[Talk-GB] Who assigns references to bridges?

[James Derrick]

Hi Dave,

On 28/12/2022 23:44, Dave F via Talk-GB wrote:
> There's a new bridge just opened in my city & I wish to add the details.
>
> Is it the Canal & River Trust who assigns references to bridges?

If you're referencing a canal overbridge, CaRT has inherited a lot of 
the rights of historic canal acts of Parliament, but there are several 
other navigation authorities such as DEFRA, and of course Highways 
England (nope, not calling it National Highways as it's England only!), 
Network Rail, and the many local / regional equivalent infrastructure 
owners.

Some canals have rather old names which are purely textual - "Cherry Eye 
Bridge" on the Cauldon being a favourite, however as you reference many 
newer bridges have numeric plates - e.g. (23).

Where a new bridge is added, the "standard" seems to be to keep the 
order - e.g. between 23 and 24, would be 23A (and have seen nnB, nnC, 
nnD, nnE... as junctions have built over).

I've seen new motorway and railway infrastructure follow the same 
pattern for new bridges and even aqueducts crossing other infrastructure 
but rather doubt there is any formal legal power of naming beyond 
getting the landowner to agree to the new crossing being built in the 
first place!

`bridge:ref=23A`is of course different from the name of the crossing 
infrastructure ("Railway Street") or ceremonial name ("Important Person 
Bridge").


> I'm aware they produce a database of the bridges, but unsure if it's 
> them who allocates them.

With the several hundred years of canal history, references can look a 
mess, so I believe BW (the predecessor to CaRT) created an internal code 
not unlike that used on the permanent way (which uses route codes plus 
LOR codes - e.g. EJM LN694 on the Blyth and Tyne).

I occasionally found modern notices with a canal letter prefix, and 
number next to a bridge that didn't match the original company lock / 
bridge number. The codes also occasionally "leaked" out in badly written 
stoppage notices.

I can't lay my hands on an "internal" example code, and haven't seen 
them on commonly used sites like https://canalplan.org.uk/

Extra codes have also appeared on bridges - such as post codes for 
emergency location, an example being fire hydrant hatch numbers around 
Brummingham.


So, a bit of a rambling answer which basically says, `bridge:ref=23A` 
seems to be "de facto" allocated by the network owner!


James
-- 
James Derrick
     lists at jamesderrick.org, Cramlington, England
     I wouldn't be a volunteer if you paid me...
     https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/James%20Derrick