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Saturday 11 April 2020

Houghwell Burn Bridge

The photos below are courtesy of Derek & Andrew Knott:

After removing the rotten deck & original cast iron beams, the first reinstatement of Houghwell Burn Bridge by the Tanfield Railway took place during 1992.
Tommy Shield ready .....
..... to work on gussets between the second hand replacement bridge beams
The 8 beams being set out - Tommy is leaning against Tom's Land Rover (before he was born)
Bolting the beams together - note the centre line
Tommy's ready to make more adjustments
The deck going into place
No.35 was the first loco across, propelling the Scottish Land International for ET work
Neil & I brought the Sentinel down on 19 April 1992
 - the first steamer across the bridge in 30 years
Wellington brought the first passenger train to ET on 22 July 1992
Kev Adams & Gary Halfpenny painting on 19 August 1992
Original Rayne & Burn 1840 cast iron beams kept at the sides

We rebuilt the deck of Houghwell Burn using new beams in 2013.   Replacing the beams was covered in a blog post of 24 May 2013.   The second hand beams which we used in 1992 were reused again during the rebuild of the front gable of Marley Hill shed.


Off topic, but finally, more of the work of Tommy Shield - HC 38's new tanks & bunker in 1992

The photos above are courtesy of Derek & Andrew Knott  

1 comment:

ian said...

Just some comments , the plant behind tommy in the first pic is an international harvester B100 deity with a conversion for carrying chaired sleepers , also it was the first vehicle to pass over the original cast beams ... steel tracks on cast beams, no ROPS cabs in those days.
Yeh plant on the train is a Cat D6Dfitted with a Hyster winch , which I used to create the basic landscape at East Tanfield site, I also used it at Marley Hill to clear the site of the 5 road shed . Ian