Warrington Transporter Bridge (also known as Bank Quay Transporter Bridge or Crosfield's Transporter Bridge). Designed by William Henry Hunter (1849-1917), best known as the Chief Engineer to the Manchester Ship Canal, and built by William Arrol and Co. This Grade II* listed structure was completed in 1915, and is a structural steel transporter bridge crossing the River Mersey. It is 339' long, 30' wide and 76' above high water level, with a span of 200' (see "History").
Hunter's obituary in The Engineer of January-June 1917 shows him to have been an eminent engineer who had held a number of important positions besides the one already mentioned, for example as one of the consulting engineers on the Panama Canal project. The Warrington commission might seem to have been a minor commission. However, in a chapter on the Mersey in his Rivers and estuaries; or, Streams and tides (1913), Hunter talks about the "acute" difficulties that this river presents (53).
As for the bridge itself, Graham Tilly explains:
Transporter bridges have a high level fixed structure above the clearance required for shipping. A carriage arrangement can be pulled across the structure and from this is suspended a gondola which can carry a relatively small number of vehicles and pedestrians. Only four bridges of this type have been built in Britain, of which three remain; at Newport, Gwent. Middlesborough on Teeside and Warrington across the River Mersey. The fourth, at Runcorn, was replaced by the Runcorn-Widnes Road Bridge which opened in 1961. [287]
The Warrington bridge was built to carry railway wagons for the Crosfield chemical and soap works here. Despite not having been used since about 1964, it is much valued, being one of very few such bridges in existence.
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Sources
"History of Warrington Transporter Bridge." Warrington Transporter Bridge. Web. 28 April 2016.
Hunter, William Henry. Rivers and estuaries; or, Streams and tides. London: Longmans, 1913. Internet Archive. Contributed by the University of California Libraries. Web. 28 April 2016.
Tilly, Graham. Conservation of Bridges. London: Spon Press, 2002.
"William Henry Hunter" (shows obituary). Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. Web. 28 April 2016.
Created 28 April 2016