Old Bridge with New Walls

Image: © Ian Dodds Taken: 20 Aug 2022

These unsightly high walls have started appearing on a lot of the bridges crossing Scotland's railways in the last few years. A number of bridges have had to be raised recently in order to accommodate the overhead power lines required for the electrification of various routes. I have yet to meet anyone that likes them; they are grey ugly functional-looking things with walls too high to see over - presumably this is to stop teenage tearaways lobbing missiles down onto the passing trains. In this case it looks as if the new walls have simply been attached to the old ones, though it seems a lot of trouble to go to for a bridge that is blocked off by metal gates (the picture was taken through the railings) from a new housing estate close to Polbeth, and leads to a private property, Blackmyre. The bridge has never really gone anywhere, other than to the other side of the railway, and will have been built to allow the farmer at what was once called 'Blackmire' continued access to his fields.

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