Fulham Railway Bridge
Also known as Putney Railway Bridge.
There is a public footpath on the downstream side.
Constructed 1887-9 for the London and South Western Railway. Designed by William Jacomb. Head, Wrightson and Co constructed the ironwork, as subcontractors to Lucas and Aird.
The bridge is of wrought iron lattice girder construction on cast iron caisson piers. 418 m (1,371 ft) long, with five spans across the river, two further spans on the southern shore, and one on the north.
Refurbished 1995-7 for London Underground by Tilbury Douglas Construction.
1887 'From the Upper Richmond Road the railway is carried on a brick viaduct 616 yards in length, now nearly completed, over the Putney cutting of the Windsor line as far as the River Thames, falling at a gradient of 1 in 70. The river is then crossed by a handsome trellis girder bridge, which was designed by the late Mr. Jacomb, chief engineer to the London and South-Westetn Railway Company. The Bridge is supported by fourteen cast iron cylinders, each 10 feet in diameter, and two rusticated granite and Portland stone abutments. There are six spans, the first two on the south side being 100 feet each, the three centre spans 153 feet each, and the last span on the north side being 100 feet. There will be a footway on the east side of the bridge for the convenience of the public. Ten cylinders have already been sunk, and two more are in course of sinking. It was originally proposed to test each cylinder individually with a load of 750 tons, but the test of the first one proving very satisfactory, it has since been decided not to test the others. As a proof of the extremely hard nature of the ground on which the cylinders rest, the one which was tested only sank three-quarters of an inch after 50 hours application of the test load.— South- Western Gazette.'[1]
Details
Lattice girder bridges gave limited scope for architects to demonstrate their artistic flair. They could embellish the piers and add decorative iron castings to hide the ends of the individual girders. Compared with the somewhat similar and earlier Kew Railway Bridge, Fulham is slightly more restained. Figs. 4 & 6 show one of the castings at the junction of the girders. It looks top-heavy, but the iron castings are very thin.
Comparing the lattice structures, the principles are the same, but Fulham appears more substantial than Kew. The top and bottom chords are deeper, and the diagonals are of larger section. At Fulham the diagonal tension members are in pairs, straddling the vertical web of the top and bottom chords. The diagonal tension members appear to be thick, but they are actually relatively thin plates with angle iron riveted at the edges (Fig. 7). Curiously, the rivets are countersunk on the outside, which would have added appreciably to the cost and difficulty. The countersunk rivet heads can be seen in Fig. 8. Note the marks made when chiselling off the excess iron. Perhaps it was thought that visible rivets would have made the bridge look too 'industrial' when seen from the river.
Fig. 4 shows a riveted stack of twelve plates forming the top flange at mid-span. These progressively reduce to a single plate at the ends (just visible in Figs. 4 & 6). The bottom flanges are similar, and the appreciable thickness at mid-span is just visible in Fig. 2.
The original cross-beams are fish-belly wrought iron, but box section steel ones have been added between them. See Fig. 9).
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ Railway News - Saturday 17 December 1887