A brief update for today. Our structures engineer John had a look at both bridges and while there wasn't much to see at Broadway there was certainly plenty of activity, as your scribe heard shot blasting going non stop all day.

Here is a quick overview of both bridges:

Bridge 5, Little Buckland

Wing wall concrete & land drain finished

Land drain being covered - Broadway end

Completed concrete & land drain on the down side, Broadway end.

When John arrived at about 14.20 the shuttering had been stripped from the north end and construction of the back of abutment land drain was just being completed. Then back filling with stone up to the new concrete was about to start.

You can now see the full extent of the concrete backing to this abutment and wing walls – pretty smart, we think. The bricklayers are due back on Monday, but may be going to bridge 1 first to do the ballast retaining walls, below the deck plating.

Bridge 1, Broadway



The shot blasting at the weekend had exposed another 4 small areas requiring plates welding in. Fortunately the welder was on site fitting some brackets to carry the wasp chevron warning signs, so he was able to deal with them, but this delayed the painting work.
In the meantime, shot blasting continued, making use of the better weather.

As the shot blasting was mostly out of sight we weren't able to take any interesting pictures, so here are a couple of the balustrades in their original condition. These are being replicated off site, and should be fitted very shortly.

The balustrade, as was.

Detail of the bottom of the old balustrade

You can see why new balustrades are required - the bottoms are quite rusted away.

We think there will be an update on Friday or Saturday, after which the bridges blog will pause for 14 days while the scribe takes his well deserved holiday ! Back on September 15th.