Are those your viaducts, mate?

Eli’sComing

Dedicated Member
Been watching a few of them older episodes like “…and a mangel” and “here we go…” and there seems to be what could be considered a viaduct. Maybe they are viaducts or something related to viaducts. I am from Philadelphia where we have only sewers, so I don’t really know about this subject.
Are those real viaducts? How old are they? What do they carry? How high are they? Where do they go? Are they of ancient Roman origin?
Do forgive the ignorant questioning of a yankee city bloke.
 
They are real many fine examples throughout the UK. Probably most famous are Glenfinnan and Ribblehead the former appears in Harry Potter . The Ribblehead was built between 1869 and 1874 and Settle/Carlisle train service across it commenced in 1876 . Glenfinnan was built between 1897 and 1901 and carries the West Highland Railway . They derive from Roman Aquaducts and effectively solve issues fro transport needing to cross ravines . The structure in three men and a mangle is indeed real and features on Terry's wonderful map . It's on Alderscholes lane near the town of Thornton.

glenfinnan.jpg

ribblehead.jpg
 
Excellent excellent
Thanks very much
Is it the ribblehead viaduct that they used in the show?
The first one you mentioned seems to be in Scotland
 
Two different viaducts are used in Summer Wine. In series 5 "Here We Go Into The Wild Blue Yonder" Foggy is trying to get Compo used to heights on the viaduct near Calder Grove, near M1 junction 39 - 227 on the SW Map.

In series 11 "Three Men and a Mangle" another viaduct near Thronton is used - 53 on the SW map.
This pic by petedk42 is the Thornton viaduct, taken a few weeks ago while we were filming.

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I only discovered where the Thornton viaduct was by chance, as I had looked in all the obvious places in the Holmfirth/Huddersfield area, I lived near Haworth at the time and the hospital I needed to go for treatment had organised a car to transport me there, the driver set off and knew the route well, but on the outskirts of Bradford we met a rush hour traffic nightmare, so he doubled back a few miles and took a back road, all of a sudden there was the viaduct and I knew straight away it was the one, it made my day and took my mind off the treatment I was heading to the hospital for, at the time Ken Kitson lived close to the viaduct and I wondered did he have some input to finding this location.
 
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This is the Pontycysyllte Viaduct just over the Shropshire/Welsh border, it's used on the Llangollen Canal. I took a barge over myself a few years back, the views are spectacular but I found it a bit nerve racking as there is only a safety barrier on one side !
 
Thornton railway viaduct is 120 feet high at its highest point . It was a railway viaduct that carried Great North Railways Queensbury line trains between Queensbury and Keighley . Passenger services stopped in 1955 but freight trains ran into the early 60's when the track was pulled up hence when they shot three men and a mangle they would be able to go onto it and dangle the mangle off [I can hear Compo saying "Hey up Seymour it feels like a day to dangle ya mangle " ] .
 
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