Timetable of works:

As outlined in a post earlier this week, the 5 bridges to Broadway are being repaired by a number of specialised teams, that visit each bridge in rotation. This means that some bridges will be started first, and some later, depending on what needs to be done to each. Not all the bridges are built the same way, nor have the same repair requirements. Consult you share prospectus for the details - you do have one, don't you? We still need £50k to complete the fund raising to get the work done, so please help. Then there are the rails to buy....

Below is the estimated timetable for the works on each bridge. We thought our readers might be interested, but don't get cross if the timetable is not executed exactly, as stuff happens, and things like the weather can interfere with the best intentions. The rain in Broadway for example was belting down so hard on Friday that those working on the signal box had to retreat to the cabin in haste and sit out the downpour for an hour an a half.

So here is the estimate for each bridge:

Bridge 1 - Broadway:
Start: 16th June
Completion: 10th September (end of road closure, drainage work to follow)
Duration: 78 days

Bridge 2 - Childswickham Road:
Start: 15th September (i.e. after Broadway reopens)
Completion: 26th November
Duration: 62 days

Bridge 3 - Pry Lane:
Start: 20th August
Completion: 10th September
Duration: 13 days

Bridge 4 - Peasebrook Farm:
Start: 8th June
Completion: 30th July
Duration: 38 days

Bridge 5: Little Buckland:
Start: 26th May
Completion: 4th October
Duration: 74 days

You can see that work required ranges from 13 days on the least affected bridge at Pry Lane - never hit by a lorry as far as we know - to 78 days on the biggest bridge at Broadway, struck numerous times.

The dates don't exactly coincide with the expected duration, due to site set up and signage preparation days.

All in all, the work is on schedule and proceeding satisfactorily. Good news !

A viaduct special:

Stanway Viaduct - Bridge 12

As we now have a bridges blog, we thought our readers might be interested in work on a much bigger bridge - Stanway viaduct. This structure in engineering blues has 15 arches, is 210 yds long and spans a small stream at a height of 42ft. It's not only built on a curve, but also has a falling 1 in 150 gradient towards Toddington. Complicated ! You have to admire those Victorian brick layers. Nonetheless it was built in only 16 months... maybe a bit too fast, as 3 arches collapsed, one by one, while it was being built in 1904. The Achilles heel was not the design nor the terrain, but the fact that the supporting wooden supports underneath the arches were removed too soon, and then a heavy 14ton crane was rolled on top of the new brickwork.

Well, the viaduct has now been up for 110 years, and it has a vital place in our bridge maintenance programme. As with a number of other bridges on the railway already (most recently, J.J. Farms bridge) we do maintain our structures (not just the ones on the new sections!), and Stanway Viaduct features large upon it. As you can see in the opening picture, ivy started to creep up it, and force its way into the brickwork.

Time to do something about this! In the picture above, a section of ivy has been removed for inspection, and you can see the damage caused by this invasive plant.

The affected piers were then surrounded by scaffolding, the ivy removed and the damage made good with new bricks and mortar.

You can see in this picture how deep we went in order to get to unaffected, solid brickwork. We used original Victorian imperial blues, so that the same strength and looks are achieved:

You can't tell the difference between old and new. We even found the correct bull nosed corner bricks. That pile underneath by the way is not old bricks, but mangel wurzels for sheep feed. We didn't take out that much. In order to further strengthen the repair, stainless steel Cintek anchor bars were used in the repairs. As blue bricks don't absorb mortar very well, we only inserted a few bricks at a time, moving on to a different repair until the mortar had gone off on the first.

As the scaffolding was already up, we also refreshed some of the brickwork higher up in the arches:

A small amount of 'nibbled' bricks remain at ground level, and these will be done by a crew without scaffolding at a convenient time later.

Breaking news.... work has started on Bridge 4 ! This is the small bridge at Peasbrook farm.

