Boston's first railway bridge.

Below is a view of the first railway bridge in Boston over the River Witham, erected by the Great Northern Railway Company and opened for traffic on October 30th 1848. The bridge carried a single line of rails over the river in a sweeping curve. In the process of reproduction and reduction, interesting features of the original picture  have been more or less lost to view. Two trains, for instance, are seen travelling in opposite directions, on the opposite sides of the river, on a single line of rails. But as a railway official is seen waving a flag in face of the train approaching the point where the present level-crossing exists, it is to be supposed that all danger of a head on collision midway of the bridge was thus averted.
A good deal of shipping appears to be moored just beyond the Sluice Bridge, adjacent to the Railway Bridge. The old buildings on the left of the picture are old warehouses that later became Beeson's Glass Merchants and are now modernised and converted into housing accommodation. See second picture below for the warehouses at a later date.