The bridge finally opened in the first week of this month, but with so much reporting of the "wot no accessibility" arguments just beforehand it went unnoticed.  The bridge is literally not accessible, in the sense that there is no surfaced footpath to one end of it - you have to cross a (currently muddy) football pitch to reach it.

But that's the issue really. With steps at the footbridge, it was only ever a pedestrian path and not lit at that. NR found some cash for asset replacement, but that would always be like for like. To upgrade the whole route, the council would have to do the path and NR the bridge, each responding to the other's plans. But let's face it, neither has a reputation for reacting quickly to opportunities to spend money.

Anyway, there is one major innovation in this bridge - orange handrails! The other thing, which we knew about in advance, was the high parapets with lots of little holes in. In fact, the top of the steps at each end has very low sides and (apart from one big tree) an unobstructed view. If you insist you need to see straight up the track into the distance, there's always the holes to look through (ca. 2 cm).

There are some odd bits still missing, filled in by plywood - I have no idea why that is. And, inevitably, a big puddle on the deck.

 
Possibly not the end of the story

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj9njwx30rpo

Get the impression there might be some mud-slinging over who was to blame.

 
If Balfour Beatty are under a contract to complete the works, the insolvency of their sub-contractor will be their problem to resolve. Provided that there are other bridge fabrication suppliers out there who can fulfil the order this should just be a delay, not the end of the project. The worst case might be that a revised design will have to go through all the requisite approval processes.

 

When that question was raised, I had been wondering the same thing. I'd noticed all the machinery and people had left well before the end of March, having put in some foundations for the steps (at the one end I can see). I had not been to look for a couple of weeks, and wanted to check if work had restarted before replying (but in fact didn't get there until yesterday).

A search pulled up a WBC update e-mail which said that they had been promised completion by the end of April (and which has now vanished). Now, in their planning application, NR had played the "we must spend our money by April 1st" card to stop all the whingeing about ramps for accessibility and get it approved PDQ. So I wondered if they had spent all that, and needed to beg for a little bit more in CP7 just to finish it. But no, that wasn't it.

This week, a local news item appears passing on an Xtweet from WBC:

Wokingham Today has more from NR:


I could be worse - and even might be. The north end of the bridge links to the newly-built "civic hub", with leisure centre, library, car park, bowling alley (and amusements arcade). There is also some housing in the development, but that got half built and then the contractor went bust. A new one was found, but almost immediately they went bust too. Third time ...

 

Yes, while the staircase at the far side is in line with the bridge, this one has to be angled to avoid the car park (from which the picture was taken). Before the car park was built, there was a vague aspiration to continue the route from the footbridge on the level to, and through or around, the car park and on a walkway to the new Carnival Hub [sic]. That never made it into concrete, or even into a concrete plan.

 
Good lord. They've taken a perfectly good bridge and given it anxiety.

Mark

 
The nearest concrete plinth looks odd, you’d expect it to be parallel to the legs? I suppose they had a reason to build it at an angle, but it looks weird…

Paul

 
Now that bit is in place,. what about the bridge itself? The design of the bridge itself got little attention at planning, what with all the shouting about (the lack of) ramps. But it is a bit odd, compared with what we are used to.

The width is quite generous, at 4m overall and 3.1m for the footway. The sloping sides are really quite high, as struck me when I saw a rigger using a stepladder to reach the top. The plans say 1.878m vertically, and it's faced internally with a "brushed stainless steel perforated panel". The centre span does not have this panel now, but I think it will be fitted. The drawing suggests, and the photo agrees, that the panel is more perforated at the top.

So it looks as if the views I was recording from the old bridges will not be coming back - not as clearly, and perhaps not at all. Now, is there a good reason for that obstruction? Even if this is meant as a standard design for all railways, including those with OLE, it does seem excessive. And as for the small kids who like to look at the trains ...

The stays preventing a "pack of cards" collapse look temporary, so I guess the stairs will be expected to hold it rigid finally.

 
I agree



Only by armchair engineers 

 
Great set of photos thanks. 

Always useful to explain how complex these sort of jobs are, I think there were suggestions ‘elsewhere’ it should have been done at the same time as the resignalling and junction relaying, but that was clearly impossible...

Paul

 
And then, finally, the main event: the lift. The highest obstruction was the Vodafone mast by the station wall, so when lifted the span went round away from that, also avoiding the public footbridge (by then closed). It was lowered beside the signal box, onto the train of engineers' trailers (p1). For the second lift, onto the piers, two rail cranes operated in tandem (p2). One was on the tongue of land the centre span of the bridge crosses, the other on the track.