Wing walls at Peasbrook Farm

 

The first job is to repair the wing walls, which are cracked and infested with grass and tree roots. The coping bricks have been taken off and further bricks removed until sound brickwork is exposed. The balustrades have also been removed, as severely attacked by rust.

There is a plan behind the order of the works. The contractor has teams specialising in different activities: excavation, brick laying, steel fabrication, shot blasting etc. Each team can work on one site at a time. The shot blaster is currently at Bridge 1, the excavator at bridge 5, and the brick layers at bridge 4. It is therefore difficult to change the order, as all the teams fit into the master plan.

Bridge 5, Little Buckland

The digger and 9T dumper have been on site to excavate behind the Cheltenham end of the abutments. They are presently trying to create a lower level plateau on which the excavator can stand, to reach the deepest level of the final excavation. The pictures below show the level of the plateau. Readers may recall that this bridge has inward leaning abutments, and this will be addressed from behind with some solid concrete. It's the worst bridge of the 5.

Little Buckland, south side.

The steel fabricators are currently also manufacturing the remaining pieces of steel that will be inserted into the formerly rust damaged areas. They will then move on to Broadway.

 Bridge 1, Broadway

 Here the principal activity over the last few days has been shot blasting. It's a big bridge! At this point in time the intention is to reveal all the damaged areas, so that new pieces can be welded in, as at Bridge 5. There are quite a lot of them at Broadway, as rust was not the only enemy, but also careless road users.

Shot blasting in progress

The shot blasting has been taking place for 3 days or so already, and there are several days more still to go. But there is steady progress, and the work required, laid bare by this process, is quite clear.

Northern end after shot blasting. Note the big hole on the left, against the pilaster.

Northern, Evesham side of the bridge, after shot blasting

Readers will have noticed in an earlier post the shot blaster's lorry with the V8 diesel engine powering the business end. This makes for a completely independent and mobile capability. The company has experience of railway bridges, but also in a whole range of other objects such as houses and trucks - their website is at at www.tramblast.com. Over tea we were charmed by the proprietor Roberto Tramontana, an Italian born in Bromsgrove! The accent was strongly West Midlands... His father was taken prisoner at Tobruk and transported back to the UK, and is still going strong at the tender age of 96. If you need your steam engine shot blasting, do check him out.

This Wednesday, the contractors were busy at both bridge sites, Little Buckland and Broadway. Early in the morning, then 360 digger was dispatched from Broadway to travel south along the trackbed to Little Buckland. The two miles take about half an hour...
The purpose there was to further dig out the abutments.

At Broadway, the bridge has been encased in sheeting:

Broadway bridge this morning.

A passage has been left for pedestrians and cyclists, and it sees quite a bit of use by people coming to get their papers from the garage. On top of the bridge two tents have been put up. The activity today at Broadway was shot blasting, and laying of an electrical supply to the George Law offices on the drive.

Shot blaster's lorry.

Looking down from above, you can see the shot blaster's lorry below. This self contained unit provides the power and blasting grit for the contractor working on top of the bridge. Here is a close up of this rather interesting vehicle:

The power house.

Surrounded by air receivers, a compressor and sacks of grit is an enormous diesel engine. It's a German Deutz V8, air cooled. Ideal for the job, as reliable, simple and powerful. It burbled away most of the day.

Upstairs on the bridge is the contractor with the business end:

Shot blasting in progress.

It was a hot day again today, and it must have been unbearable inside the suit. It has a helmet akin to an old fashioned deep sea diver's, and an elastic collar to make sure no dust gets in. Nor any cool air... there is a separate supply for this though.

This is the first initial grit blasting, to clear away rust from areas that have to be repaired. Once all the repairs have been effected, the bridge will be shot blasted all over, prior to painting.

At the end of the day, the contractor was still busy:

But the Broadway gang was on its weary way home, with just Clive remaining to take a look. You don't see this every day.

