page_title: Barton Road Swing Bridge
section_title: Operation
hierarchical_section_title: Barton Road Swing Bridge / Operation
caption_attribution_description: English: Barton swing acqueduct and Barton Road swing bridge from the air
context_page_description: Barton Road Swing Bridge is a swing bridge for road traffic in Greater Manchester that crosses the Manchester Ship Canal between Trafford Park in the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford to Barton-upon-Irwell in the City of Salford. The bridge is a Grade II listed building, and is part of a surrounding conservation area. It runs parallel to the Barton Swing Aqueduct which carries the Bridgewater Canal. The bridge opens regularly for traffic along the Manchester Ship Canal, which can cause delays for road traffic.
  The bridge and aqueduct were inaugurated along with the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894, though a bridge had previously existed at this location for over 200 years. During the 20th century, it became increasingly important as an access route to Trafford Park and to allow traffic to bypass Manchester and Salford city centres, and consequently became a significant traffic bottleneck. A replacement high level bridge was built further downstream, and today the swing bridge carries mostly local traffic.
context_section_description: The structure is located adjacent to, and downstream of, the Barton Swing Aqueduct. The two crossings are controlled from a brick-built valve house, on a 122 metres (400 ft) x 9 metres (30 ft) man-made island in the centre of the canal. The tower is four stories high, each with a 2x2 bay and accessed via an external staircase.
  The bridge opens to let shipping traffic through the Manchester Ship Canal, which occurs up to 14 times a day. The island supports the pivot points for the bridges' rotating structures, which are fixed in concrete. When in their open positions, the aqueduct and road bridge line up along the length of the island, allowing ships to traverse along each side of the ship canal. The bridge is a steel arch of girders, and connects to the pivot point via a rack and pinion system. It is the only swing road bridge on the canal that rotates from the centre, instead of from one end.
caption: Aerial photo of the bridge (right) and aqueduct (left)
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "600", "Image YResolution": "600", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:11:26 05:49:34", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7112", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2016", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1408"}