Conwy Railway Bridge

Historic bridge

Explorer Tom

Conwy Railway Bridge carries trains through iron tubes past Conwy Castle, as if Robert Stephenson wanted Victorian engineering to make a dramatic entrance beside medieval stone. I would have added a conductor in armour, but fortunately nobody asked me to design a working bridge. Built for the Chester and Holyhead Railway in the 1840s, this was a pioneering tubular railway bridge. Trains run inside the large wrought-iron box girders rather than on a conventional open deck. The original span crossed the river in one leap; piers were added in 1899. Stephenson's design, developed with other engineers, helped prove the strength of this approach before the much larger Britannia Bridge was built over the Menai Strait. The castellated masonry towers beside the tubes echo nearby Conwy Castle. Those towers can fool a hurried eye into treating the bridge as another piece of fortress. Look again and the different ages separate: a medieval castle, a nineteenth-century railway and the river that each had to reckon with. I can imagine the castle asking the tubes why they make such a noise, and the tubes answering with the next train. That conversation is nonsense; the pairing of old town and daring engineering is the real pleasure. This is an active railway bridge, so admire it from safe public viewpoints rather than trying to enter the tracks or tubes. The parallel pedestrian suspension bridge offers a useful view when open. Check current public access to that crossing before travelling. Listen for a train, then notice how the structure carries its weight across the Conwy. It is a bridge that still does the job for which it was built, with style to spare.