HS2 construction updates

[The Planner]

Aston Church Road Overbridge is also due to be replaced at some point.

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And Saltley viaduct goes and is re-built. That is all next year and early 24.

 

[city dweller]

Large gap in the viaduct

 

[DaveHarries]

Large gap in the viaduct

Pity that a rather attractive viaduct has to be replaced with something likely to be less so.

Dave

 

[AM9]

Pity that a rather attractive viaduct has to be replaced with something likely to be less so.

Dave

It's just another viaduct made from engineer's blues, - there's hundreds of them on UK lines.

 

[The Planner]

Pity that a rather attractive viaduct has to be replaced with something likely to be less so.

Dave

It wasnt a complete set of arches anyway. It had a steel section in it as well.

 

[Mordac]

It's just another viaduct made from engineer's blues, - there's hundreds of them on UK lines.

Steventon Parish Council will be on their way with a preservation team!

 

[AM9]

Steventon Parish Council will be on their way with a preservation team!

I wonder if the local Sainsburys will find that they cannot dismantle their retail shed because it represents a fine example of late 20th century vernacular construction.

 

[city dweller]

SkanskaUK have released a timelapse of the bridge demolition.

 

[Geogregor]

 

[city dweller]

A short timelapse of the bridge being installed

https://twitter.com/NetworkRailBHM/status/1523267191017447426

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I see HS2 Ltd has bought the Square One building east of Manchester Piccadilly station, in anticipation of constructing the HS2 terminus there.
I was arriving at Piccadilly from the south today and was wondering how the new HS2 alignment would fit on the east side.
Square One used to be the Royal Mail/Parcel Force building (with a now-demolished overhead link to the old Mayfield terminus on the west side of Piccadilly).
The building is now occupied (but not owned) by Network Rail, who will stay until the site is needed for HS2.
https://www.business-live.co.uk/commercial-property/hs2-buys-major-network-rail-23901618

HS2 has acquired a prominent office building occupied by Network Rail ahead of the construction of Manchester’s new high speed railway station.
The company behind the project, HS2 Ltd, has reached an agreement with property giant Bruntwood to purchase Square One on Travis Street.

 

[work-traveller]

I see HS2 Ltd has bought the Square One building east of Manchester Piccadilly station, in anticipation of constructing the HS2 terminus there.
I was arriving at Piccadilly from the south today and was wondering how the new HS2 alignment would fit on the east side.
Square One used to be the Royal Mail/Parcel Force building (with a now-demolished overhead link to the old Mayfield terminus on the west side of Piccadilly).
The building is now occupied (but not owned) by Network Rail, who will stay until the site is needed for HS2.
https://www.business-live.co.uk/commercial-property/hs2-buys-major-network-rail-23901618

I recall going for a meeting in that pre-fab building when it was pretty new. The staff I met said it was a medium term location as the site was likely to be required for HS2 in the future.

 

[edwin_m]

I recall going for a meeting in that pre-fab building when it was pretty new. The staff I met said it was a medium term location as the site was likely to be required for HS2 in the future.

In around 2013 I was actually in a meeting with some of them when they first saw the route going through the very same building!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

More TBM progress updates are available. https://www.hs2.org.uk/in-your-area/map/#11/51.6566/-0.3773/filter=hs2-stations,hs2-network
After something like 8 weeks of good progress (over 20m/day), the Chiltern TBMs (Florence and Cecilia) have now slowed to a crawl in the last week.
Both TBMs are past the 4km mark, so have completed over 25% of their bores.
They are just short of being mid-way to the second ventilation shaft at Chalfont St Giles.

TBM Dorothy continues to make good progress (around 9m/day) at Long Itchington and at 868m is close to 60% completion of its first bore.

 

[Dave_Cardboard]

For those interested in rates of progress of (Chiltern) TBM's, stop starts and so on, there's some interesting information in the linked presentation.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

For those interested in rates of progress of (Chiltern) TBM's, stop starts and so on, there's some interesting information in the linked presentation.

A very interesting presentation from the people doing the work.
It demonstrates why tunnelling progress has been so variable and will continue to be so as the logistics challenges increase with tunnel length.
Frequent TBM maintenance in the flinty chalk is also a factor.
There was also passing reference to a "fire" being under investigation.

 

[snowball]

There was also passing reference to a "fire" being under investigation.

There's a couple of minutes on the fire from 22:00 which is the start of the first talk (the 22 minutes up to that point are society business and introducing the speakers). It says roughly the same as this news report:

HS2 tunnellers trapped by fire in Chilterns

Tunnellers digging HS2’s Chiltern tunnels were trapped for 13 hours after a fire broke out on Tuesday night. HS2 Ltd has launched an investigation into

www.constructionnews.co.uk

Tunnellers digging HS2’s Chiltern tunnels were trapped for 13 hours after a fire broke out on Tuesday night.

HS2 Ltd has launched an investigation into the fire near the Chiltern Tunnel South Portal site in Rickmansworth, just inside the M25.

