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Colindale Avenue, ST. ALBANS, AL1 1JN

The bridge carries the old Midland Railway main line over London Road, formerly the A6 but now the A1081.

Carries the Midland Main Line.

The sheer size of this massive single arch bridge has to be seen to be appreciated. It was built by the Midland Railway around 1868 to take their main line to London over the already existing Hatfield & St Albans Railway which had been completed and opened three years earlier. In 1883 the Hatfield & St Albans Railway was taken over by the Great Northern Railway, but it was a very early casualty of British Railways' days being closed to passenger traffic in 1951. Freight services lingered on until 1964. The trackbed itself is now a public path known as the Alban Way and it also forms a section of National Cycle Network Route 61. For a more distant view of the bridge please see Image

The sheer size of this massive single arch bridge has to be seen to be appreciated. It was built by the Midland Railway around 1868 to take their main line to London over the already existing Hatfield & St Albans Railway which had been completed and opened three years earlier. In 1883 the Hatfield & St Albans Railway was taken over by the Great Northern Railway, but it was a very early casualty of British Railways' days being closed to passenger traffic in 1951. Freight services lingered on until 1964. The trackbed itself is now a public path known as the Alban Way and it also forms a section of National Cycle Network Route 61. For a closer view of the bridge please see Image

Just north of the Midland Railway bridge.

In complete contrast to the glass-fronted Image, which is just around the corner to the left, 45 Grosvenor Road is a modern office block built out of traditional materials. Current occupiers include The Learning and Skills Council, The Trading Standards Department of Hertfordshire County Council, Fusion Insurance, Netcel, Lambert Smith Hampton, Scott & York, and Sherrards. Grosvenor Road is off to the left while the mini-roundabout is on the A1081 London Road.

In the past St Albans had several railway stations. For most of its life this one was *the* St Albans station, only obtaining the London Road suffix in 1950, a year before its closure to passenger traffic. It was on the Hatfield and St Albans Railway and opened in 1865. It is now a business centre, named after the residential road and estate that was built over the railway and the former station sidings, Orient Close.

The station has been subsumed in a small housing estate. The railway ran where the road now is and went under the bridge carrying the A1081 (old A6) over it, to the right of the picture. Now renovated, the old station building houses a children's day nursery. The route of the old railway from St. Albans Abbey station to Hatfield is now the Alban Way, a path for walkers and cyclists and is a section of National Cycle Network Route 61.

At the junction with Grosvenor Road