LMS Route: The Shakespeare Route

Goldicot Cutting : smjel247

Workmen pose for the camera on the newly completed Goldicote Cutting farm bridge in February 1916. although the decking and rails have still to be laid. Permanent Way Inspector T Setchell, with his pocket watch evident, is second from the right. stations. The original fifty-year old brick bridge had been weakened by the passage of heavy steam traction engines to and from the farm, the owners of which had repeatedly rejected the SMJ's suggestion that an alternative nearby stronger bridge should be used. At a meeting of the SMJ directors in December 1914 the Engineer had reported fully on the dangerous condition of the bridge and that 'Platelayers have been instructed for the past five years to watch all bridges'. Typically, the SMJ accepted the lowest tender both for a new girder bridge and for its foundations, a decision which brought a train of trouble. After much acrimony involving the railway, the contractors, the farmers and the Board of Trade, work began on the erection of the new bridge, the steelwork for which the contractors had unbelievably laid out across the old weak bridge! On 20th September the SMJ engineer visited the site and, finding the steelwork laid out on the old bridge, he ordered its instant removal. As soon as his back was turned the contractors began assembling the second girder section on the old bridge with the disastrous result described in image 'smjel246'.

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