‘Everyone comments’: the benign neglect of New England’s beloved bridges

The trains of the Great Northern Railway are long gone, but the old timber bridges that carried passengers and freight across the New South Wales New England region remain locked in a state of benign neglect, and the community has long been asking why.

Built by hand from local ironbark, clay and granite in the 1880s, the railway bridges of Glen Innes and Tenterfield were maintained for a century with a system described as a bit like Meccano. Now, their greatest challenge will be finding a purpose in the current century.

The bridges that have survived in places like Yarrowford, Dundee, and Sunnyside were heritage-listed, in part due to their "queen-post truss" design, which allowed greater reach between piers - although the 200km of closed track between Armidale and Wallangarra also utilised plenty of timber beam bridges.

Patrick Herde, a grazier, lives near one, at a beauty spot where poplars and paddocks are framed by the span over Four Mile Creek, north of Deepwater.

"Everyone comments about this bridge," he says. "I'm not an engineer, but to me it looks in pretty good shape."

Each week, Herde notices travellers stopping to take its picture. Yet word about the bridge's removal has locals and visitors concerned.

They have good reason, because the bridge is not heritage-listed. A similar timber beam railway bridge over the Deepwater river was demolished in 2021.

Two decades ago, attempts were made to dismantle local timber railway bridges without community consultation, and the timber truss road bridge at Tabulam in the nearby Clarence Valley was recently removed after its heritage listing was revoked.

Herde says safety signs have gone up on the Four Mile Creek bridge but he thinks that Tenterfield Shire council should consider closing the road under the span, because the tourism benefits of the region rest on the bridge's popularity.

"You can smell the optimism around Deepwater, you can feel the momentum going, these small businesses getting up," he says.

"It's got the potential to be the next Uralla," Herde says, referring to the New England town near Armidale which is experiencing a sustained visitor boom.

"Communities get really strong when there's more than one industry punching along. But if you start pulling down beautiful old buildings and bridges, that opportunity goes."

Frank Newman, a retired road engineer, volunteers for the Tenterfield Railway Museum at the town's old railway station. Like many, he has watched the heritage-listed Sunnyside Bridge over Tenterfield Creek decline while discussions about its restoration have come and gone.

"Truss bridges were built a lot overseas, but they used cheaper timbers and they had a life of about 20 years," he says.

"Those that were built with Australian ironbark have lasted 100 years, and some of them are still going."

Newman's career included work on timber truss road bridges in New England and the Riverina. He says their rail equivalents were an affordable option in the 1880s, when the colonial budget was stretched after a boom in railway building.

"They're a bit like an old Meccano set, you can just pull one bit out, put a new one in and away you go again."

Newman says if these bridges are let go, "eventually, they just sort of collapse under their own weight".

"That's the thing with timber bridges, you have to check them all the time."

According to a Transport for NSW spokesperson, UGL Regional Linx is responsible for the maintenance of the Country Regional Network (CRN), and monitors bridges monthly. It last inspected Sunnyside Bridge on 4 January.

"Transport for NSW is developing a strategy for a number of heritage structures across the CRN to determine future management," the spokesperson told Guardian Australia. The agency said it will consult with communities once strategies are in place.

Federal funds have been allocated for a rail trail - a bike and walking path - along the old Great Northern Railway corridor from Armidale to Glen Innes.

Transport for NSW says responsibility for management and maintenance of assets that form part of a rail trail project are outlined in the individual lease agreement between council and the government.

"There was a lot of talk about bringing a rail trail through here," Newman says of his home town, Tenterfield.

Herde reckons a rail trail would be a "fantastic" solution to preserving Deepwater's Four Mile Creek bridge.

"Once it's gone, it's gone, isn't it?" he says.