The Maidenhead Bridge features in Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway, painted by J. M. W. Turner during 1844, which is now in the National Gallery, London.

[3] During the 1830s, the famed mechanical and civil engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel developed a plan for a 118-mile-long (190 km) railway running on an east–west alignment in between the key cities of London and Bristol.

[4] The line, which became known as the Great Western Railway, displayed exceptional attention to maintaining either level ground, or gentle gradients of no greater than 1 in 1000, on the majority of the route.

[4][3] The building of a bridge over the Thames at that location had to make provision for the necessary navigational clearance, so as not to unduly hinder the traditional river shipping present.

[3] However, that clearance requirement, when combined with Brunel's desire to maintaining a gentle gradient of 1 in 1,320 for the railway lines, posed some problems for the bridge's design.

Brunel was very averse to allowing any compromise of the gradient which had been set for the whole route, because believed it would negatively affect both passenger comfort and the maximum speeds of trains.

[3] The first plan devised by Brunel for the river crossing was for the building of triple-arch viaduct at the site, but he chose to discard that in favour of the design that was subsequently built and is still in use today.

[3] In common with the design of the other large bridges along the line, Brunel achieved a reduction in the forces acting through the brickwork via the adoption of internal longitudinal walls and voids.

[3] The bridge carries the railway across the river on a deck supported by a pair of elliptical brick arches which, at the time of their construction, were the widest and flattest in the world.

The resident engineer who oversaw the building of Maidenhead Bridge was John Wallis Hammond, while William Chadwick was appointed as the contractor for the construction of the structure.

The elevations were identical and had Doric pilasters positioned between the river and bankside arches, with corniced parapets throughout, while the deck comprised a series of stone slabs.

[2][3] As built and opened on 1 July 1839, the bridge carried a pair of Brunel's 7 ft 1⁄4 in (2,140 mm) broad gauge railway tracks over the Thames.

[3] The expansion was undertaken sympathetically, resulting in the outward shape of the bridge remaining almost unaltered, but the new elevations and arches were constructed using the redder Cattybrook brick.

[3] During July 2012, the Maidenhead Railway Bridge was upgraded to Grade I listed status by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, following consultation with English Heritage.

"The report also states: "It is proposed that the OHLE over Maidenhead railway bridge will use masts with wires suspended from cantilevers, since these will be visually lighter structures than the gantries to be used along other parts of the route.