Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 566917
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/566917
In 1897-1901, making pioneering use of mass concrete, engineers Simpson & Wilson produced for the North British Railway's 40 mile West Highland Line extension a series of bridges, culverts, platforms, retaining walls, 11 tunnels and six viaducts, which have defied corrosion. This monument to concrete engineering earned for its contractor Robert McAlpine the nickname 'Concrete Bob'. Viaducts: six-arched at Arnabol, eight-arched at Loch Nam Uamh (four each side of a great central concrete pylon); three-arched (with rusticated voussoirs) crossing the Brunery Burn at Larachmor and, most daring of all, a central span leaping 12 7.5 ft over a steep gully at Borrodale, twice the span of any existing arch at the time.
Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
