Prince Alfred Bridge
| Prince Alfred Bridge | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Coordinates | Coordinates: 35°04′12″S 148°06′31″E / 35.07°S 148.1086°E |
| Carries | Road |
| Crosses | Murrumbidgee river |
| Locale | Gundagai, Australia |
| Characteristics | |
| Design | wrought iron truss & timber beam |
| Total length | 921 m |
| Width | 10 m |
| Longest span | 3 x 103 feet (31.4 m) |
| History | |
| Opened | 17 October 1867 (Toll levied) |
The Prince Alfred Bridge is a wrought iron truss and timber beam road bridge over the Murrumbidgee River and its floodplain at Gundagai, New South Wales.
The bridge was named for the then reigning Queen Victoria's son, Prince Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and was built to carry the Great Southern Road (now the Hume Highway) across the Murrumbidgee. It has existed in three forms, with only the main spans across the river itself being common to all three.
As opened in 1865 the bridge had a total length of 314 m, consisting of three wrought iron truss spans each of 31.4 m across the river, two timber southern approach spans each of 9.14 m, and twenty-three timber northern approach spans each of 9.14 m, rising on a gradient of 1 in 30 from the level of the floodplain.
It was the first iron truss bridge to be built in New South Wales, and was designed by William Bennett, Engineer and Commissioner for Roads and constructed by Francis Bell. The trusses were assembled from iron work imported from England and the cast-iron cylinders for the main piers were cast at the Fitzroy Iron Works at Mittagong. The pin-jointed Warren truss section is the second-oldest metal truss bridge in Australia.
Sometime between 1865 and 1896 the second configuration of the bridge was built by the twenty-three northern approach spans being replaced by a much longer structure which spanned the full width of the floodplain. It consisted of 105 timber spans varying from 4.6 m to 9.14 m long, but as far back as 1932 the details of this configuration of the bridge had been lost, and no further details are known, other than the fact that it was 12.2 m longer than the bridge which replaced it.
In 1896 the third configuration of the bridge was completed. The northern spans and southern approach spans were all replaced. The northern spans were replaced by seventy-five spans of 9.14 m and one of 8.53 m, one of the longest timber beam bridges in Australia. The alignment of this new approach was slightly to the west of the previous (second) northern approach. The two southern spans of 9.14 m dating from 1865 were replaced by one span of 10.7 m and one of 8.5 m on the same alignment as the previous southern approach spans.
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