Sorry this is not really truck related but I thought some readers of this thread might find it interesting and there’s a transport link in here somewhere (honestly
).
While walking my dog at the weekend something occurred to me. It’s strange how we’ve all visited places hundreds, even thousands of miles from home but you never seem to visit places that are on your doorstep. One such place for me is the Causey Arch, the oldest single arch railway bridge in the world and it’s about a mile from my front door.
A bit of history
In the 17 and 1800’s coal was transported in wooden wagons from the mines of County Durham (at that time the largest coal field in the world) to the port of Newcastle for onward shipment. These wagons travelled along unpaved roads know as wagonways, being in unpaved they would become rutted and pot-holed and often impassable. To combat this in the early 1700’s the practice of laying rails for the wagons to run on began and thus wagonways became railways.
The mine owners even agreed a "standard" width for the rails so that everyone’s wagons could use the railways. This was 4 feet 8 1/2 inches which was considered to be the ideal width for the horse pulling the wagon and the man leading it. Today about 55% of the worlds trains still run on this "standard gauge".
So what about the Causey Arch? It was designed and built in 1725 by local Master Mason Ralph Wood, to span the Causey gorge. At the time it was built it was the longest single arch bridge in Britain at 102 feet.
The fate of Mr Wood
But the real irony to this tale is the fate of Mr Wood himself. Convinced his construction was flawed in some way and believing it would collapse, he threw himself from the bridge to his death in the gorge some 150 feet below.
They say that his ghost can be seen wandering the bridge at night and on a windy night you can hear his cries as he falls to his death. (this is Beamish….. we love a good ghost story). Anyway in 6 years it will be 300 years old... how wrong he was.