More than 300 bridges built from recycled Glasgow tram rails are still carrying Scotland’s timber harvest — more than six decades after the last city tram was decommissioned. That is according to Forestry and Land Scotland, which manages 322 tramrail bridges across the country’s national forest estate.
Wood Central understands that the bridges were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s using 6,000 rails lifted from the roads of Glasgow, Liverpool, and other major UK cities as tram networks were wound back in favour of the motorcar. Each crossing was built by laying either 17 or 19 rails across abutments — depending on span — before concrete was poured over the top to form a traversable deck. Basic in design, the structures proved far more durable than anyone involved in their construction likely anticipated.
8,000 or more tonnes of timber travel through the network
Those bridges now support the movement of 8,000 tonnes of timber annually through terrain that, without them, would be inaccessible to harvesting machinery. Forestry and Land Scotland Design Engineer Graeme White said the rails’ origins remain something of a mystery.
“We’re not quite sure how the then Forestry Commission ended up with all of these rails, but it was a great way to recycle them,” he told the Scottish Herald “Since the Forestry Commission was first established just over 100 years ago, Scotland’s foresters have had to contend with some rough and rugged terrain. A lot of bridges have had to be built over the years to provide access to the plantable land.”
“We currently maintain about 1,800 bridges of various sizes that provide operational as well as recreational access to the forests and land we look after. In amongst them are 322 ‘tramrail bridges’ that were all built in the 1950s and 60s, using around 6,000 of the rails that were being lifted out of the roads of major cities across the UK, including Glasgow, Liverpool, and others.”
The tram rails themselves were laid in the late 19th century, meaning the steel now holding up Scottish forestry operations is between 100 and 150 years old. Scotland holds the lion’s share of surviving tramrail bridges across Britain — 322 compared with 68 in Wales and 58 in England — and inspection findings and retrofit techniques have become a standing agenda item at the annual Forestry Civil Engineering Conference.