The sunny day brought out your scribe to work at Broadway, and a peep at the work on the bridge:

Scaffolders at work

Today was the day the scaffolding under the bridge went up. This is to allow shot blasting and metal repair to the beams underneath.

By mid afternoon, the scaffolding was in place, and sheets of plastic were being added, to cocoon the bridge to contain the dust and dirt that will arise from the repair works.

Plastic sheeting goes on.

Looking at this pictures, it suddenly dawned on me that there is something different about the top of the bridge - the parapets are missing ! They were there yesterday, and gone this morning. How efficient that is.

Here is a before and after view of the parapets:

Broadway before, and...

...Broadway after !

The latticework balustrades were in a dreadful shape, quite rusted through in some areas. Amazing how rust can eat through a piece of 1cm thick steel in the middle of nowhere in particular.

Notice how clear and clean the steelwork now is, ready for shotblasting of affected areas, and metal repair.

For pictures of such metal repair work, we must move over to bridge 5, at

LITTLE BUCKLAND

Patches cut out, balustrade cut off but still visible.

Repair effected at Little Buckland.

The contractor clearly is not wasting any time, and is getting on with the job. This looks like an excellent patch. If I am not mistaken, the deck plate is less thick than it looks, because a drip channel has been added to the front edge, to avoid any water running off the end, and then back, underneath the deck. This is what used to happen before and was the cause of some of the rusting, so this is an innovative improvement on the previous situation.

As an addendum to the Laverton bridge strike report, I need to point out that this is not a recent one. We did know about it, it's just frustrating that it keeps happening, even to new and well signposted bridges.

Work is kicking off in earnest now, with progress on both bridges 1 (Broadway) and 5 (Little Buckland).

Here are the pictures of Broadway, where the road closure took effect on Monday, thus allowing the contractors to start some serious work:

A prop is readied

The main objective at Broadway today was to get 4 supports in under the bridge.

These have a thread under each end, which can be turned until the support is tight under the bridge. They are then also cross braced. The purpose is not to lift the entire bridge up - this could result in distortion, or indeed rupture, as the double track bridge forms one whole element - but to provide replacement support for when the bottom flange is removed for renewal.
This is what the bottom flange looks like:

As you can see, it has been struck at least twice by a pointed object, such as the jib of a JCB or 360. And this was after the 1975 strike, when a large 360 was involved, and a patch was required for the whole web on this side.

Count the bridge strikes!

This view underneath shows at least 6 strikes, from both directions. What is bizarre is that some strikes have been well inside the bridge, probably because it was at first struck on the outer edge, pushed down, and then bounced back for a second go. All this damaged steelwork has to be replaced. The bottom flange will be removed, and to continue supporting the heavy bridge (60tons plus?) the four supports have been put in place. One supposes that most of these collisions took place before the A44 by pass was built.

View from the top.

On top at Broadway, the deck has been completely freed and the end brickwork removed to show the ends of the beams. It is believed that these beam ends have never been painted, from new, as they were hidden behind the brickwork.

The next job at Broadway is to put of scaffolding underneath, sheet the whole structure, and allow the shot blasters to clean up those areas where metal replacement is necessary.

At the end of the day.

The picture above shows the site at the close of play. The 4 supports are in place, the road is now closed, and the foot/bicycle path created on the right. George Law report that passers by reaction has been generally positive - a little inconvenience for a longer term general good. Broadway's bric-a-brac sign stands prominent - we are still open for business! Quite a few cars tuned up today, irrespective of the road closure.


Little Buckland:

Parapets cut down.

At Little Buckland, the moth eaten parapets have been removed. They will be replaced with identical new fabrications.

At the end of the day at Little Buckland bridge, the parapets have gone and the whole bridge is encased in plastic sheeting for shot blasting of metal replacement areas to proceed.

We were saddened to hear today that Laverton bridge, with its new concrete deck, has also now had a bridge strike, by drivers unknown. Is CCTV the answer to finding/deterring future culprits?

