Construction Complete for UK’s Longest Railway Bridge

The U.K.’s longest railway bridge completed construction on Thursday after more than two years of work.

Situated on the outskirts of London, the Colne Valley viaduct is part of the UK’s High Speed 2 (HS2) project linking the capital and the heart of England.

The system was originally set to extend further, but the northern leg of the project was axed by the Conservative government before their ousting at the country’s general election in July.

The 2.1-mile-long bridge will carry high-speed trains to and from the capital at speeds of up to 200 mph, and is one of 500 bridging structures for the HS2 project, which include footbridges and “green bridges” for wildlife.

Construction of the bridge involved the use of 1,000 precast segments, made at an on-site, purpose-built factory.

With the final segment now in place, the new structure has supplanted Scotland’s 2.05-mile Tay Bridge as the longest railway bridge in the country, which held the crown since 1887.

“Lowering the Colne Valley viaduct’s final deck segment into place today marks the culmination of more than 10 years of planning, design and construction,” said senior project manager at HS2 Ltd Billy Ahluwalia.

I pay tribute to the dedicated team that has delivered a bridge that is both the longest on HS2 and has become the United Kingdom’s longest railway bridge—taking a record that had stood for nearly 140 years. That is a historic achievement of which we can all be immensely proud.”

Upon opening to the public, HS2 will carry high-speed trains between London and Birmingham, roughly 100 miles to the Northwest of the capital.

According to an official release, major construction work on the HS2 project is at its peak, with more than 30,000 people employed.

The viaduct’s construction will next progress into the rail systems installation phase, as it moves toward becoming an operational part of the new high-speed railway between 2029 and 2033.

Newsweek has contacted HS2 Ltd for comment via email outside of standard working hours.

Back in 2022, a gargantuan, 2,000 ton tunneling machine named Dorothy was employed to drill under the U.K. countryside as part of the HS2 project.

The borer was named after the first British woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry — Dorothy Hodgkin, who won the award in 1964.

Newsweek has previously mapped which countries have high-speed rail projects either operational or under construction.

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