The fire was on a vehicle that transports workers into the tunnel to work on the tunnel-boring machine (TBM). While transporting three workers who were on their way to a night shift in the TBM, Cecilia, the car caught fire. The workers removed themselves safely from the car and attempted to extinguish the fire, but the engine exploded about 1.6km from the TBM.

The three workers followed safety procedures and sheltered within Cecilia’s safety chamber. Once the fire was extinguished and the situation under control, they were removed safely from the tunnel. Reportedly, they were within the safety chamber for a full 15 hours, from 7pm on Tuesday night until 10am on Wednesday morning.

Emergency services attended the scene, but no injuries were reported. The TBM was untouched by the fire.

Edit: meanwhile, here's a press release with three videos on the new bridge in Brum:

First train runs on Midlands’ newest and longest railway bridge

The Midlands’ newest and longest railway bridge is now fully functional after carrying its first freight train.

www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk

The Midlands’ newest and longest railway bridge is now fully functional after carrying its first freight train.

Tracks reopened today (Monday 23 May) on the Stechford to Aston freight line in Birmingham following the installation of a massive 2,600-tonne bridge* built by Network Rail in partnership with HS2.

At 92 metres long, the steel and concrete structure becomes the longest single span railway bridge in the Midlands.

 

[BRX]

For those interested in rates of progress of (Chiltern) TBM's, stop starts and so on, there's some interesting information in the linked presentation.

Thanks for posting this, was interesting to watch.

 

[Halish Railway]

I’m not sure if this has been mentioned up thread, but some replacement OLE structures have appeared about 100m south of Berkswell on the existing up line in preparation for the HS2 overbridge being built. From what I saw they are overlapping single masts of the Series 1 / F+F type and are yet to have their registration arms installed.

 

[The Planner]

I’m not sure if this has been mentioned up thread, but some replacement OLE structures have appeared about 100m south of Berkswell on the existing up line in preparation for the HS2 overbridge being built. From what I saw they are overlapping single masts of the Series 1 / F+F type and are yet to have their registration arms installed.

The OLE over the old level crossing was never lowered when the bridge was put in, the HS2 bridge has forced the issue somewhat.

 

[Ploughman]

Does that imply that clearances have been worsened?
Shouldn't the new line have been built to maximum clearance?

 

[The Planner]

Does that imply that clearances have been worsened?
Shouldn't the new line have been built to maximum clearance?

If the OLE is within standards it doesn't matter?

 

[zwk500]

Does that imply that clearances have been worsened?
Shouldn't the new line have been built to maximum clearance?

Why would you want the OLE to be higher than necessary?

 

[swt_passenger]

Does that imply that clearances have been worsened?
Shouldn't the new line have been built to maximum clearance?

Maximum clearance for trains doesn’t mean there is level crossing clearance. At level crossings the wires are installed significantly higher than on normal plain line. The new HS2 bridge would AIUI be designed to be clear for a standard wire height of less than 5m, whereas at a crossing the minimum height to allow normal road traffic is much nearer 6m.

 

[59CosG95]

If the OLE is within standards it doesn't matter?

Regrading over a closed level crossing removes the potential for "hard spots" caused by the gradient/change in gradient being too steep.

 

[snowball]

On the HS2 website there's a zoomable map of the route. Some time since I last looked a few months ago, the maximum resolution seems to have been increased.

Specifically, at Curdworth (east of Birmingham, near Water Orton, Hams Hall and Coleshill) there are numerous tracks between the north corner of the triangular junction with the Birmingham spur, and the turnoff of the north-east arm, now to be the East Midlands arm. If you zoom in enough, you can now see every individual track.

The new version confirms my previous statements that there is full provision for parallel movements, such as

London to the NW in parallel with Brum to the NE
London to the NE in parallel with Brum to the NW
The NW to London in parallel with the NE to Brum
The NE to London in parallel with the NW to Brum

plus some further incomplete parallelism involving the fast and slow lines between here and Birmingham Interchange.

Interactive route map

Use HS2’s interactive map to explore the entire route of Britain’s new high-speed railway. Find present and upcoming works, tunnels, station locations and community updates — all in one easy-to-navigate map.

www.hs2.org.uk

 

[Nottingham59]

there is full provision for parallel movements

That's good to see. It was a glaring omission from the track layout as originally proposed.

 

[The Planner]

To be fair, you could see the line layouts in the original maps as well if you zoomed in enough. This isn't a change in design, they were always there.

 

[snowball]

To be fair, you could see the line layouts in the original maps as well if you zoomed in enough. This isn't a change in design, they were always there.

I didn't think it was a change in design (or at least not since about 2013) but I don't remember being able to get such a clear view of them before. Otherwise I would have cited that map in previous discussions.

 

[lachlan]

I didn't think it was a change in design (or at least not since about 2013) but I don't remember being able to get such a clear view of them before. Otherwise I would have cited that map in previous discussions.

I don't remember such detail on the HS2 website, but there were more detailed maps on the government website which included the full track layout.