Glasgow M8 New Cutty Sark Bridge

[onionjoe76]

With work already started on the upgrading/new build of the M8 between Baillieston and Newhouse I was wondering how this will affect services on the Glasgow - Whifflet Line.

The plans are to build a new, 2nd "Cutty Sark" bridge crossing 6 lanes of newly built M8 motorway almost immediately west beyond the original bridge crossing the current 4 lane A8.

I've been racking my brains as to how to can do this without closing the Whifflet line for a prolonged period of time. They would be adding a new massive bridge to an already existing regularly used passenger and freight line.

Would they essentially build a tunnel for the new M8 and on completion of that section of road, build a bridge over the tunnel section over the course of a weekend then dismantle the tunnel underneath. The plans show a rail over-bridge and not a motorway tunnel.

The answer is probably obvious, but I just can`t think what it would be. Anyone got any ideas.

 

[edwin_m]

These days it is possible to build bridges off-line and move them into place using huge transporters. This was done recently with a bridge for the Nottingham tram across the ring road and service roads, which must total getting on for eight lanes worth of width.

http://www.iotimelapse.co.uk/nottingham_qmc.html

Obviously a bit more tricky if it is an existing railway, as it would need to be closed long enough to dig out enough of the formation to replace it with the bridge. Possibly the structure could be devised so the abutments could be built in advance either side of the railway instead of underneath it.

 

[snowball]

It will probably require a closure of the railway for a few days, maybe over Christmas, or perhaps just a weekend. Of course there's months of preparatory work before that, and finishing work afterwards, but the critical phase is quite quick.

 

[onionjoe76]

Thanks for the answers folks, will continue my search and quest. Even my "insider" at Transport Scotland has no answer for me (then again he is a bit of a muppet). Whatever they do, it should think it will be great to watch put in place.

That time lapse video is awesome. I can see it being something similar to that timed with a Christmas period closure. Freight can fairly easily be diverted and passengers from the Whifflet and Kirkwood areas need only walk a mile or so to access the Glasgow Queen Street Line if they need to get to the city centre.

I hope it is a similar method, because I shall be camping out to watch this.....

 

[PaxVobiscum]

I'm sure I remember a number of years ago now (199?), one of the bridges on the WCML over the northern part of the M6 being replaced as part of the M6 widening from 2 lanes to 3 (hard to believe now it used to be only 2 lanes for quite a bit south of Carlisle!).

I didn't know anything about it until arriving at the diversion point on the M6 just as it was being removed - a 5 minute queue and then one of the first to go under the new bridge (cranes still on site). That was an overnight, or at the most, a weekend closure if I remember correctly.

 

[onionjoe76]

The easiest part of the operation will be the fact that the new motorway will not be opened at that point, so they should have plenty of room to put a bridge in place. I'm more interested in how quickly they can cut out the section of land that the motorway will run through and get the tracks relayed. The railway is situated high up on an embankbank. Hopefully it will all kick off soon. It think it will be a great piece of engineering whatever they do.

 

[snowball]

Here's a 17-minute video of a bridge being built under the Manchester-Crewe line for a much smaller new road, the single-carriageway A34 Alderley Edge bypass, with a 102-hour possession at Christmas 2009.

http://www.alderleyedge.com/news/article/2128/building-bridges

 

[swt_passenger]

Here's another, when they slid in a viaduct on the new A46 dual carriage way near Bingham:

http://vimeo.com/18321496

I think one of the key features of this one is that the six main bearings that support the end cross beams of the bridge are on massive round tubular steel piles that were built down through the embankment alongside the operational railway.

Edited to add a link to Google Street View of the finished bridge - the six round piled 'legs' are clearly visible as you pan round, and I'm pretty sure these were done in advance.

http://goo.gl/maps/jaCSI

Hopefully that gives a bit of an idea how they can do stuff around the railway and minimise the closure period to a few days over a relatively quiet period, such as between Christmas and New Year.

 

[snowball]

I'm sure I remember a number of years ago now (199?), one of the bridges on the WCML over the northern part of the M6 being replaced as part of the M6 widening from 2 lanes to 3 (hard to believe now it used to be only 2 lanes for quite a bit south of Carlisle!).

I didn't know anything about it until arriving at the diversion point on the M6 just as it was being removed - a 5 minute queue and then one of the first to go under the new bridge (cranes still on site). That was an overnight, or at the most, a weekend closure if I remember correctly.

