Some modern engineers and railway historians have suggested that Wolverton Viaduct is not as innovative or impressive as some that followed but nonetheless praised its visual impact.

Its chief engineer was Robert Stephenson, who was responsible for surveying the route and designing the structures to carry it.

Stephenson took advantage of natural valleys and lowlands where possible but the line still required heavy civil engineering works to cross valleys and hills, including viaducts over the Brent and over the Colne, along with Watford Tunnel and Tring Cutting to take the railway through the Chiltern Hills.

To keep the railway level, Stephenson designed the largest embankment on the line, 48 feet (15 metres) high and 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometres) long, broken by the viaduct to cross the river itself.

Its construction required crossing the Grand Union Canal, whose proprietors were unwilling to cooperate with their new competition.

Local opinion blamed the canal company but the cause was found to be a combination of flammable minerals in the soil which spontaneously ignited.

Although over budget by 15 per cent, the overrun compares favourably to several of the other major engineering works on the line, especially Kilsby Tunnel which cost over three times its original estimate.

The widening at Wolverton took the form of an almost identical bridge in blue brick which was built on the eastern side of the existing viaduct in 1882.

[6][15] The terminating piers and large abutments decorated with arches are common features to several of Stephenson's viaducts and show an early form of design standardisation.

Listed building status provides legal protection from unauthorised demolition or unsympathetic modification and is applied to structures of historical and architectural importance.

[6][16] In 1839, the artist John Cooke Bourne published A Series of Lithographic Drawings on the London and Birmingham Railway, which included illustrations of Wolverton Embankment and Viaduct.

Bourne shows the viaduct almost complete but several parts of it are surrounded by scaffolding and two centres (wooden supports used to form the arch) are still on-site.

Michael Bonavia, a railway historian writing in the 1980s, viewed the comparison favourably and called Wolverton Viaduct in particular "a beautifully balanced structure" with a "classic elegance".

[15] In a history of the L&BR for the 150th anniversary of its opening, David Jenkinson observed that Stephenson's bridges, including Wolverton Viaduct, were "not as daring and spectacular" as many that were to follow, "but in their time they were without parallel and they are mostly still there".