28-726: Hengoed Viaduct is a disused railway viaduct located above the village of Maesycwmmer , in Caerphilly county borough , South Wales . Grade II* listed , it was originally built to carry the Taff Vale Extension of the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway (NA&HR) across the Rhymney River , and is now part of National Cycle Route 47 . During the Industrial Revolution and mass-extraction of coal from South Wales, there
56-410: A complete housing and social complex for workers and their families. The houses remain along the present main road, while the now-disused quarry lies in a field behind the houses of St Anne's Gardens. Liddell's design consisted of 16 arches, with the first effectively a separate bridge skewed across the low level B&MR, to allow for crossing their Hengoed railway station . With a maximum height above
84-595: A repurposed rail viaduct provides a garden promenade on top and workspace for artisans below. The garden promenade is called the Coulée verte René-Dumont while the workspaces in the arches below are the Viaduc des Arts . The project was inaugurated in 1993. Manhattan's High Line , inaugurated in 2009, also uses an elevated train line as a linear urban park . In Indonesia viaducts are used for railways in Java and also for highways such as
112-451: A width of 22 meters. Viaducts are commonly used in many cities that are railroad hubs , such as Chicago, Birmingham, London and Manchester . These viaducts cross the large railroad yards that are needed for freight trains there, and also cross the multi-track railroad lines that are needed for heavy rail traffic. These viaducts provide grade separation and keep highway and city street traffic from having to be continually interrupted by
140-500: Is built across land rather than water, the space below the arches may be used for businesses such as car parking, vehicle repairs, light industry, bars and nightclubs. In the United Kingdom, many railway lines in urban areas have been constructed on viaducts, and so the infrastructure owner Network Rail has an extensive property portfolio in arches under viaducts. In Berlin the space under the arches of elevated subway lines ( S-Bahn )
168-582: Is derived from the Latin via meaning "road", and ducere meaning "to lead". It is a 19th-century derivation from an analogy with ancient Roman aqueducts . Like the Roman aqueducts , many early viaducts comprised a series of arches of roughly equal length. The longest viaduct in antiquity may have been the Pont Serme which crossed wide marshes in southern France. At its longest point, it measured 2,679 meters with
196-407: Is used for several different purposes, including small eateries or bars. Elevated expressways were built in major cities such as Boston ( Central Artery ), Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seoul , Tokyo and Toronto ( Gardiner Expressway ). Some were demolished because they were unappealing and divided the city. In other cases, viaducts were demolished because they were structurally unsafe, such as
224-644: The Bloor-Danforth subway line on the lower deck, over the steep Don River valley . Others were built to span settled areas, crossing over roads beneath—the reason for many viaducts in London. Viaducts over water make use of islands or successive arches. They are often combined with other types of bridges or tunnels to cross navigable waters as viaduct sections, while less expensive to design and build than tunnels or bridges with larger spans, typically lack sufficient horizontal and vertical clearance for large ships. See
252-641: The Celtic Trail within National Cycle Route 47 , which provides a (mostly) traffic free cycle route from Quakers Yard to Newport, its ownership was transferred from British Rail to Railway Paths Ltd in 1999. Hengoed Viaduct was opened for public access in 2000. In April 2004, the Heritage Lottery Fund gave Caerphilly borough council a grant of £870,000. This allowed a programme of refurbishment to take place, including repairing and repointing to
280-526: The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel . The Millau Viaduct is a cable-stayed road-bridge that spans the valley of the river Tarn near Millau in southern France. It opened in 2004 and is the tallest vehicular bridge in the world, with one pier's summit at 343 metres (1,125 ft). The viaduct Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge in China was the longest bridge in the world as of 2011 . Where a viaduct
308-629: The Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco, which was damaged by an earthquake in 1989. However, in developing nations such as Thailand ( Bang Na Expressway , the world's longest road bridge ), India ( Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway ), China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nicaragua, elevated expressways have been built and more are under construction to improve traffic flow, particularly as a workaround of land shortage when built atop surface roads. Other uses have been found for some viaducts. In Paris, France,
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#1732855573156336-708: The Jakarta Inner Ring Road . In January 2019, the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle was closed and replaced with a tunnel after several decades of use because it was seismically unsafe. Hengoed railway station Hengoed railway station serves the village of Hengoed in the county borough of Caerphilly , South Wales . It is a stop on the Rhymney Line of the Valley Lines network. The current station
364-528: The industrial heritage of this locality within the history of the South Wales Valleys . Railway viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide valley, road, river, or other low-lying terrain features and obstacles. The term viaduct
392-457: The Bryn Tunnel (398 yards [364 m]). With a stipulated completion date of 1 October 1854, Liddell engaged contractors Messrs Rennie and Logan, who began work on the masonry structure in mid-1853. Maesycwmmer was a quiet rural farming valley before 1846, but the first project of Messrs Rennie and Logan was to construct both a quarry , from which to extract stone to build the viaduct, and also
