Bridge Postcards of 2025

A selection of vintage postcard views of bridges acquired in 2025, beginning in Dresden with a record low water level on the River Elbe. A crowd of locals enjoy the novelty of exploring the river bed on foot. In August 2025 all river transport was suspended when the Elbe fell to its lowest level ever recorded. Next is from Ironbridge in Shropshire where the pioneering cast iron bridge manufactured by Abraham Darby has crossed the River Severn since 1779. Equally famous is the ancient Roman aqueduct built in the first century near Nîmes that follows. The River Trent at Gunthorpe, Nottinghamshire was first crossed by this cast iron toll bridge in 1875 - it was replaced in 1927 by a three arch concrete structure.  Constantine is Algeria’s third city, built on a high plateau above the River Rhumel and is known as the City of Bridges. The El-Kantara stone bridge of 1863 is one of the oldest to span the spectacular gorge and the colonial French influence is very apparent in this unusual elevated view. When completed in 1889 the Sukkur railway bridge over the River Indus was the longest cantilever bridge in the world. Later renamed the Lansdowne Bridge (in honour of the Viceroy), it’s still in use as a rail link between the city of Lahore and the port of Karachi on the Arabian Sea. 

Next is a single track railroad bridge in the Pacific Northwest of the US, completed in 1912 and still crossed today by freight trains - in 1957 a vertical-lift section was added. Another railway subject follows - this card shows what was in 1905 a common method of testing the loading capacity of new bridges by running multiple locomotives over the top and monitoring the impact. In Melbourne the River Yarra is spanned by the Queen’s Bridge, completed in 1889 and protected by listing on the Victoria Heritage Register. Hydraulically powered lifting bridges are very much an American thing - two more examples here from Portland, Oregon and Chicago. The final card is an elevated view of the second Tay Bridge opened in 1887 to replace the one that collapsed in a storm in December 1879 - everyone on board the train crossing the bridge at the time lost their lives. There’s something peculiarly Victorian about the action of the North British Railway in recovering the submerged locomotive and returning it to service. 

 

Bridge Postcards of 2023

We begin the annual round up with less familiar views of London’s Tower Bridge followed by a pair of medieval-themed examples from Germany (Bonn and Berlin). The double-decker arched viaduct at   makes a splendid sight.  A pair of bucolic scenes from the Peak District (Monsal Dale and Hathersage) follow - I’ve a soft spot for Hathersage having first seen it from the top deck front seat of a Sheffield City bus in 1978 that had just made a spectacular winding descent from the viewpoint known as Surprise View that very much lives up to its name.  Next is a distant view of Saltash and the river Tamar followed by much steelwork on a single span railway bridge in Costa Rica. There are more rail bridges from Riga, Jutland, Porto, Florida and Texas.

 

Bridge Postcards of 2020

For some reason 2020 hasn’t been a great year for exploring and photographing bridges and it’s not been much better for acquiring postcards.  Gatherings of elderly postcard obsessives would make the perfect playground for the Coronavirus - as the collectors succumbed the world would be left with mountains of unsold and unwanted postcards. All of which makes this selection of the best bridge postcards much smaller than usual. There are two swing bridges - Cherbourg and Littlehampton. The Littlehampton bridge opened in 1908 and was notable for its elevated control cabin. It was replaced in the 1980s with a pedestrian retractable bridge which does the same job (with difficulty) while offering nothing to delight the eye. The Pont Gisclard is an elegant suspension bridge that carries a  single track railway across a dramatic gorge in Southern France. It also opened in 1908 but in a tragic footnote, bridge designer Albert Gisclard was killed along with 5 others when a load test led to an accident on his own bridge the following year. The Kingsferry vertical lift bridge in Kent links the Isle of Sheppey with the rest of Kent and carries both road and rail. Built in 1960, its concrete towers resemble gigantic Brutalist clamps and convey a sense of strength. There’s an account here of 2020’s single bridge visit (Cannington Viaduct in East Devon) and every hope that number might be exceeded in 2021.