Work on bridge 1 (Broadway) has started ! The photographs below were taken today, during a normal working day at the Broadway station site.

Site office installed on the Broadway station approach

The up line bridge deck exposed

 The ends of the deck are severely nibbled by rust, giving views of the road underneath - the grey line in the hole below is the edge of the road on the opposite side.

Rust damage in the decking

Rust damage on the corner

Terracotta tile covering partially removed - view towards Broadway station site

Corner pilaster decapitated and base out of true.

Balustrade completely rusted through.

The moth eaten balustrades are too badly damaged to be repaired, and will be replaced with new in identical form. It is also intended to update the warning signage on the bridge, once repaired.

Balustrade on the eastern side.

The view east shows a large grey patch. This was fitted by BR in 1975 following a major bridge strike. We would like more details of this - who knows the date it took place, could describe it, has a photograph or newspaper article perhaps? The bridge was hit by a 360 digger on the back of an articulated lorry, returning it from a job at a nearby quarry. It is the biggest strike the bridge has suffered - at the time there was no bypass - but there have been several smaller ones since, which are still visible, and which will now be repaired.

We now have some detailed photographs of the damage to the steelwork.

Tears in the platework, and holes

Various gaps in the deck, including the tears in the photograph above, allowed water to penetrate down to the steel:

Close up of heavy corrosion

More heavy corrosion. This bridge is 109 years old.

It was a hot and dirty day today.

The shot blasting company was on site all day long The start of shot blasting was delayed because the horse of a neighbour giving a riding lesson was being scared by the noise and dust.

Horses are so jittery. Your scribe once managed to make one rear up, simply by bicycling down the other side of a B road! On the other hand, I have seen horses from the GWSR steam train, in a field quite close to the railway and continuing to graze unperturbed. It's a a question of familiarity.

The contractor managed to blast clean all of the areas needing steelwork repairs.

At the same time the brick layers were removing the damaged ballast walls from both ends of the undersides of the deck plates.

The photographs above show some of the corroded steel rail bearers before the blast cleaning had been done, and a shot of holes and tears in the deck plates. These have allowed the water through that has caused the corrosion of the girders below.

The pictures below show the damaged areas after shot blasting today.

The steel repairs are due to start next Wednesday.

Broadway bridge works - bridge 1 - are also about to start. The official road closure and diversion signs are up, with a start of Monday June 16th.

More news from the first work site, being bridge 5, Little Buckland.

 

Basically the whole site has been enclosed in fencing to stop anyone wandering into a hole, or dangerous work area. Then the space beneath the bridge has been decked out with a fully boarded scaffolding platform, beneath which is a walkway so that pedestrians, cyclists, prams, etc can safely pass through the working area. The platform is there so that the shot blasters (due in on Friday) can get reasonably close to the steel to do their work. Then the steel repairers will follow them, starting on Monday.

The main bridge span has been encapsulated with reinforced plastic sheeting. This is to contain the dust, scale and paint debris, and shot residue, which will arise when the structure is given an initial blast clean to remove corrosion from the areas that need to be repaired.  It will remain in place until the final shotblast of the entire structure is done, after the repairs are complete. Then 3 coats of paint will be applied.

On the downside, Broadway end wing wall, the cracked and displaced brickwork has now been removed ready for re-building. On Wednesday the contractor was working on removing the cracked brickwork from around the top of the abutment (downside, Broadway end).

Down side view showing encapsulation and walkway

 

Up side view

Outer girder bearing point

This picture shows the down side outer main girder showing the corroded state. These are the bits that cannot be seen and maintenance is almost impossible here.

Deck plate showing a tear and holes

 This picture shows the deck plate which has a tear and holes, which allow the water through causing the corrosion.

Wing wall, with cracked brickwork removed

Steady progress therefore - more news at the end of the week.