History
The bridge was built for the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway, and together with Stephenson's Royal Border Bridge at Berwick upon Tweed, completed the line of a London-Edinburgh railway nowadays known as the East Coast Main Line. The bridge was opened to rail traffic, without ceremony, on 15 August 1849. It was officially opened on 27 September 1849 by Queen Victoria; and brought into ordinary use on 4 February 1850.
The total cost of the bridge was £491,153, broken down as follows: the bridge proper cost £243,096, including £112,000 for the metal work, which was produced by Messers Hawks, Crawshay & Co (and subcontractors). The approaches to the bridge cost £113,057, and land and compensation - including to the 650 Newcastle and 130 Gateshead families who were relocated to enable its construction - £135,000.
There were also competing plans - not taken forward - for a low level bridge; in 1836 Richard Grainger with engineer Thomas Sopwith proposed a crossing 20 feet (6.1 m) above high-water mark, running the Newcastle & Carlisle, Great North of England and Brandling Junction railways into a low level terminus. Under their plans, the Scotland railway would follow contour lines to the east and north, whilst the Carlisle line would be taken up inclined planes.
Stephenson's High Level Bridge was designed after, but completed before his equally innovative Britannia Bridge (constructed 1846-50) over the Menai Strait; it can be seen as a second and more elegant version of the Britannia Bridge, and was to influence Isambard Kingdom Brunel in his design of the Royal Albert Bridge (1855; constructed 1859) across the River Tamar at Saltash.
The High Level Bridge began to vibrate like a piece of thin wire, but provided an excellent vantage point for the Great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead in 1854.
In 1906, construction of the King Edward VII Bridge, some 500 yards to the west of the High Level Bridge, was completed. This second bridge addressed the central operational weakness of the single bridge, which was that trains entering the station from the south had to be reversed back across the bridge when returning in that direction. It also meant that locomotives had to switch ends before a train could head north towards Edinburgh.
Since the newer bridge opened, the High Level no longer forms part of the East Coast Main Line. Instead, it provides a route for trains going towards Sunderland, Middlesbrough and, formerly, the Leamside Line. It is also occasionally used for London trains wanting to turn around as the two bridges are linked on the Gateshead side to form a loop. For this reason, the western track across the bridge is electrified.
Read more about this topic: High Level Bridge
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