Bridges presentation
featured during the centenary celebration of the world's
first railway in 1825. It was later displayed at the
former rail museum at York, as shown in this
photograph. In 1975, when the museum became the
new National Railway Museum, it was moved and
erected at its original site in West Auckland (UK).
Robert Vogel, Smithsonian Institution, photographer
For years, the distinction of being the world's oldest surviving iron railway bridge has been accorded
by scholars to the Gaunless Viaduct (1825), on display at the National Railway Museum, York (UK)
(Figure 10). Designed by George Stephenson for the first railway, the 37 miles (23km) between
Stockton and Darlington in north-east England, it consists of four 12.5ft (4m) lenticular truss spans
with curved top and bottom chord members of 2.5in (6cm) diameter wrought-iron rods and five
vertical iron posts cast integrally with the wrought-iron chord members. In the last 20 years an older
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