The work to refurbish the 5 'Bridges to Broadway' has been completed! Our structures engineer and your blogger are happy to report that the last two bridges, Nos. 2 and 4, have been finished to a high standard, and the contractor George Law is about to vacate the site.

Here is a last roundup of the work that was still oustanding:

Bridge 2, Childswickham Road

The ballast boards are now fitted and the ballast has been leveled out.

View of Childswickham Road bridge completed, looking north towards Broadway.

Wing wall with new fencing, looking south towards the sewage works on Pry Lane (Bridge 3)

A minor job that still needs doing is to swap the 'width' restrictions signs wrongly supplied for the correct 'height' restrictions signs. This will happen on Monday.

Our structures engineer then drove gingerly down the trackbed - perfectly possible now, although perhaps not recommended in an estate car - and arrived at

Bridge 4, Peasebrook Farm

Everything has now been completed and the scaffolding has been removed.

From this  view, looking towards Broadway, you couldn't tell all the work that has gone on to remove the old concrete deck, shotblast and paint the steel deck, strengthen it, and replace with new and better concrete. It looks just like a small farmer's accommodation bridge - which it is. But what a lot of work and money went into it!

 The underside is nice and neat, and freshly painted.

The wing walls have been repaired, and the track underneath opened out again.

This last view shows all that is new: wing walls, handrails, pilaster caps, ballast boards, and strengthened deck. Good job well done!

Meanwhile, back at the base, the George Law offices have served their useful purposes, and are ready for removal. This is expected to take place early next week. And not too soon either, because ..... we need the space to put up Marguerite's new shed! Yes, it's going to move a few yards from it's current position, so that the full station footprint is visible, and ready to start work on the foundations for the new station building in 2015. An exciting prospect.

At this point we would like to thank our blog readers for their interest and, for us, their interesting contributions. We are really grateful for all the shares that people bought, which have made this whole, crucial job possible. Now the way is free for rails to be laid!

It is too early to give figures, but we do know that the share issue (more than) reached its target, and that the works came in pretty much around the budget, so there will be a little left over to fund the first purchase of the rails. A big thank you to you all !

Although there will be no further work to report on the Bridges to Broadway - job done - we will keep the blog open for other bridge news, such as the hot item of bridge strikes! We truly hope there will be no more, but you never know. The subject is now being debated by the board, and we are lucky to have a number of directors who are very knowledgeable about the subject, so we are in good hands.

The bridges overhaul nears a conclusion!

 

During our visit this morning there was a little more visible progress to report, although the contractors are now spending quite a lot of time on cleaning up the site, disposing of surplus equipment, fencing and the like – not very inspiring or photogenic work – but necessary as the contract draws to a close.

BRIDGE 2

A view in the direction of Broadway shows that the protective felt and ballast have been reinstated.

Still to do are the wooden ballast boards (awaiting the carpenters), leveling the ballast over the ends, and changing the wasp stripes and height limit sign (supplied by the council), which to our astonishment showed that the bridge was limited in width, not height.

BRIDGE 3

This bridge is now completed, following the addition of the somewhat complicated height warning signs. This is probably the first time that there have been any such signs here since the bridge was built !

The picture above also shows the completed post and rail fence up the wing wall slopes.

 

BRIDGE 4

This too has moved into the very last stages. The deck waterproofing has been completed and the protecting ballast has been laid on top.

The newly applied ballast is retained at the edges with simple flat ballast boards. 

The painting of the underside of the whole deck troughing system has been completed. The infill of the trough that ends with brickwork, as permanent shuttering, can also be seen and this being the final item, the access scaffolding will now be removed.

 

All that was left to be done this morning was the construction of the 4 isolated bases to the end standards of the handrails. The shuttering for these can be seen above and these were to be filled this afternoon. In the same picture you can also see the new capping stones to the stub pilasters that this bridge had. 

A new gate has also been fitted to close off the access from the adjoining farm.

 

The only thing now left is the stripping of the shuttering from the hand rail blocks and the addition of some extra ballast around them and at the deck ends.

 

The very last job is the touching up of the handrail paint, which was damaged slightly when they had to be removed to strengthen the deck.

Other news:

We are heartbroken to have to report that Broadway bridge was hit by a skip lorry at 12.50 on November 26th, while the Broadway gang was at work there. The skip scraped along the underside and damaged the paintwork and bolt ends. The lorry made off in reverse without leaving any details, however, we know the owner and registration number. The police have been informed.

To cap it all, Broadway bridge was hit a second time yesterday evening at 22.30hrs, in a similar way. Again the paintwork underneath was damaged, and one bolt was ripped out. The lorry involved was an articulated curtain sider, and after stopping briefly, again made off without leaving details. It must have suffered some damage, as several pieces of steel were left by the roadside. If anyone can give us more information on this second collision, we would be grateful to hear.