There seems to have been a leap forward today, when we came to check out the two main working sites:

Bridge 1, Broadway

What a difference a day makes, sometimes! Major steps forward appear to have been made with several major items being virtually completed. This actually reflects substantial progress being made over several days, all drawing to a conclusion in the last day or so. Lots of welding was continuing today  – mainly with patching corroded sections of the many stiffeners to these large girders. Hopefully Friday will reveal a big step forwards with completion of many of these too.

 

Outer rail bearer repaired, after collision damage.

Both the two outer main girders have now been fitted with their new flange plates and almost all of the high strength tension control bolts having been fitted. Photos below include views of the bottom flange plates of both outer main girders, a large splice plate with bolts through 4 plate thicknesses and an action shot of bolt tensioning taking place.

New Broadway side bottom flange in place, bolts being tightened.

Evesham side bottom flange now bolted in.

Large splice plate

There is also a shot of the web plate at the Cheltenham end of the downside outer girder, full of holes, at the point where all the load is transferred onto the abutment!! The Broadway end is almost the same!!

 

 

 

Moth eaten end of main girder. Not good.

New flange plates fully bolted up.

Hundreds of new bolts are being fitted and tightened. The fabricators report that not all the 1975 repair bolts were properly tensioned - say hand tight in one case - and in another case the nut was missing altogether!

There are still quite a lot of very small items to be done, including the fitting of the new ballustrades.

John, our structures engineer seemed quite upbeat today, having seen the progress on the mechanical works. The end is in sight!

Bridge 5, Little Buckland

The Broadway end abutment has had the shuttering from Monday's pour stripped, and stone filling between the concrete and the earth face has been placed and compacted (see below - note the odd looking, but very effective compacting machine in the foreground).

Compacting ballast at the Broadway end.

The shuttering has been installed at the next level for the 3^rd pour – see the picture below - and hopefully that will be done next Monday.

A couple of shots are also included of the Upside, Broadway end wing wall shuttering, being installed, which continues to be a really tricky operation. The lowest section of the completed concrete is now just visible through the safety fencing.