420-595: The Hengoed Viaduct. This would be the last major project for the NA&;HR to complete the Taff Vale Extension before the line was opened in 1858. Charles Liddell , the chief engineer of the NA&HR, decided that while a stone bridge would be impractical at Crumlin due to the narrow valley sides and hence high winds, at Maesycwmmer all of the natural resources existed to build an effective stone viaduct. Having won
448-661: The Llanfihangel Railway and the Grosmont Railways as feeder lines into the Hereford Railway, and hence onwards via the joint GWR/LNWR controlled Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway . This allowed shipment of goods from Pontypool and the Ebbw Valley to Hereford . However, access to the productive Rhymney Valley and Rhondda Valley coalfields was at best restricted, through having to route trains south to Cardiff along
476-606: The TVR, then along the South Wales Railway to Newport via the GWR, before being able to access LNWR-controlled track. The UK Parliament approved an Act of Parliament on 3 August 1846 enabling the construction of the Taff Vale Extension, which would connect Coedygric North Junction at Pontypool with the TVR/GWR at Quakers Yard , allowing direct and LNWR-controlled access. The LNWR approved
504-584: The contract to design and provide the structure of the wrought-iron bridge at Crumlin, Thomas W. Kennard , a Scottish civil engineer , won the contract to design the Hengoed Viaduct. Apart from spanning the Rhymney river, the viaduct also had to span the Brecon and Merthyr Railway 's station on the south side, and curve slightly across the valley, to initially form a junction with the B&;MR on its northern side, before entering
532-445: The former Rumney Railway , which on amalgamation with the Brecon and Merthyr Tydfil Junction Railway was called Maesycwmmer & Hengoed. In 1923 it was renamed simply Maesycwmmer . The station has 4 departures per hour in each direction Mon-Sat daytimes - southbound to Caerphilly , Cardiff Central and Penarth and northbound to Bargoed . One each hour of the latter runs through to Rhymney (with extras at peak times). During
560-450: The pier bases, parapets and arches; as well as repairs to the remains of Hengoed ‘High Level’ Station at the western end of the viaduct. Works have improved public access and safety, with new fencing, viewing platforms and the installation of lighting. Finally, the site and route was enhanced by the "Wheel o Drams" (locally known as "The Stargate") a raised sculpture by Andy Hazell, formed from a circle of coalmining dram trucks to commemorate
588-511: The required capital expenditure, and merged the existing three railways and the extension project in the new Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway. The route for the Taff Vale Extension required the construction of two significant viaducts across two major river valleys: one across the Ebbw River (the Crumlin Viaduct ), and one 4 miles (6.4 km) further west across the Rhymney River ,
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#1732855573156616-550: The traffic load, necessitating a viaduct for "through" traffic. Such bridges also lend themselves for use by rail traffic, which requires straighter and flatter routes. Some viaducts have more than one deck, such that one deck has vehicular traffic and another deck carries rail traffic. One example of this is the Prince Edward Viaduct in Toronto, Canada, that carries motor traffic on the top deck as Bloor Street , and metro as
644-445: The train traffic. Likewise, some viaducts carry railroads over large valleys, or they carry railroads over cities with many cross-streets and avenues. Many viaducts over land connect points of similar height in a landscape, usually by bridging a river valley or other eroded opening in an otherwise flat area. Often such valleys had roads descending either side (with a small bridge over the river, where necessary) that become inadequate for
672-542: The valley bottom of 120 feet (37 m) and a full length of 284 yards (260 m), construction came at a cost of £20,000 (equivalent to £1,430,400 in 2003), with one fatal accident. The line opened as a double track as agreed in 1858. Integrated as part of the Great Western Railway by the 1863 amalgamation of the West Midland Railway with that company, in 1928 the entire length of the Taff Vale Extension
700-522: Was a resultant growth in construction of railways into the South Wales Coalfield . The Taff Vale Railway monopolised the trade of shipping coal to Cardiff Docks , so mine owners were desperate for a competitor-railway to improve speeds of shipping, provide access to new markets, and hence reduce shipping rates. The London and North Western Railway had developed a route for the industrialised West Midlands and Northwest England , by controlling
728-558: Was downscaled to a single track. Through passenger and goods traffic ceased over the viaduct on 15 June 1964, and the line was completely closed and the track lifted later that year as part of the Beeching cuts . After the closure, Hengoed viaduct was offered for sale at a nominal sum of £1. Inaccessible to the public for over 35 years, it was agreed for the viaduct to become part of the National Cycle Network . Integrated as part of
756-523: Was initially named Hengoed & Maesycwmmer when opened by the Rhymney Railway in 1858. Then on railway grouping into the Great Western Railway in 1923 it became known as Hengoed Low Level to avoid confusion. Immediately adjacent, and crossing Hengoed Low Level was another station which originally shared the name Hengoed & Maesycwmmer , serving the Taff Vale Extension from Pontypool to Quakers Yard (and ultimately Neath ). This station
784-526: Was renamed in 1923 to Hengoed High Level . The High Level station was immediately at the end of the Hengoed Viaduct , which carried the line across the Rhymney valley to Maesycwmmer . It was closed in June 1964. The line is disused, but the viaduct has been restored and is now part of the National Cycle Network . Some remains of the platforms have also been preserved. The towns shared a third railway station on
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