Bridge that Gap: Great Central Railway News

Fund supposedly up to £250K according to the latest Steam Railway that arrived today.

 

We have wondered on here about a more rapid rebuilding of the missing embankments as it would seem to be "relatively" easy......
Apparently there are far more stringent requirements than the old "pick, shovel and wheelbarrow" tip it here technique, with detailed soil analysis, positioning, treatment etc. etc. which means contractors/costs/time will all be needed.
I still hope that we can get a steam engine posed on the canal bridge soon though....

 

As indeed some of the existing heritage railways have found out when repairing damaged embankments. Just replacing what was there before is no longer considered good enough.

 

Though given the number of landslips on railway embankments over the last few years, that's not a bad thing...

 

The railway bridge(341) just North of Quorn station will be taken out in early September for a new deck to be installed. So the DMU set will be based at Rothley to maintain some sort of service, I believe, during Sept when Loughborough will be temporarily unreachable.

 

Ah, I had heard some whispers about that. Will be a case of seeing what appears on the GCR website, though what they are intending to do still awaits confirmation.......

 

There was a lot of activity in Quorn yard today with a very large crane being used to unload 4 concrete bridge sections for the new bridge 341. It is being made into one unit before being moved into position.
I was told that the old bridge will be lifted by a "Scissor" road vehicle, turned through 90 degrees then brought out on a new temporary road and into Quorn yard. This vehicle will then be used to put the new bridge in place. This is why the new bridge is being assembled up in the air on two steel abutments.

 

For Scissors think of this from Thunderbirds:-
That is if you are of a certain age bracket.

 

Nice one! Thankfully the bridge won't be moving very fast, or have a bomb on board it!

 

The scissor vehicle base was assembled with a power unit and two multi wheeled, multi powered, multi steered flat units. Seeing them being tested was like a stretch limo on air bags dancing! It had the scissor units put on top and was making its way out of Quorn yard at lunchtime today.

 

Reunification website update.....
http://www.gcrailway.co.uk/unify/

 

It is great to see that the GCR is still making good progress on the "Gap" project during this C-19 crisis.
Thinking about it, in the past four years, they have bridged the MML, rebuilt the canal bridge for double track and replaced a complete double track bridge (341) on their running line. As well as several other infrastructure enhancements - Impressive!

 

Good news. I'll probably get shot down for suggesting it but is there any mileage in working on the missing embankment in parallel? This could be funded by running an industrial loco and brake van over the bridge to view the work and progress onwards, the inverse of the Bluebell's Tenner for the Tip. I do realise that if you need to hire and transport earth moving machines this gets costly and maybe best in bigger bites.

 

I can see all kinds of reasons not to, but they all come down in reality to cost. It's whether the money you make from it is more than the additional cost. The cheapest way to build anything is to get everyone out of the way and have as much space to fling stuff around as possible.

I suspect regular land-rover or similar tours on days when the activity is slowest (or if anyone has any fun vehicle they could lend? APC? Dukw? Monster truck?) would be the way to do it.

How about "Pretend to be Edmund Brassey for a day", everyone dresses up in stovepipe hats and gets to shout at navvies (extras in period costume)… extra cost for a photo opp reenacting one of the SWA Newton pictures

 

Ilvaporista makes a good point and getting a locomotive or train onto the canal bridge would certainly generate a lot of positive publicity/income. The GCR has said previously that it may well be possible/desirable to have sections of work happening at the same time, but I suspect it will really depend on how the funding is coming in.
As Bikermike also says it is cheapest to keep everyone out of the way!

 

So if stages 3 and 4 are bridging the preci spark car park and railway terrace stage 5 is the embankment to be rebuilt stage 6 is the A60 iron road bridge to be revamped whats stage 7 the culvert on the enbankment over the watercourse or the new loco shed at Loughborough?

 

Hi Davo,
I think stage 7 may be the missing embankment to the North of the MML bridge?
In other news - re bridge 341. The old steel bridge has been removed and I think that they are doing work on the abutments before moving the new concrete bridge into position. The refurbished lattice girders look good.

 

Yes the achievements of the GCR in engineering and financial terms are impressive, certainly up there with the best heritage railway examples in the U.K. It would be a huge undertaking for Network Rail!

I think it does give hope to other railways facing similar engineering challenges, especially in urban areas. Sensible phasing, clear priorities, good relationships with key stakeholders and decent, steady progress to keep the momentum going. I hope they maximise the publicity potential of a posed loco on the bridge!

 

It was good to see, on the TV News this morning, that the new concrete bridge 341 was being slid into position yesterday. That it was decided, designed, built and installed in 29 weeks, in a pandemic crisis, is really Well done by All concerned.

 

The yard worksite at Quorn is now empty, apart from the remains of a rusty bridge. Just visible, is that one of the lattice girders appears to be in place on the new bridge.