Bridges 2/11 reconstruction, Battersea, London SW11
About the Project
- Principal designer: Mott MacDonald
- Client: Network Rail
- Principal contractor: Edmund Nuttall
- Contract value: £2.97 million
This already logistically complex project was made even harder by being constrained by just about every possible factor.
Not only was this bridge deck replacement scheme adjacent to live railway lines that needed to stay open, but it was also 'rail-locked' on all four sides and below and had an extremely tight schedule imposed upon it. The work would cover a holiday period and would take place on one of the busiest stretches of railway line in the world.
The project - to replace ten individual bridge decks near Clapham Junction - was the biggest and most complex railway structures scheme in the southern region since privatisation.
An original 1838 bridge comprising a single, varied skew and varied span structure was reconstructed with its lowest whole life cost option. Success through teamwork was measured by causing no major disruptions to rail services, no health incidents - but one happy client.
The Judges said:
"This is a first-class example of civil engineering under pressure. One of its particular successes was how it removed one of the country's oldest railway bridges and replaced it without causing a major disruption to rail services."