A Tale of Two Bridges: Project Changes Contruction Methodology
London’s traffic is legendary. Take the A40. Running west through the center of the English capital, the roadway handles more than 100,000 vehicles a day. It also traverses some of the city’s busiest rail networks. But two of the A40 bridges dating back to the 1920s were in serious disrepair and in dire need of attention.
Transport for London, the government body responsible for most aspects of the city’s transport system, realized the bridges had to be replaced. It just had to figure out how to pull off the project—without disrupting all that traffic or the neighbors.
Hyder Consulting, which won the bid for the approximately four-year, £16 million project, knew it was in for some serious logistical snarls.
“One of the biggest challenges was the railway,” says Phil Tindall, the London-based U.K. technical director for bridges at Hyder.
Together the rail lines handle more than 800 trains, transporting 145,000 passengers daily.
The first bridge, which goes over the North London Line, has trains running 18 hours a day.
That one didn’t seem overly daunting.
“Without too much difficulty, you can get five to six hours on the nights or the weekends to work over the railway lines,” says Mr. Tindall, who started out as project manager for the job and was later promoted to project director. “…
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"Why is it that people rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the people involved." - Mark Twain |
