page_title: Chester and Holyhead Railway
section_title: The Menai Bridge
hierarchical_section_title: Chester and Holyhead Railway / The Menai Bridge
caption_attribution_description: Britannia Bridge
context_page_description: The Chester and Holyhead Railway was an early railway company conceived to improve transmission of Government dispatches between London and Ireland, as well as ordinary railway objectives. Its construction was hugely expensive, chiefly due to the cost of building the Britannia Tubular Bridge over the Menai Strait. The company had relied on Government support in facilitating the ferry service, and this proved to be uncertain. The company opened its main line throughout in 1850. It relied on the co-operation of other railways to reach London and in 1859 it was absorbed by the London and North Western Railway.
  There were extensive mineral deposits at a number of locations south of the C&HR main line, and the C&HR and the LNWR encouraged the building of branch lines to serve them. Llandudno was an early centre of leisure and holiday travel, and in the last decades of the nineteenth century, that traffic became increasingly important. In the twentieth century, the North Wales coast became a popular holiday destination, reached largely by rail travel.
context_section_description: In the 1845 session of Parliament the Company deposited plans for the crossing of the Menai. The geographical route was now clear enough, but the concept of the bridge design was not. Such a large span lent itself to the idea of a suspension bridge, and Stephenson considered whether the deck of such a structure could be stiffened so as to carry the concentrated loads of a railway train, but decided against it. Any arched design was objected to by the supposed restriction on navigation it might impose. Stephenson was beginning to think of a bridge structure in the form of a straight tube; the unusual depth of the beam would give sufficient bending strength. John Laird, a shipbuilder and C&HR board member told Stephenson of the case of the launch of a steamship, the Prince of Wales. The launch went astray, and the ship ended up supported on ground at bow and stern, over a length of 180 feet, acting as a beam without distress.
  In the Parliamentary process, Stephenson was naturally challenged as to the feasibility of his tubular bridge, but succeeded in convincing sceptical members, and the Chester & Holyhead Railway Completion Act received the Royal Assent on 30 June 1845.
  After some experimentation, rectangular tubes (as opposed to circular or elliptical) were decided on, and a one-sixth scale model was tested to destruction. This gave Stephenson confidence in the concept, and auxiliary support chains earlier thought necessary were dispensed with. The erection would be performed by hydraulic jacks.
caption: The Britannia Bridge (George Childs)
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