Gundagai Left Australia's Longest Timber Bridge Standing and Rotting for Forty Years
Old Deviation
41,598 views
On the third of November, two thousand and twenty-one, excavators pulled
down the longest timber bridge in Australia.
The Prince Alfred Bridge at Gundagai had carried every vehicle travelling
between Sydney and Melbourne for a hundred and ten years. It was nine
hundred and twenty-two metres long, and it was the longest bridge in New
South Wales until the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened in nineteen thirty-two.
It existed because in eighteen fifty-two the Murrumbidgee drowned the
original town on the flats below, killing around a third of the people in
it. The survivors moved up the hill. The crossing stayed where it was.
The Hume Highway bypassed it in nineteen seventy-seven. The timber viaduct
closed in nineteen eighty-four. And for the next four decades the town
could not establish who actually owned the thing they were watching rot.
The iron half had an owner. The timber half had an argument.
LOCATIONS IN THIS VIDEO
Prince Alfred Bridge iron spans, still in service: -35.0744, 148.1069
Prince Alfred Bridge memorial, O.I. Bell Drive floodplain: [confirm]
1852 flood height marker, Sheridan Lane and Homer Street: [confirm]
Gundagai railway viaduct, 1902, still standing: [confirm]
Access: the iron bridge carries local traffic and is open. The memorial
areas off Sheridan Street and O.I. Bell Drive are public. The timber road
viaduct no longer exists; what remains on the floodplain are the pier
stubs and a single reinstated trestle.
SOURCES
NSW State Heritage Register, item 2022, Prince Alfred Bridge - Iron Road Bridge
NSW Crown Lands, Prince Alfred Bridge memorial records
Gundagai Historic Bridges Inc
National Museum of Australia, Gundagai floods
Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience, Flood - Gundagai 1852
THE RESCUE OF 1852
Yarri
Jacky Jacky
Long Jimmy, who died not long afterwards
and a fourth Wiradjuri man whose name was not recorded
Old Deviation covers the roads and railways Australia stopped using and
what is left of them.
#Gundagai #HumeHighway #Australia
20 Comments
With uneven timbers and huge gaps between them they would grab your front wheel and just about unload you. Good to see it gone.
when the then Department of Main Roads (DMR) built the Gundagai Bypass in the mid 1970s, the funds to demolish the timber Prince Albert approach viaduct (from memory approximately $20,000 in 1977$) were gifted to the local Gundagai "Bridge Preservation Group" for use on the approach viaduct. As you note, these funds were sufficient to demolish the viaduct, but woefully insufficient to restore it. The viaduct's demolition in 2021 was essentially the end of the road for the viaduct.
Also, many years ago, I tracked down and spoke to the rail engineer responsible for maintenance of the Cootamundra to Tumut rail line when it finally closed. The line was shut down because the time to restore the approach viaduct to a serviceable condition would have taken two bridge crews over a year and for that time the line would not have been able to carry any revenue traffic.
buck passing.
Gundagai Left Australia's Longest Timber Bridge Standing and Rotting for Forty Years
Old Deviation
41,598 views
On the third of November, two thousand and twenty-one, excavators pulled
down the longest timber bridge in Australia.
The Prince Alfred Bridge at Gundagai had carried every vehicle travelling
between Sydney and Melbourne for a hundred and ten years. It was nine
hundred and twenty-two metres long, and it was the longest bridge in New
South Wales until the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened in nineteen thirty-two.
It existed because in eighteen fifty-two the Murrumbidgee drowned the
original town on the flats below, killing around a third of the people in
it. The survivors moved up the hill. The crossing stayed where it was.
The Hume Highway bypassed it in nineteen seventy-seven. The timber viaduct
closed in nineteen eighty-four. And for the next four decades the town
could not establish who actually owned the thing they were watching rot.
The iron half had an owner. The timber half had an argument.
LOCATIONS IN THIS VIDEO
Prince Alfred Bridge iron spans, still in service: -35.0744, 148.1069
Prince Alfred Bridge memorial, O.I. Bell Drive floodplain: [confirm]
1852 flood height marker, Sheridan Lane and Homer Street: [confirm]
Gundagai railway viaduct, 1902, still standing: [confirm]
Access: the iron bridge carries local traffic and is open. The memorial
areas off Sheridan Street and O.I. Bell Drive are public. The timber road
viaduct no longer exists; what remains on the floodplain are the pier
stubs and a single reinstated trestle.
SOURCES
NSW State Heritage Register, item 2022, Prince Alfred Bridge - Iron Road Bridge
NSW Crown Lands, Prince Alfred Bridge memorial records
Gundagai Historic Bridges Inc
National Museum of Australia, Gundagai floods
Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience, Flood - Gundagai 1852
THE RESCUE OF 1852
Yarri
Jacky Jacky
Long Jimmy, who died not long afterwards
and a fourth Wiradjuri man whose name was not recorded
Old Deviation covers the roads and railways Australia stopped using and
what is left of them.
#Gundagai #HumeHighway #Australia