page_title: Clackline Bridge
section_title: Replacement
hierarchical_section_title: Clackline Bridge / Replacement
caption_attribution_description: English: Cropped view of Clackline Bridge. Also visible is the current alignment of Great Eastern Highway, and the gravel path which the former rail line followed.
context_page_description: Clackline Bridge is a road bridge in Clackline, Western Australia, 77 kilometres east of Perth in the Shire of Northam, that carried the Great Eastern Highway until 2008. It is the only bridge in Western Australia to have spanned both a waterway and railway, the Clackline Brook and the former Eastern Railway alignment. The mainly timber bridge has a unique curved and sloped design, due to the difficult topography and the route of the former railway. The bridge was designed in 1934 to replace two dangerous rail crossings and a rudimentary water crossing. Construction began in January 1935, and was completed relatively quickly, with the opening ceremony held in August 1935. The bridge has undergone various improvement and maintenance works since then, including widening by three metres in 1959–60, but remained a safety hazard, with increasing severity and numbers of accidents through the 1970s and 1980s. Planning for a highway bypass of Clackline and the Clackline Bridge began in the 1990s, and it was constructed between January 2007 and February 2008.
context_section_description: In the wake of the accidents of the 1970s and 1980s, replacement of Clackline Bridge seemed inevitable; however, both Main Roads and the Shire of Northam received letters from residents asking for the bridge to be kept. In 1988, the Shire requested that Main Roads note the preservation value of the bridge, and retain it in any plans for road realignment. A decade later, in 1998, the bridge was placed on the Northam Municipal Heritage Inventory, in category C – "conserve if possible". In that same year, it was included in an Institute of Engineers survey of the state's large timber structures, as a current structure with "very high heritage value". By this time Great Eastern Highway's bypass of Clackline was being planned, but maintenance works continued to be undertaken as needed. The bypass was eventually constructed, with works beginning in January 2007, and the project completed in February 2008. The Clackline community welcomed the bypass, but there were still concerns that the historic Clackline Bridge would be lost. The bridge has since received a permanent entry on the Heritage Council of Western Australia's Register of Heritage Places, in November 2008. The new highway alignment crosses Clackline Brook on a large box culvert, giving vehicles a safer crossing than Clackline Bridge.
caption: Clackline Bridge, with the Great Eastern Highway bypass on the left
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