Just to prove that rail preservation covers a multitude of subjects, a Museum that I am involved with here in the UK is soon to take possession of a "kit of parts" that form what is believed to be the worlds first movable bridge used by rail traffic, first erected in 1832.....

http://heritage-centre.co.uk/in-the-pre ... ft-bridge/

For what is a fairly small museum, funded purely from donations and the operation of a not-for-profit cafe on the site, this is something of a major coup for the centre.
Sadly, all the timberwork was destroyed when it was dismantled at its last location, so that is going to be an expensive part of the restoration work.
A bit more information about the bridge itself is detailed in the section below from the Leicester Industrial Heritage Society..

As the Leicester and Swannington Railway approached the outskirts of Leicester it was faced with a dilemma, the course of the Leicester Navigation (Grand Union Canal). To enable the railway to access the goods yard at West Bridge Robert Stephenson came up with a solution; a lift bridge which allowed narrowboat clearance under when in its raised position.
The bridge was in use from 1832 until the mid-1960’s and was originally designed for horse drawn wagons and therefore did not have to be substantial enough to take the weight of a locomotive. It had gone through a re-build sometime in the mid-19th century and over the year’s repairs and maintenance. With the closure of West Bridge Station in 1966 the bridge was redundant and around 1970 was dismantled for re-erection on the Riverside Walk at the rear of the proposed Museum of Technology for the East Midlands at the Abbey Pumping Station. During the eighteen years it was located on the Riverside Walk it became heavily vandalised and in 1992 it was decided by Leicestershire Museums to dismantle the bridge and re-erect as a ‘gate guardian’ at the new Snibston Discovery Park.
After a 184 years of use and display the bridge was dismantled in early 2016 as a consequence of the contraversial closure and demolition of Snibston Discovery Museum.
Unfortunately in the process of dismantling the timbers were discarded and burnt and only the iron components have been preserved and are in storage with Leicester Museums. Every re-build and restoration of the bridge has always used the previous timbers as a pattern and guide to its construction now those timbers are no longer inexistence has left the bridge’s restoration problematic. As a consequence LIHS has stepped up to the challenge of preparing a set of CAD drawings of the bridge to assist with it potential re-build, finding a new location within the Leicester area and associated project costs. An appeal was put out through LIHS website and local press and has produced many photographs to assist the scaling of the bridge dimensions. In addition Nick Pell, a member of staff at Leicestershire Museums, was present during the dismantling, took copious photographs and marked the iron components which correlate to a master photograph to show positions. As the iron work is now preserved at Leicester Museum these too can be measured to assist with the scale drawings. The triumph, however, came in August when a news item in Waterways World (September 2016) produced an out-of-the-blue telephone call from a retired British Rail surveyor who was based in the Drawing Office at Euston during the 1970's and who saved a 1950’s/60’s drawing of the bridge which was destined for the bin. Armed with the drawing, photograph and iron components the reconstruction of the bridge on paper has become a much easier proposition.

That is definitely an interesting piece of history and that at least the metal bits have been saved. I think it will make and interesting addition once reconstructed. But then I’m always intrigued by old technology. Nice save.

Apart from raising the $$ to pay for the new timberwork (not sure whether any of the local authorities are going to give any money as well as the old "kit of parts") it is going to be a challenge to construct it in what is a fairly restricted site area.
The rail museum is actually in a former granite quarry, so the placing of foundations will be "interesting", as was the case when the rail museum storage/exhibition building was constructed (and subsequently extended). The plan is that it will go at the end of the track spur to the right shown in the photo below...

...basically where I was standing to take this photo earlier last month...

As well as being able to run rail vehicles over it, it is hoped that it will actually be possible to enable the bridge to be raised and lowered to demonstrate its operation - something that was not done for its previous re-incarnations - and getting on for 60 years since the last time that was possible.
It's not quite in the same league as those impressive (to me anyway..) metal vertical lift bridges you see from the PATH train from Newark into NYC (or elsewhere in North America, for that matter) , but at least it is the first example of that type!

Do they have a private open top wagon owned by S. C. Ruffy?

No, thankfully, but one of the other preserved lines here certainly had one in the past!
http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/blueb ... /960x.html
My guess is that you would be descended upon by the Thomas brands lawyers if you just painted one up like that for "fun".......

Actually, the open wagons in the Mountsorrel museum "fleet" are not quite what they purport to be, as they are later (late 1930's - early 1950's) vehicles from a variety of sources which are carrying paint jobs from a much earlier era but which relate to the area around the museum - particularly the original quarry owners from the early 20th Century....

