The Royal Albert Bridge - Brunel’s Final Masterpiece (19th / 20th June 2024)

Welcome to this video:

‘The Royal Albert Bridge - Brunel’s Final Masterpiece’

Filmed 19th & 20th June 2024 - Running Time 24 minutes 39 seconds.

The Royal Albert Bridge is quite simply a ‘one off’. Unique in its engineering design, it is a timeless masterpiece and widely regarded as one of the great railway river crossings in the world.

It was opened by Prince Albert (husband of Queen Victoria) on 2nd May 1859 and takes the Great Western Railway from Devon into Cornwall at Saltash.

In this video I will be filming the bridge from both the Devon and Cornwall sides of the River Tamar as well as travelling over the bridge and under the bridge by train. Some of the location shots for this video were taken from as far away as Tamerton Foliot, Bere Ferrers, Antony Passage and Wilcove.

Trains featured in the video are predominantly Hitachi IET Class 800’s and HST Castle Class 43’s along with a DB Schenker Class 66. Also included is a clip of Black 5 Locomotive 44871 crossing the bridge heading the Royal Duchy Tour from Bristol Temple Meads to Par on Sunday 1st September 2024 (the clip was kindly provided by Ted Barnes).

Trains also cross from Devon into Cornwall further up the River Tamar at Calstock and the video also contains footage of the iconic viaduct on the Tamar Valley Line (filmed from The National Trust property at Cotehele).

Thank you for watching the video.