Go fab Vids's video: Tenterfield Creek railway bridge Sunnyside

Tenterfield Creek railway bridge, Sunnyside The Tenterfield Creek railway bridge is a heritage-listed former railway bridge that carried the Main North line across the Tenterfield Creek from Sunnyside (a rural place in north-west Tenterfield) to Jennings, both in the Tenterfield Shire local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by John Whitton and Engineer-in-Chief for NSW Government Railways and built in 1888. The bridge is also known as the Sunnyside rail bridge over Tenterfield Creek. The property is owned by RailCorp, an agency of the Government of New South Wales and was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999 History When John Whitton, Engineer-in-Chief for Railways 1856-1890, extended the Main North railway line from Muswellbrook to Glen Innes, 1870-1884 it climbed through the highest parts of the Great Dividing Range into the New England Region. Gradients were steep, curves were sharp, there was heavy earthworks and some major iron lattice bridges. It was expensive railway construction. So when the section from Glen Innes to Tenterfield was planned, economies were made, particularly with bridges. They had to be timber, mostly ballast top timber beam bridges but at three locations larger bridges were required, over Beardy Waters, Severn and Bluff rivers. Whitton, a successful railway engineer from England, chose one of the famous I. K. Brunel's timber bridge viaducts built in Cornwall during the 1850s. The model chosen was the St Germans Viaduct composed of composite deck Queen post trusses, the bottom chords were large iron rods. Whitton's staff redesigned the trusses to be all timber and the viaducts were built during construction of the Glen Innes to Tenterfield section 1884-86. The final section to Wallangarra,1888, was mostly easier over plateau country but the crossing of Tenterfield Creek required a large bridge and a timber Queen post truss viaduct was built there also, the fourth between Glen Innes and the Queensland border. Only two other such timber viaducts were built in this period, on the Bombala railway line over Ingalara Creek and the Bredbo River, see separate inventories. Former railways chief David Hill called the old Great Northern line that first linked Sydney and Brisbane the most important stretch of heritage track in the country. The Queenslander reached Wallangarra with their line in 1887. The NSW line came north from Tenterfield in 1888, but because the two systems used different track gauges, passengers had to change trains at Wallangarra's unique railway station. In 1930 a standard gauge track was completed all the way to Brisbane via Kyogle and the Great Northern Railway started to go into decline. The last passenger services went north to Wallangarra in 1972 and to Tenterfield, 20 kilometres (12 mi) further south, in 1989. These days Armidale is the end of the line. Description The single 4 ft 81⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge railway bridge is located 784.233 kilometres (487.300 mi) from Central Sydney railway station or 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) north of Tenterfield. The four-span timber truss viaduct bridge has a 12-metre (40 ft) span centre to centre of timber trestles. The Queen post trusses are deck Queen post copied from one of I. K. Brunel's Cornish timber bridges, the one called St Germans, built about 30 years earlier.