Viaduct

Viaduct

The 1812 Laigh Milton Viaduct in Ayrshire – the oldest surviving railway bridge in Scotland
Ancestor	Trestle bridge, Box girder bridge
Related	Aqueduct
Descendant	None
Carries	Expressways, highways, streets, railways
Span range	Short (multiple)
Material	reinforced concrete, prestressed concrete, masonry
Movable	No
Design effort	medium
Falsework required	available for use, since viaducts are all composed of low bridges.

A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide valley, road, river, or other low-lying terrain features and obstacles.^[1][2] The term viaduct is derived from the Latin via meaning "road", and ducere meaning "to lead". It is a 19th-century derivation from an analogy with ancient Roman aqueducts.^[1] Like the Roman aqueducts, many early viaducts comprised a series of arches of roughly equal length.