Dancing With Cranes And A Bridge With Help From Lego
I just had to put a link to this article on Rail Engineer, which is entitled Scarborough Bridge – Monte Carlo Or Bust.
It describes how the bridge that takes the York Scarborough railway line over the River Ouse in the medieval heart of York, was replaced over the half-term weekend in February, at a cost of six million pounds. This Google Earth image shows the centre of York.
York
The bridge is the one at the left of the image, with the station below it.
It was choreographed to an amazing degree and used three enormous mobile cranes squeezed into the car park by the bridge on the north bank of the river. Luckily the wind and the weather were kind and the project was completed on time. Perhaps, the most strange aspect of the project is told in this paragraph.
And then we should take our hats off to team member Eamon McAuley who literally built the bridge single-handed…albeit in Lego. It was remarkably detailed – including the track layout and little orange men with chainsaws – and could be deconstructed and rebuilt to follow the lifting sequence. Sitting as a centrepiece in the conference room, it proved more useful than a PowerPoint when explaining the challenges to visitors and stakeholders.
Anybody who said engineering isn’t fun, should hang their head in shame.
The Anonymous Widower 
[…] The installation of the new bridge was talked about in Dancing With Cranes And A Bridge With Help From Lego. […]
Pingback by A Circular Walk Through York « The Anonymous Widower | October 23, 2015 |
[…] The last shot is the car park where the three mobile cranes were positioned to lift the bridge into place in Dancing With Cranes And A Bridge With Help From Lego. […]
Pingback by York Station « The Anonymous Widower | October 23, 2015 |
[…] If the overhead wires through the station are supported centrally, with the assistance of two strong portal frames outside the station/bridge area, where there is space, it might be possible to change the bridge deck, using some of techniques that were used at York, which I wrote about in Dancing With Cranes And A Bridge With Help From Lego. […]
Pingback by Are We Seeing A New Approach To Electrification On The Gospel Oak To Barking Line? « The Anonymous Widower | January 27, 2016 |