BRIDGE 09 – AQUEDUCT/ PEDESTRIAN FOOTBRIDGE – UPDATE
TO 30.11.18
Progress has been good, despite the weather getting
wetter and with the contractor having to start work on the car park entrance at
Broadway as well, at very short notice!
The
shuttering around the east bank seat has now been removed making it ready to
take the new aqueduct steel box section.
The west bank seat had to be broken out to release the
old steel channel and to make it wider for the slightly larger new steel box
section. The rougher breakout areas have been made good with concrete repair
materials.
The steel was due to arrive from North Wales on
Wednesday, but due to problems with delays in painting (because of the cold
weather) and loading it did not arrive until after 18.00, so the transfer of
the steel up to the bridge site did not happen that day, as was intended. Then
to compound the problems, when the 60 T crane arrived at 8.00a.m. on the Thursday
morning, the wind was gusting at up to 45 MPH and as the crane could not be
permitted to work in winds over 22 MPH the whole lifting operation was
cancelled!! The Met office forecast was indicating that gales were to be
expected right through to Tuesday night, so a disaster was looming!
Fortunately, and at extremely short notice, the
contractor managed to obtain a very large flatbed lorry with a Hiab crane,
which arrived about midday on Thursday. The Hiab had a lifting capacity of 3.5T
at 16M radius, which was amazing! Because the artic lorry delivering the steel
to site was too large to get up to the bridge site the steel all had first to
be transferred onto the Hiab truck.
The sections were then taken up to the bridge site,
a bit at a time. The Hiab lorry had a rear extension section which could be
pulled out to support the sections up to 12M long. This Hiab lorry was
not limited by wind speeds and so, once the artic had been unloaded, the bridge
steelwork installation could be started.
The first length to be lifted was on the east
(Cotswold side).
Next was the centre span. Unfortunately
neither Alastair nor I were there to see the west (Malvern) span lifted into
place.
The new entrance on the downside fitted into the slot
to become a “fixed” end to stop movement where the stream channel joins. A small step has been included to stop silt being washed into the
steel box. Another small step has been provided at our boundary fence to
provide further protection against silting.
Ironically, despite having provided a piped diversion
for the stream, not a drop of water has come into the channel yet!!
 |
| Handrails waiting to be lifted on. |
The following day a different Hiab lorry came along
and had started lifting handrailing into place before I arrived and so that on
the Malvern end, the north side was already in place.
The south side, west
end panel of handrailing was then lifted in,
followed by two of the toe
kicker angles.
The final two photos show a close up of one of the two
splice joints, and the west side end of the new channel.
Photos courtesy of Alastair Watson & John
Balderstone.
Great looking job! I wonder why the aqueduct is even there given that it is evidently rarely in water. Perhaps the local landowner insisted on it being reinstated when the cutting for the railway was built - despite the fact that any water could have been diverted into the trackside drains.
ReplyDeleteAnother wonderful report, getting everything put together ready for the next season, what colours will this all be painted in? Looks like a very well designed and made piece of steelwork.
ReplyDeleteRegards
Paul & Marion.
It appears to be already painted.
DeleteApparently the stream can occasionally carry a lot of water after certain prolonged, heavy rain conditions. I think that the exceptionally hot, dry summer has really dried the ground to a considerable depth and the ground water level is only slowly being raised to a more normal level. We would not want to add any further water to our track-bed drains, and, in addition it carries a Public Footpath so I guess that they created a dual purpose structure using the hollow Aqueduct box section as the Bridge structural member. As Toddingtonted has said it has already been painted in two colours - Dark Brown & a cream, all as the several other bridges around the railway and especially the 4 steel ones done during the Bridges to Broadway contract. It was first galvanised, for extra protection, before being painted.
ReplyDeleteGalvanising it is an excellent idea. The original was perforated sideways by rust!
DeleteHats off to the contractors, for recovering so quickly from the wind issues!
ReplyDeleteAnd, as always, thanks for the informative and interesting update!
Noel
A pro job at great expense . Please get this activity off to the Railway magazines with photos before and after ,plus costs ( GWR expense ). We have provided a new bridge linking public footpaths for the community as well as an attractive and safer crossing , ideal for future photos from this location . A great PR opportunity ,john Mayell .
ReplyDelete