Lovely piece of engineering and large scale ironworks. Built during our Revolutionary War. Amazing. The brief video at your BBC link indicates their intention to restore the bridge to last another two hundred years. Hats off.
Interesting that there was a need for such a span before the first steam engine trains. That old curiosity cat killer lead to more information. First railways or wagonways were for the transport of coal at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Stands to reason, heavy cargo with high demand. Shropshire area later had a wooden rail system for horse drawn wagons.
More interesting background.
Timeline of railway history
Morning,
Lovely piece of iron work.
The castings are smooth one side and rough the other, I think it was cast using the ground as the mould.
All the little bits bolted together, using who knows what thread on the bolts.