For the second span that crane moved to the other end, perhaps in the siding (I missed that - dinner time!). Obviously attaching the second span was much quicker, and in any case overlapped the work at the bridge site. This time the train of trailers didn't move into place until the span was in place (p3).

And by Sunday Morning, there is a new view up the line from the footbridge by the level crossing (p4).

 
Act two was assembling the sling. In this case it has a massive beam to spread the strops in length, and two smaller ones to spread again in width. The big one was bolted together in the road (p1), I guess because that is flatter and stronger than the crossing. (p2)

Act three was attaching the sling to a bridge span. This took ages, as the plan was changed for some reason. The steel I-beams fixed under each end crosswise had had small extensions bolted to them on arrival, and the strops attached to the ends. This was tried (p3), but in the end the strops ran round the main tube at each side of the deck instead. This involved a rigger splitting the strop at the top so it could be fed along its new path.

 
Act one was setting up the crane for the lift (also in the first video above). This involves building pads for the outriggers, out of a combination of sandbags, planks, expanded polystyrene sheets, and a steel plate on top (better seen in the video at 8:40). This stuff comes on three artics (plus a trailer), together with the sections of the counterweight and the big spreader beam (p1).

This crane stacks its own ballast weights on a fixed platform in the middle of the vehicle body (p2). Two big lumps are slotted onto each side of this - 10t each bit. It picks up this stack, 96t of steel, with jacks on the back of the crane cab that lock into the ballast baseplate (p3). Only then can it fully extend the jib.

 
Saturday was quite a spectacle, in the sense that it's not every decade you get a socking great mobile crane working at the corner of the street. It was also frustrating, with long waits with nothing happening except huddles of orange rainsuits debating (presumably) how to proceed. Then with no warning, something happens - often quickly. And as it was by then after dusk it was hard to see upwards, into a barrage of bright lights, or at the installation site, under limited site lighting, from the car park.

But I have a backlog of pictures. I'll start with the dramatis machinae:
A bridge of two halves
A toy train to take it down to where you can see one of the piers by the line
A Big Crane (Liebherr LTM1300 6.2)
... and a couple of these things (AC-55, I think). This one is going on-track, which makes a loud clunk noise.

 

No - he trades as Wokingham Aerial Photography. They have some photos and a video (with very annoying music) on his Facebook/Reels. There's a top view of the Ikea self-assembly junction kit too. I thought I found more videos on Instagram earlier, but can't find that now (or it may have been just photos).

 
Justin?

 

You can see there how relaxed the crowd control was. We were only excluded from the footbridge and around the launch area during lifts of the bridge spans, and the station platforms were accessible all the time.

There was a guy with a drone doing video too.

 
Someone has been out videoing the job overnight:
https://youtu.be/WJYGG0YmMSg?si=iENoPPBltsQsff_B

 

It came in two halves, still sitting waiting for the crane crew to sort themselves out. They are not that heavy, at 20t each, but still need a 300t crane because of the reach. Currently the crew are finishing assembling the sling, in the road just by my house!

 
Do you know if they're doing the entire length of the bridge span this weekend?  I’m assuming from Google satellite view it is far too long overall to be delivered down one track in a pre-assembled length, ie there’ll presumably be two half bridges that will take the two separate routes at the junction? 

 IYSWIM. 

Paul

 

That was  not 100% true. According to a man who knows (labelled Network rail, and he said "this is my bridge to deliver"), arrival in Wokingham was scheduled for Saturday night, but brought forward two weeks ago, when the possession was retimed, to Friday night. So that letter was partly out of date. But I looked out of the window before midday, towards the crossing, and saw a bridge trundling past (it had been lurking along the road).

Since then it's been all go, with a BIG crane's minders setting out the load spreading under its stabilisers. That's just for a lift off the lorries and onto a little train; there are two more cranes hanging about for the lifts onto the piers.

 
NR did put that fence up early the next morning, with a bit more bracing in the layout. I have not been to see it much since, as you can see very little from there. In fact the best view is from the town car park, but there was not a lot to see from there - by last weekend the foundations had just about been been done.

Then yesterday (Thursday) NR gave me (this time hand delivered) another contribution to my ever-growing collection of "dear neighbour" letters. This says that they are closing the level crossing and the roads up to it again all this weekend, to bring in the bridge span. It will come through the town centre at about midnight Saturday, but when and how it will get to its final position is not clear. Would it need to go that last short move along the railway? We'll see - or maybe not, if it happens in the middle of the night, as usual.

