The Western Railway Line travels over the bridge, enabling freight movement to/from the major Container ports of Burnie and Devonport and the rest of the state.
[2] The wrought-iron bridge, with some steel components, was fabricated in the Gwaun-tre-Oda Works Cardiff, Wales and shipped to Australia.
[1] It was opened in 1870 after being load tested for deflection in mid April - for construction purposes - on the railway line from Launceston to Deloraine.
From The Cornwall Chronicle, April 23, 1870: "The Longford iron bridge has been constructed and erected under contract by Mr. C. de Bergue from designs prepared by the company's engineers, Messrs. Doyne, Major, and Willett.
The height of the bridge and of the viaduct immediately beyond were both deter mined after a careful survey of the country and the most minute enquiries respecting the various flood levels.
The bridge is now 2 feet 6 inches (76 cm) clear above the level of the highest recorded flood, and as it offers no impediment whatever to the passage of the waters, it is regarded almost as an everlasting structure.
The abutments and centre pier are not yet quite complete, inasmuch as they have to be built up to the sides of the bridge, but the brick work and masonry of which they are composed, is very massive.
The abutments and piers are composed of brick, with ponderous blocks of hard blue stone, dove-tailed together under the girders, with quoins, caps, and copings of freestone quarried in the immediate neighbourhood, of the quality of which the engineers speak very highly.
The apparatus consists of a cast-iron circular plate seven feet in diameter and four inches in thickness, which rests on the top of the abutment.
It will be seen that when longitudinal expansion or contraction takes place in the girder, the lower pin moves forwards and backwards through the ribs of the lower member, and consequently the holes in these arc so formed as to give free play to this motion; they are of a radial oblong form, which has been termed "balanoidal," or bean-shaped.