The four vehicles shown in the previous post are used to give switching displays to visitors on selected weekends using the 1956 built Ruston diesel, also shown in that photo.
There is also a 2 foot gauge line which is still under construction which will be used to show how such lines were used in a quarrying environment.

I just realised realised I hadn't posted any updates to this topic lately...

The "kit of parts" for the bridge - basically all the metalwork that had been salvaged from its last dismantling were duly delivered to the museum to be sorted out....


The local Industrial Archeology group continued to work on CAD renderings of the bridge and it is now at the stage where reconstruction has started, on site, with a concrete base now in place for the erection of the structure, as seen last month...

Given the historical significance of the structure, fundraising, rather surprisingly, has been somewhat difficult for the project, but sufficient funding has been raised to pay for the (rather substantial) timber sections for the bridge and these have now been ordered from the supplier.
The intention is still to make it fully operable and once the main framework structure has been erected, it is likely that an additional push for donations will be made to get the job finished off.
Needless to say, the curent rapid rises in the prices of materials aren't exactly helping the project...

Very well done post on this project. Thank you for sharing this.

Regards, John.

The reconstruction work has apparently hit an unexpected problem at the moment, courtesy of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The timber supplier who had won the contract to provide the main (very substantial) structural timbers for the rebuilding for delivery in May has been unable to source the wood as the timber was coming from Russia - something that is not possible following the introduction of the various International sanctions since the start of the war.
The Museum have tried the original runner-up in the tendering process and they can't source material of that type/size either......
Apart from the coal situation, this is the first Preservation related problem I've heard of since the sanctions came in.

One more encouraging piece of news is that they have been awarded a grant of £20,000 towards restoration or replacement of the various metal parts used in the bridge construction, so that side of things can get under way now.

As an update to the above, a potential third supplier of the timber for the rebuilding has now been located and delivery is now expected late September/early October, so hopefully there won't be any further problems on this front....

I paid a visit to the Heritage Centre yesterday and took a better photo of the completed concrete base for the structure.

One change that has been made to the design is that metal supporting plates have been fabricated to hold the four uprights of the supporting structure. Originally, these supporting timbers were buried in the ground, but the revised arrangements should limit deterioration due to rot. In addition, with the museum site being in a former granite quarry, you only have to go dig down a foot or so before you reach solid rock, so that eliminates any excavation problems as well.
A pair of the new supports are shown below.

All the timberwork for the bridge has now arrived on-site......

The photo just shows the large cuts of timber which are currently stored outside. The rest of the timbers are currently stored inside the building in the backgound of the photo.

It's too bad there isn't a body of water in the area where it will be built. Perhaps the museum could use a moat....

Some photos from a visit to the Museum yesterday, first time I'd been back there since October last year.
The substantial wooden structure of the bridge is now taking shape.....


Some of the metal parts have been restored and fitted, but I'ts now got to the stage that new parts such as the bearings (8 of them) - as the originals are no longer fit for use - have to be manufactured. In addition, some of the original parts have become damaged over the last 60 years so need to be replaced/repaired.
The information poster displayed next to the bridge does have a couple of historical photos on it showing what the completed bridge will look like....

Some photographs I took on Friday showing the current state of play...



Next stage of the work is to reattach the original bearings, which have been rebuilt and should be delivered to the Centre next week - though that date has suffered several delays...
The actual cost of refurbishing the originals has turned out 3-4 times more expensive than purchasing modern equivalents would be, but its "preservation/restoration", not a replica!
The metal tower, painted red oxide, which is visible in the photos, is to house the manual operating mechanism to raise/lower the bridge. This will have some transparent panels incorporated in the casing so that it can all be seen working. This tower will actually be part of a building originally adjacent to the bridge, a replica version of this being built to house interpretative displays about the bridge and its history, which will include a scale working model of the whole structure and an OO (4mm:ft as opposed to the 3.5mm of HO) model of the surrounding area when it was located in the City of Leicester.

Current state of the project..

The wooden clad building is based on the original structure for the bridge - albeit extended somewhat - to act as a display about the bridge and, hopefully including some scale models of its orignal location and the history of the bridge

I find this part of the story to be a bit surprising and rather sad.

First try at preservation, lasted 30 years or so...


Next try at preservation, including a very impressive display site with abutments and a simulation of the waterway it crossed. That also lasted 30 years or so...


I applaud this latest effort. Suggest putting some money in an interest bearing account to pay for the next relocation in 30 years or so?