The gently crooked 3.4km-lengthy viaduct will carry excessive-speed trains as a lot as 10m above land and water across the Colne Valley between HS2’s London tunnels in Hillingdon to the Chiltern tunnels.
The viaduct’s completion components that the three.3km Tay Bridge linking Fife and Dundee has come what might ceded the crown of Britain’s longest rail bridge to HS2, a anecdote it had held since 1887.
The Colne Valley viaduct’s assert is being managed by the major works contractor Align JV – a group consisting of Bouygues Travaux Publics, Sir Robert McAlpine and VolkerFitzpatrick.
Building work on the viaduct’s deck began in Would possibly possibly well presumably also 2022. Over 28 months engineers aged a big launching girder to diminish into narrate the bridge’s 1,000 pre-forged deck segments, every unique to operate the curve.
Edging forward from north to south and supported on the viaduct’s 56 piers, the 160m lengthy launcher aged a balanced-cantilever components to diminish deck segments into narrate to operate half of an arch either facet of a pier sooner than shifting to the next pier to total the arch span by repeating the process.
The viaduct’s assert will next transfer into the rail programs set up share as it progresses towards changing into an operational share of the fresh excessive speed railway between 2029 and 2033.
HS2 senior project supervisor Billy Ahluwalia talked about: “Lowering the Colne Valley viaduct’s final deck segment into narrate recently marks the culmination of greater than 10 years of planning, accomplish and assert.
“I pay tribute to the dedicated group that has delivered a bridge that is each and each the longest on HS2 and has become the UK’s longest railway bridge – taking a anecdote that had stood for when it comes to 140 years.
“That would possibly perhaps even be a ancient success of which we are able to all be immensely proud.”
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