Operations
The viaduct was opened on Whit Monday, 1 June 1857 by Lady Isabella Fitzmaurice, with the first train crossing the bridge and entering the Bryn Tunnel in June 1854, but it could not proceed further as Kennard's construction team had not yet finished the Hengoed Viaduct. which he had won the contract to design and act as civil engineer on. The final Crumlin viaduct, at 200 feet (61 m) high and 1,650 feet (500 m) across its two spans and ten trusses in length (1,066 feet (325 m) and 584 feet (178 m)), remained the highest railway viaduct in Great Britain throughout its working life. Nearby were the Crumlin railway stations, both at high (viaduct) and valley levels.
As Liddell predicted, the location proved to be susceptible to high winds and resultant swaying, resulting in continual expensive maintenance. The NA&HR route, due to a combination of its height and steepness, proved to be one of the most expensive railway lines in all of the UK to operate. It was therefore no surprise when, following the post-World War II nationalisation, British Railways reduced the entire extension line to single track after 1947.
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Famous quotes containing the word operations:
“Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“It may seem strange that any road through such a wilderness should be passable, even in winter, when the snow is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are continually passing on the single track, and it becomes as smooth almost as a railway.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You can’t have operations without screams. Pain and the knife—they’re inseparable.”
—Jean Scott Rogers. Robert Day. Mr. Blount (Frank Pettingell)