Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/77

 gradients were 1 in 23, dipping down to the river, and rising on the opposite side, and everything was finished off in the most substantial and careful manner; but of course great skill and attention were necessary on the part of the engine drivers, and the difficulty of working long and heavy trains, some of which required three engines, over these severe and changing gradients, without breaking the couplings, or heavily bumping the carriages together, can hardly be exaggerated, yet no mishap occurred, and the passengers in the trains were scarcely aware that they were travelling under unusual conditions.

The new permanent viaduct was meanwhile rapidly constructed, and was actually completed and opened for traffic on the 14th September, less than one month after the mishap. Its length is 224 feet, divided into seven spans of thirty-two feet each, and its height is fifty feet. Forty-two girders, each thirty-two feet in length, were required, and the plates and angles for each girder were rolled in one length. All these were made in the Company's own steel works at Crewe, and the whole of the material was turned out and ready for erection within seven days, the steel having been manufactured, rolled, and worked, within that short space of time.