This sounds a bit confused to say the least.

I think you may be referring to the upgrade of the so-called "Cumberland Gap" on the A74 to become part of the M6, completed in December 2008, but this is north of Carlisle not south (now M6 junctions 44 to 45). It goes over the WCML not under, and does not go under any railways or under any new bridges. At the WCML crossing, the old Mossband viaduct was replaced by a major new bridge, which took a couple of years to build.

The demolition of the old Mossband viaduct over the railway took place during a 5-day possession at Christmas 2008 and used multi-wheeled transporters such as we've seen in the videos.

The M6 south from Carlisle has never been two lanes, except for the Preston and Lancaster bypasses which were widened to three lanes in the 1960s within 10 years of being built, and short sections inside junctions 32 and 36 which don't cross any railways and have now been widened (except possibly J32 northbound which may still be two lanes). The widening inside J36 was quite a long time ago, maybe about 1990, and was allowed for in the original design of the bridges.

 

[onionjoe76]

Here's a 17-minute video of a bridge being built under the Manchester-Crewe line for a much smaller new road, the single-carriageway A34 Alderley Edge bypass, with a 102-hour possession at Christmas 2009.

http://www.alderleyedge.com/news/article/2128/building-bridges

Thank you for that. The is the best 17 minutes Ive spent doing anything. Including the day I got married. Absolutely awesome engineering done with military precision and even harder with the obstacle of OHLE in place. WOW.
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Thank you to snowball and swt_passenger for all that info and those videos. I can certainly picture it in my head now how they will do it. A lot "easier" than I expected it to be.

Thanks guys, I really enjoyed watching those videos.

 

[PaxVobiscum]

This sounds a bit confused to say the least.

Yes, I have to agree - now that I remind myself of the timescales on http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/environment/historichighways/m6.asp
The widenings and the numbers of lanes all seem to have been mixed up in my recollection (worrying) but I have been up and down the north M6 regularly as a driver since the late 1960s and before that as a passenger. I remember having a picnic on the construction site of the M6 south of Shap (evidenced by family photographs), remember clearly the tailbacks before the second Thelwall viaduct over the Mersey and Ship Canal opened, but seem to have mixed up more some recent widenings.

I am beginning to think that the bridge I saw being replaced was a road rather than a railway one. The diversion was from Junction 31 so somewhere south of that was the bridge that was replaced. No matter - the point was that the bridge seemed to be wheeched in over a matter of hours.

 

[snowball]

Could have been when the Preston bypass was widened from 3 to 4 lanes in the 1990s. That included some realignment of the carriageways between junctions 31 and 32, creating a wider central reservation than before.

 

[clc]

Image of the new bridge found here: http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk...M74/Image_4__New_bridge_with_smooth_face_.png

 

[onionjoe76]

Thanks clc. Dunno how I did not find that. I thought I had been everywhere on the transport scotland swebsite. Guess not. Thanks.

 

[PaxVobiscum]

With work already started on the upgrading/new build of the M8 between Baillieston and Newhouse I was wondering how this will affect services on the Glasgow - Whifflet Line.

The plans are to build a new, 2nd "Cutty Sark" bridge crossing 6 lanes of newly built M8 motorway almost immediately west beyond the original bridge crossing the current 4 lane A8.

So far all that is happening (apart from some tree clearing for the electrification) near the Cutty Sark bridge is advance work for the M8 involving diverting a gas pipeline. Nothing yet on the other side of the railway:

(EDIT I noticed a disused railway branching off the Whifflet line just before the place where the new bridge is going. It can be seen here on Google satellite view, curving down to the bottom left of the map. I presume it was for a long closed colliery - anyone know what line it was?

 

[snowball]

The Scottish Government published this press release yesterday.
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I noticed a disused railway branching off the Whifflet line just before the place where the new bridge is going. It can be seen here on Google satellite view, curving down to the bottom left of the map. I presume it was for a long closed colliery - anyone know what line it was?

You can see it on old-maps.co.uk. It appears to be the Tannochside Branch of the Caledonian Railway.

 

[PaxVobiscum]

You can see it on old-maps.co.uk. It appears to be the Tannochside Branch of the Caledonian Railway.

Sorry, hadn't realised that I had not thanked you for that information.

It seems to have found a new use if this picture on RailScot is the same place.

