The Anonymous Widower

Crossing The Mersey

I took these pictures as the train to Liverpool crossed the Mersey yesterday.

Note.

1. The green bridge is now called the Silver Jubilee Bridge, but when I lived in Liverpool and worked at ICI in Runcorn, everybody called it the Runcorn-Widnes Road Bridge.
2. The train is on the Ethelfleda, Britannia or Runcorn Railway Bridge depending on your preference. I tend to use Britannia, as the guys I worked with used that name.
3. The three towers of the cable stayed Mersey Gateway Bridge can be seen in several pictures.
4. Fiddlers Ferry power station is now decommissioned, but was an almost 2GW coal-fired power station.

In January 2011, I took a video as I crossed the Mersey and it is shown in Train Across the Mersey.

The Future Of Fiddlers Ferry Power Station

The Wikipedia entry for the power station, says this about the future use of the site.

Demolition of the station was due to begin in 2020 and will take up to seven years. The land upon which it sits will be redeveloped, with Warrington Council stating it had designated the land as an employment site.

As it obviously has a high-capacity electricity connection and there is a lot of offshore wind power in Liverpool Bay, I would feel it could be an ideal location for a large battery of perhaps 2 GWh.

The Future Of The Britannia Railway Bridge

The bridge was opened in 1868 and is Grade II* Listed.

Did the designer of the bridge; William Baker ever envisage, that in the future his bridge would be carrying trains over 250 metres long, that were capable of 125 mph?

Probably not! But in a few years, the bridge will be carrying High Speed Two Classic Compatible trains between London and Liverpool.

October 15, 2021 Posted by AnonW | Energy, Transport/Travel | Bridges, Britannia Bridge, Fiddlers Ferry Power Station, High Speed Two Classic-Compatible Trains, Mersey Gateway Bridge, Runcorn, Silver Jubilee Bridge, Widnes | 3 Comments