Maidenhead Railway Bridge (aka Maidenhead Viaduct) is a railway bridge carrying the main line of the Great Western Railway over the River Thames between Maidenhead, Berkshire and Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England. It crosses the Thames on the reach between Bray Lock and Boulter's Lock
The bridge was designed by the Great Western's famous engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and it was completed in 1838, but not brought into use until 1 July 1839.[2] The railway is carried across the river on two brick arches, which at the time of building were the widest and flattest in the world. Each span is 128 feet (39 m), with a rise of only 24 feet (7 m). The flatness of the arches was necessary to avoid putting a "hump" in the bridge, which would have gone against Brunel's obsession with flat, gentle gradients (1 in 1,320 on this stretch). The Thames towpath passes under the right-hand arch (facing upstream), which is also known as the Sounding Arch, because of its spectacular echo.
