Bridge that Gap: Great Central Railway News

I was told that there are signs up at the A60 bridge indicating that the worksite is being prepared. I expect that the track will be being lifted and ballast removed so that the old bridge decks can be lifted. Also the brick abutments will need repair/preparation work before the new decks go in. The actual lifts are scheduled for two dates in October.
The fundraising for the two "Factory Flyover sections is now around £1.2M and there is the desire to get something started sooner rather than later in view of the inflation affecting costs. Could this follow on relatively quickly from the A 60 bridge work??

 

I was driving in Loughborough today and I can confirm that there are road signs up in both directions to the A 60 bridge indicating road access to works....but there is no sign, yet, of any plant or workers on site.

 

Good progress being made and very sensible to place orders ‘now’, especially for materials. I work for a utility company and the price of bulk orders of concrete for example are only being honoured by suppliers for a day! Other railways should take note and order what they can if they’re fundraising for civics projects because construction materials inflation is 10-15% (depending on the product), which could quickly erode the value of any donations coming in to an appeal fund. Granted a few hundred cube of ready mix isn’t sensible to store, but you get the idea!

 

My understanding is that HS2 is sucking up construction materials at a tremendous rate and driving a shortage in the market, and hence very rapid inflation.

Tom

 

Not just the materials, but the elements of the materials. Some of the larger civils projects on it actually have their own dedicated new-build concrete plants. Construction materials generally have gone through the roof of late so I'm glad to hear orders are being placed and costs locked-in, rather than potentially watching the price going up quicker than the donations.

 

An update on the A60 bridge provided today:

 

Please could I ask if the new bridge will be raised to ensure it will not be at risk of being hit by road traffic?

 

However high or wide you make a bridge, Sod's Law dictates some pratt will manage to find a way to hit it.

 

Generally a replacement bridge will have a thinner deck, due to improvements in materials and design. However, it may not be enough to still need a restricted height. Then adding crash protection, as was done at Broadway, is an option.

 

In the lastest issue of MainLine it mentions that there is very little room for manoeuvre in terms of either lifting the bridge or lowering the road. The design incorporates as much headroom as possible supposedly, but as @45045 mentions above, crash protection will be installed also.

 

We've a notoriously tight bridge, single track on a blind bend when heading west, beneath the Brighton Main Line on Mill Road (joins the A23 at the roundabout forming the junction with the A27 bypass). The number of times it's been clouted, repaired and reinforced defies counting.

Why on earth it's not been replaced during one of any of the dozens occasions the BML has been closed for planned repairs (i.e. not the dozens of times it's suffered unscheduled closures), or due to motor insurance companies fed up with endless payouts is anyone's guess.

I wish the GCR the very best and trust they've a top notch civil engineer to design the bridge (and it's defences) and Local Authority Highways Dept alert to the issues.

 

Looking at the mock-up, I'm assuming the new bridge deck will be double width, should doubling this section ever be on the agenda?

 

I think I've seen it written and sketched that the two decks are already necessary because of the proximity of the bridge to the main line link. It might have been a combination of the differences in height between the alignments needed to get the MML up to the GCR and the need to stable the trains from the mainline on the GCR off of the curve/embankment. They haven't gone to the trouble of making any of the rest of the gap double in the plans, this would be quite a small piece, just in case.

 

Ah that makes sense, thanks!

 

The bridge will be double track, one for the cord from the MML and one for the link from Loughborough Central. A section of double track is planned north of the new bridge to allow a run round for any incoming traffic heading south.

 

Work has started!
There are now some container type buildings being placed in the compound by the North embankment of the MML bridge. This is for the works compound for the A 60 bridge work.


There is some new fencing and gate at the works access.

 

Good news Phil, thanks for posting.

Do we yet have any more idea of the problems with Bridge 307 at Bunny Lane? If this bridge is to be out of service for a long period it would preclude any thoughts of running between Ruddington and Rushcliffe Halt and also prevent the running round movements needed for the Gypsum traffic. To allow the gypsum train loco to run round without straying onto this bridge and get this traffic going again, would it be possible to relay the crossover further south or would this compromise the ability to deal with a full length train?

 

I have seen nor heard any more information about that Bridge 307. Perhaps it can be used only at slow speed until it gets repaired? If so the Gypsum traffic could be allowed once the A60 bridge is replaced.....But that is only a supposition in the absence of any new information!

 

Is there any guarantee the Gypsum will come back? I hope it does but I assume the producer and customers will have made other transport arrangements since the bridges broke.

 

Miff makes a good point but I'm sure that the GCR will have been working very closely with British Gypsum. I believe the supply of Gypsum is both from the ground and as a by-product from some types of power station so a variety of sources/locations.