 

[170401]

When the Cumbernauld line was bridged over the M80 in 1992 the new bridge was built to the south of the original formation with tracks laid both on the approaches and on the bridge whilst normal service ran on the adjacent line.

When the time came it was a simple case of cut and slew the original lines to meet up with the new alignment. If I remember rightly disruption was minimal (I wasn't a regular user at the time) although the switch between the two alignments seemed to happen literally overnight.

The old alignment can still be seen on satellite images

 

[PaxVobiscum]

It will be interesting to see if that technique can be used at the Cutty Sark location, given how close the new viaduct seems to be to the existing A8 "Cutty Sark" bridge which is apparently being retained.

 

[snowball]

The technique used for the M80 bridge is wonderfully simple for those sites for which it's applicable, but for bridges under railways in the UK that's very few indeed. I think the line over the M80 is now actually straighter than it was before the motorway. The M8 bridge is right up against the A8 bridge, so I'm sure the method used will be the one discussed earlier in the thread. I'd guess Christmas 2015 - new year 2016 for the big move.

Before multiwheel transporters were available (developed for the oil industry I think) they used to roll or slide bridges on specially built tracks, sliding on PTFE surfaces, or before that on rollers.

 

[PaxVobiscum]

Had a look for myself the other day, and spoke to one of the engineers. There are now temporary embankments built up on both sides of the line, and concrete rafts are being poured on them to support the machinery which will pile the foundations for the bridge. Network Rail are supervising all of this since the concrete pumps have to come fairly close to the OHLE. The bridge itself is apparently to be assembled on the south side of the railway and slid in from there.

Rather poor picture of mine below but it shows what was happening this week. RailScot seems to be following the progress regularly.

 

[snowball]

Thanks for the information and picture. Not sure what you mean by the south side as the line runs near enough north-south there. [Ignore the last sentence. I was being stupid. See below.]

When a new road requires a new bridge under an existing railway, the bridge is designed by the railway and built under a separate contract awarded and supervised by the railway (though possibly with the same contractor as the rest of the road), and charged to the road scheme. Once completed the bridge is maintained by the railway.

When a new road requires a bridge over a railway, it is designed and built along with the rest of the road, though in consultation with the railway, and maintained (I think) by the road authority.

 

[PaxVobiscum]

Not sure what you mean by the south side as the line runs near enough north-south there.

I wasn't carrying a compass, but I sort of assumed that Google maps follow the tradition of North at the top. I may be mistaken. South Eastish then.

 

[snowball]

Sorry, my apologies, I was being momentarily stupid. I think I must have looked at where a different railway crosses the A8 and temporarily forgotten that I know where the line actually is.


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RailScot seems to be following the progress regularly.

Accompanying one picture on RailScot is a statement that the bridge will be placed during a 2-week closure of the line this July. The date sounds a bit optimistic to me.

 

[clc]

The work will be carried out between 11-27 July according to this contract notice: http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=JAN197385

 

[PaxVobiscum]

The work will be carried out between 11-27 July according to this contract notice: http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=JAN197385

Yes thanks - I had found that out from the Site Engineer but I couldn't find the information anywhere else online, unless it is buried deep within a Network Rail EasyYearXX like this one (is that it on page 303)?

First ScotRail, understandably, aren't interested in what happens in July, and neither are Abellio - yet. So the punters don't yet know that the line will be closed for a fortnight in July. I wonder when someone is going to tell them.

 

[OpsWeb]

Work will be carried out on Saturdays in April on the Whifflet line. It could be to do with this bridge.

http://www.scotrail.co.uk/sites/default/files/11663 Whifflet Motherwell Eng poster Apr 15.pdf

 

[PaxVobiscum]

Also Sundays it would appear:
http://www.scotrail.co.uk/sites/default/files/11664 Balloch Motherwell Eng poster Apr 15.pdf

I don't think these were there when I last searched.

 

[PaxVobiscum]

Unexciting video (maybe not if you like Bob the Builder ) of the activity on site at the weekend.

 

[92002]

Sorry, my apologies, I was being momentarily stupid. I think I must have looked at where a different railway crosses the A8 and temporarily forgotten that I know where the line actually is.


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Accompanying one picture on RailScot is a statement that the bridge will be placed during a 2-week closure of the line this July. The date sounds a bit optimistic to me.

That will be during the local Glasgow holiday period, when trains are less busy.