2-791-445 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Opening of the Leamington and Warwick Railway - Melbourne Grange Viaduct, 1844. 'The distinguishing feature of the line...is found in the undulatory character of its gradients. The entire length rises and falls like the surface of a gently rolling ocean...and these "ups and downs"...are so contrived that the impetus acquired in running down one incline is contrived exactly to compensate for the retardation of the succeeding ascent. An obvious example of this mode of construction occurs in the Melbourne valley...in the formation of a permanent way across it, it was held expedient to build, not a horizontal, but a curved viaduct, the lowest point being near the centre, a mode of procedure which has produced a great saving of material, and a considerable gain in the working speed. It is built of brick and stone and consists of seventeen elliptical arches, each thirty feet span'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol I.