendicularly situated under the Dinting Viaduct; but on Sunday last the heavy crash of the last falling timbers, which will long be remembered all who witnessed them, left Mr. Mather’s property no longer in danger.
I may as well here state that the symptoms of rottenness and decay in the wood work, now it is taken down, are frightful indeed, and could not have sustained the vibration of the heavy weights passing over them many years longer.
We have read of pyramids taking one huundred thousand men twenty years to build, and have read of wonderful architectural and engineering achievements, both ancient and modern; but have never heard of or seen a work of such magnitude carried out so safely and so skilfully by so few hands in short space of time.' [3]
1916 photo here showing the viaduct as originally built.
