Port Adelaide Rail Bridge, SA
Until the construction of the Port Adelaide Railway Bridge trains to Semaphore and the LeFevre Peninsula crossed the Port River on the Jervis Bridge. The trains ran along St Vincent Street from the then Port Adelaide Railway Station then over the bridge.
As traffic along St Vincent Street increased the capacity of the road to cater for trains and vehicles was compromised.
In 1908 the then Commissioner of Railways, A.G. Pendleton, prepared a report recommending the separation of rail traffic from road traffic by creating separate crossings of the river. The government of South Australia passed the Port Adelaide, Glanville and Largs Additional Railway Act (1908) which made South Australian Railways responsible for constructing a new railway line from a location near the then Port Adelaide Railway Station connecting to Glanville Railway Station and onto Largs. It included the provision of a bridge over the Port River.
This bridge is the Port Adelaide Railway Bridge.
The bridge is 600 feet long and 30 feet wide. It has nine piers, each with sixteen concrete piles. The abutments at each end have nine piles. The piles are embedded 37 feet into the solid bed of the river.
Concrete pile caps are constructed on the piles. Steel girders are placed on the piles caps to carry the rail traffic. The steel girders are placed on barges are moved down the river at high tide. There are sixteen pairs of girders.
The South Australian Reinforced Concrete Company constructed the piles and pile caps. Mr J Beny of Adelaide constructed the girders and handed them over to the government for erection.
The bridge and associated rail line opened in June 1911.
An additional benefit of the Port Adelaide Railway Bridge is that it allowed the transfer of the pipework that carried water and gas to the LeFevre Peninsula from the Jervois Bridge to the new rail bridge. As the Jervois Bridge is a swing bridge when the bridge open it required the water and gas supply to be disconnected. This resulted in the construction of the Semaphore Water Tower. With the services being relocated to the rail bridge there was no interruption to supply.
References:
Port Adelaide, Glanville, Largs Additional Railway Act (South Australia) 1908
The Chronicle 5 December 1908 page 25 “State Parliaments"
The Express and Telegraph 11 December 1908 page 3 “Outer Harbor Railway”
The Register 18 December 1909 page 12 “New Railway Bridge”
The Advertiser 20 December 1909 page 12 “Public Works”
The Advertiser 5 January 1910 page 8 “Outer Harbor Railway”
The Register 24 March 1910 page 6 “Outer Harbour Railway Bridge”
The Advertiser 2 June 1910 page 8 “The new railway bridge Port Adelaide”
The Register 26 August 1910 page 4 “Outer Harbour Railway”
Couper-Smartt, John “The History of a Commodious Harbour – Port Adelaide”, Wakefield Press, 2021.
