Grahamston Swing Bridge
Location type
BridgeName and dates
Grahamston Swing Bridge (1850-)Opened on the Stirlingshire Midland Junction Railway.
Description
This is a double track swing bridge carrying the Edinburgh-Stirling railway over the Forth and Clyde Canal, fixed in the closed position. The bridge is permanently fixed, the railway being electrified (as part of the Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme).
It is the second swing bridge at this location, the original being single track - a pinch point on the double track railway - and with a signal box on either side of the canal.
Swing Bridge West Signal Box
Swing Bridge East Signal Box
The bridge was replaced in 1899 due to the increase in traffic following the opening of the Carmuirs curve (doubled 1905), Alloa Railway (1885) and Grangemouth Docks expansion (particularly from the 1880s culminating with the Grange Dock of 1904). The Caledonian Railway had applied to an arbiter in 1896 to pressurise the North British Railway into replacing the bridge.
The east box had the two storey hydraulic accumulator for the bridge at its rear and the bridge's pivot was at its east end.
With the closure of the Forth and Clyde Canal in 1963 the bridge was fixed. The east signal box remained open until 1997. The canal re-opened to through traffic in 2001, but the swing bridge remains fixed with only modest headroom for passing vessels (around 10ft from waterline).
Tags
Swing Bridge11/06/2020
| Nearby stations Falkirk Grahamston Falkirk Camelon [1st] Camelon Falkirk High Camelon [1st] Larbert Thornbridge Halt Grangemouth Bonnybridge Bonnybridge Canal Goods Bonnybridge Central Polmont Greenhill Alloa Junction Upper Greenhill | Lock 9 [FCC] Carron Company Basin Lock 8 [FCC] Lock 10 [FCC] Camelon Iron Works Parkhouse Iron Works Swing Bridge Junction Lock 7 [FCC] Carron Junction Lock 11 [FCC] Sunnyside Iron Works Camelon Basin Lock 12 [FCC] Tourist/other Swing Bridge West Signal Box Swing Bridge East Signal Box |
| Location names in dark blue are on the same original line. | |
Chronology Dates
| / /1896 | Stirlingshire Midland Junction Railway Caledonian Railway applies to an arbiter to have the Grahamston Swing Bridge replaced with a double track bridge. The single track bridge was a bottleneck on a double track line requiring two signal boxes. |
| / /1899 | Stirlingshire Midland Junction Railway Single track Grahamston Swing Bridge over the canal in Falkirk replaced with a double bridge. Swing Bridge East Signal Box and Swing Bridge West Signal Box replaced. |
