HBPW has put the finishing touches to its seven month ‘makeover’ of Barnsley’s impressive Victorian rail structure, Swaithe Viaduct.
The 1896 bridge, which is 150 metres long, features 11 masonry piers and carries the Sheffield to Barnsley main line, crossing Worsbrough Dale Valley, the River Dove and two unmade footpaths and bridleways on the Transpennine Way.
As part of a major repair and maintenance project, HBPW senior engineer, Ross Hardy worked on site a day a week to monitor work on the masonry piers and steel parapet girders. The project also required a sophisticated underslung scaffolding platform which enabled team members to simultaneously work at both ends of the bridge. Because of the nature of the site and the bridge crossing a valley, the scaffolding costs represented a significant part of the overall scheme costs, said Ross.
As part of the work HBPW supervised overplating of the existing steel parapet girders which were last done in early 2000. The project, which was more about repair and maintenance than improvement, was in line with standard maintenance protocols that are done every decade or so.
“This is a 10 span bridge with 11 vertical masonry piers, and is an impressive legacy of the Victorian industrial age,” added Ross.