With things starting to draw to a close and a lot of wet and windy weather about, you'd think there wasn't much to report, but the redoubtable bridges team ploughs on, so that we can give you a further update with progress as follows:

 

The repairs to the steelwork were finally completed on Tuesday and the pictures above show the ends of the deck with new steel welded in.

Roberto Tramontana is now back on site at Childswickham, making good progress despite the rain. The last of the steel repairs have been shotblasted and primed, and the entire bridge now has an undercoat as well. 

Childswickham Road bridge in its final undercoat.

The deep excavation at the Cheltenham end for the abutment wall thickening has been back filled, visible on the shot of the undercoated deck above.

Re-pointed pilaster (well, the other side mostly)

New balustrades awaiting unwrapping

The new parapet steel is also on site and will be fitted as soon as the painting is finished.

As soon as the final coat of paint is on the bricklayers will be grouting under the steel bearing plates and then re-building the ballast retaining walls. The pilasters on the upside have both been re-pointed (unfortunately most of the work is on the non-visible side, hidden behind polythene)

Bridge 4, Peasebrook farm.

All of the steelwork is now on site and the drilling of the deck to insert concrete shear anchor bolts is well in hand. 

Driiling in progress - see also the new hand rails in place.

The specially shaped plates to cover holes right through the trough sides have been welded in where required, seen in this picture.









The handrails have been reattached, following the removal of the concrete fill of the troughing. Now the shuttering is being made to contain and form the end bearings for the concrete to be laid, to form the thicker and strengthened deck.


There's also some news of one of our other bridges, i.e.

Bridge 43, A435, Evesham Road, Cheltenham.

Above are two photographs of inspection work taking place on this bridge, using a rail mounted cherry picker to give the engineer access to the underside.

This was the last of a group of 8 Principal Inspections carried out by our Engineers CH2MHill (formerly Halcrow) over the last 3 weeks. The reports are awaited with some trepidation, following the revelations during the Bridges to Broadway contract !