We spent today preparing and beginning the list of works on Winters Flat Bridge. The morning was occupied by loading vehicles and double checking lots of items were in fact on the trucks, while the afternoon was spent ticking a few jobs off the list.
One of these can be seen above, a pile strap was fitted to a pile showing signs of wanting to split, in this case only near the top, besides this splitting the pile is in excellent condition, so a tried and tested solution to arrest the splitting is to either install a bolt through the pile, for a single split, or if it’s a more complex split, such as here, a band is clamped around the pile to prevent any further opening of the cracks. We also had another pile at the Down end which had a split. However, two through bolts were quite sufficient in that case.
The main job however, is to rectify this horridness! It’s a result of a vehicle collision with the bridge some time ago, it’s as ugly as anything, however given the heavy speed limit we’ve got in place, it doesn’t pose any real risk, but it does need correction and has been on the cards for some time. This is the before photo, however we have spent a good hour or so today improving it somewhat, but forgot to get a photo. The issue is related to deck movement, not track movement (the track is very captive between the kerbs so if they move, I.e. get a nudge from a vehicle then they can move the whole lot, such as we see here).
We didn’t have a road closure today, so we’ve left that section until we do on Thursday, when we also need to move a couple of beams back to where they belong, also victims of the incident some time ago.
We’ve got a good few other jobs that’d be nice to knock over there on Thursday / Friday, one being the installation of new low clearance signs, the other being the tightening of all the bolts, particularly those in the roadway area, as these can be a real pain without a road closure. We’re only going to have the road closed for one day, Thursday, with all of the other jobs being away from the roadway on Friday.
We had initially planned doing work here tomorrow, however the weather is looking awful and a total fire ban, preventing us doing any bolt cutting if needed. Thursday’s looking much more friendly.
We’ll be meeting at Winters Flat Bridge on Thursday from 8.30am.
VGR Civil Blog 