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GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line
GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton
Bordesley Station: gwrbg2279
A view from the south end of Bordesley Station in 1929. The
station had two island platforms of similar length, but these were staggered,
at each end one of the platforms terminated at a road bridge while the other
spanned across it. At the southern end the relief island platform was supported
on plate girders as it crossed over Sandy Lane and the Grand Union Canal in two
separate spans, but under the main lines these two transport arteries had
converged necessitating a single longer span to cross them together.
The civil engineering principles in the construction of
steel railway bridges meant that the most economic bridge design was normally
dependent upon the length of the span and this resulted in the application of
some general rules. In a course book for Engineering Students and Draughtsmen
published in 1907, called Typical Steel Railway Bridges by W
Thompson, the following is recommended: Up to 100 feet span - Deck plate
girder construction 100 to 125 feet span - Deck Warren girder
construction 125 to 175 feet span - Parallel chorded through Pratt truss
(termed a lattice girder) 175 to 275 feet span - Pratt truss with a curved
top chord
At Bordesley Station the long single span carrying the Up
main line was constructed with two parallel chorded through Pratt trusses,
creating a lattice girder bridge, while a third identical truss (seen here) on
a slightly different alignment supported the Down main line.
Robert Ferris
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