A snowy day at
the Great Cockcrow Railway!
An interesting story
about bridge building.
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Standing on top of the viaduct of
the Great Cockcrow Railway, I had to ask myself, “What did I get myself and
the others into”. When I was asked to help with the demolition of Phillips
Bridge and the viaduct I did not expect snow. Yes, it was snowing at the
railway that day, which made the view an extra special sight and a rare event
here in southern England. While looking over the site to make sure everything
was ready for us to begin, my mind drifted back to what it must have been
like when Phillips Bridge and the viaduct were built. The gentlemen that built both structures put their
ingenuity/skills and love of steam engines into the structures and it shows.
Both structures served the railway for many years carrying families, with
little children with the look of amazement on their faces, across their
expanse, all having a wonderful time at the railway. For this we should thank
all the people who had and still have the vision to make the railway what it
is and will be in the future. Our old friends Phillips Bridge
and the viaduct have done an outstanding job over the years; the decision had
been made to replace both structures.
It is estimated that around 30,000 trains have rumbled across the
viaduct since it was opened in 1979 and an astonishing 100,000 since Phillip
Simpson built his bridge ready for the opening of the railway in 1968. But as
with all things, time and the elements have taken their toll, and while the
debate will probably continue, demolition revealed the extent of corrosion
and that the correct decision was made to replace the structures. I want to give a sincere thank you to all
of the people who helped with the pre-work, the demolition itself, and the
clean up. Without their help we never would have been able to get as far and
as fast as we did. THANK YOU. The prework consisted of clearing the work site of anything that could get in our way, including the vegetation that has grown up around the structures over the years before removing track and signal cables, and erecting the safety scaffold. This took a few Sundays and while it sounds simple, was a formidable task to move everything into place, given the location in the middle of the railway. Additionally we had to dig to level the scaffold and set the lifting jacks to lift the viaduct. Howard Guess, Martin Denyer, Graham Hill, Richard Mallet and John Thompson (and Harry) ,Nigel Trower, Sebastian Wilkins, Dave Jackson, and others did a great job to get us ready. We slightly lifted each end of the viaduct so that during demolition the vibration of the hydraulic hammer drill would not destroy the supporting masonry work. The actual chopping out of the concrete was just a matter of slugging it out with the hydraulic hammer drill and a sledge hammer. We actually got the job done in a couple of days, much quicker than we dared hope, which was great. Dave Jackson and Mike Underwood did a great job chopping the concrete and using a chisel and hammer to clean off the tops of the bridge abutments. Sebastian
Wilkins did an outstanding job using the digger to get the rubble out of our
way and moving it to the rubble site and getting the equipment set up and the
materials in place. A Special Thank you rightly goes to Alan Williams for
coordinating the entire operation and organising the design and delivery of
the steel work for the new bridges from Tim at Thing-ama-Jigs Ltd , the steel company and for
helping to move the rubble, and for being our safety watch. Lisa Thorne did a
great job helping move rubble and being our safety watch and made us the most
wonderful lunches. In addition to
their help, Kim Richardson got the generator which came in handy for lights,
Chris Bishop told us what was inside of the concrete via his picture slide
show and also for getting the petrol when we needed it, and Paul Trotter got
the oxygen acetylene cutting torch ready to go. Cutting up Phillips Bridge with
the oxygen / acetylene cutting torch was interesting but not as much fun as
seeing the Nigel’s face when he was cleaning out the ditches. He really likes
that machine. Being from the States I had a little trouble with what
equipment is called here in Britain.
People were expecting a huge piece of equipment to show up, but with
the help of Mike Underwood’s translation, we rented a 1.5 ton digger from
Chertsey tool rental. It proved to be a versatile and efficient machine,
which made our job easier. One of the
most dangerous parts of this project was when we moved the beams from
Phillips Bridge. We moved them in one piece just in case we needed them for
something else. Nigel Trower was on the digger and with the help of Dave
Jackson and myself, he set the beams one at a time on a flat wagon so that we
could roll them up to the ballast siding and then off to the side in the car
park. Dave Jackson also made sure the tops of the Phillips Bridge abutments
were ready by using the hammer and chisel to clear away concrete that was
adhered to the base. In total we
moved about 5 to 6 tons of material (concrete, steel and dirt) to get the
site ready for the steel work. Moving the gleaming new galvanized
steel work for the new bridges into position was an interesting, complicated
but fortunately uneventful operation. The men from the steel company lifted the
girders onto the flat wagons and the Hymek (an electric train built by Arthur
Glaze and named after A.B McLeod, one of the founders of the GCR) moved them
one at a time to the worksites at the viaduct and Phillips Bridge. Moving the
new beams into position on the viaduct was an exercise in ingenuity. By
initially leaving the old steel girders in place, we were able to roll out
the new steel above them and lower them into place before then removing the
old steel work. Everything fitted perfectly and the steel men made a heavy
job look easy, astonishingly completing the entire job in just one day. This is due to the fact that Richard
Smoothy, Mike Underwood, Lisa Thorne and Alan Williams, got the trainloads of
steel out to the job site, and if not for their help it would have taken much
longer. The clean up went well. All the
young men that helped with the prework and clean up did a good job, including
Stephen, Scott, Matt, Matt, Grant, Andrew and Samuel. The new bridge and viaduct have an
open deck . This should give a thrill to passengers when they go over the new
structures. While we say good bye and thank you to our two old friends
(Phillips Bridge and the viaduct), our two new friends, Phillips Bridge II
and Patrick’s Viaduct, will hopefully be supporting us and our passengers
literally for many years to come. Demolishing the old bridges and erecting
their replacements was a big job that could have been overwhelming and
possibly dangerous, but because of the dedication and team work of the people
of the Great Cockcrow Railway, it was fun and proved to be a learning
adventure. Jim
Vigar
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A
snowy Hardwick Central Station.
The author , Jim (on left) checks progress!
Demolition in
progress!
The old viaduct being prepared for demolition
Mr PO . Safety officer! No cats on
site please. |