Anyway, the piers - if that's the word for these ones - are all lined up ready. And today temporary traffic lights turned up, from a different supplier from last time. Which is odd, as the full closure NR have announced does not need them. So I guess traffic will be allowed past, though not over, the crossing most of the time. And now, after midnight, work is starting and stuff is arriving on lorries.

 
I was wondering how much had been done in the first week - I can see from the level crossing that the old bridge has not been removed. The first work listed was their access road and compound, to be put on the playing field, so I went up there today to look. When I got there all this fencing was upright, and I thought the whole installation looked quite big.

I decided against squelching around it to look at the compound, either to the right or the left (shorter). As I turned round to leave, this row of fence panels was blown over by the wind. There was a mum with buggy coming towards the playground, so I told her I would tell NR about this, and I revised my opinion to "it may be big but it isn't clever". The tendency for this Heras-type of fencing to blow over should be known by professionals - I've seen it happen before.

I had to report it as an emergency, since I could not find anywhere for something a step down (urgent out of hours). A few minutes ago I had a look, which is hard as it's pretty dark (the street beside it now has LED lamps which don't produce spillover). So far nothing has changed.

PS: I've just spotted I got a phone call from a guy at NR while I was over the road. He told the machine he wanted more details - and then rang off with nothing more.

 

This must be a CP6 funded project so needs to be spent this financial year; as rolling it over into CP7 is a whole degree of pain

 
Today I got a letter from NR (a proper one in the post, too) to say they will start building their new bridge on Monday. That's almost frantic haste, by railway standards! It will take 16 weeks, they say.

 
Well, either it finally dawned on our councillors that they can't reasonably demand that Network Rail build a bridge to retain a non-existent step-free path - and on land they don't own - or else they knew all along but were just posturing. And in any case, given the very limited powers for a planning authority to refuse an application for permitted development, it was approved last week. The give-away is in Wokingham Today's text:

 
I've heard nothing about that plan to run a long bridge from the new leisure centre via the car park, both of which have now been built and opened. I wonder if the council has a plan or not? Because on 22nd November NR put in a planning application to WBC (number 223493) for a new bridge of their own, just on railway land, to replace the old bridge and temporary scaffolding one.

This work is all claimed as general permitted development, of course. It  needs three spans of one of their standard bridge designs, and makes no attempt to upgrade the crossing to be step free. After all, it (the one over the Guildford line) never was, and getting to it means walking the length of a muddy football pitch.

But the consultation (which ended yesterday) has seen 34 comments (though some are revisions) all, so far as I can see, castigating NR for ever thinking a stepped bridge could be acceptable. This was prompted by letters to the local paper, some from local councillors - who also put in some of the comments. I do wonder if our Lib Dems have got the hang of being the majority yet - don't they (as the executive) have a more direct way to engage with applicants?

I wonder what NR will say next? My guess is: "If you want to build a full-scale cycle plus pedestrian route (segregated, of course) across here, I'm sure we'll be able help you with the bridge part of it. Just don't expect to get one for free when we are just completing our crossing closure and replacing an old concrete bridge that's about to fall down."

 
A couple of weeks ago I was coming along Wellington Road and spotted some scaffolding down behind the new (cricket cub) houses. So today I went to have a look. The footpath is closed off by barriers, but someone has pushed them aside so it was easy to get onto the existing bridge to see what's what.

And it's ... scaffolding. First I wondered how you'd build a bridge with the scaffolding in the way, then I though it looked more like a bridge for public use.

Looking in the WBC planning files, there is an application (numbered, oddly, 160497) for this temporary bridge, with drawings and calculations. It only went in on 22nd Feb, for comment until 8 March (there were none), and has not been decided. Network Rail make the usual point about this being permitted development (under the 1853 Staines, Wokingham, & Woking Railway Act), and are only asking for prior approval which "cannot be refused unless you are satisfied that the development ought to be and could reasonably be carried out elsewhere on the land, or the design or external appearance would injure the amenity of the neighbourhood and is reasonably capable of modification so as to avoid such injury".

The letter of application finished with "To confirm that you accept the proposed development under Part 18, Schedule 2 of the GDPO, please kindly issue a decision notice or letter stating that ^prior approval^ has been granted for our records in accordance with statutory timescales." That's brusque, and looks tactless too given that they started immediately. Putting 'prior approval' between inverted commas doesn't really make up for it.

So what's going on? There's some pictures of the site and a bridge, in which it says that "There are plans to install a new over span in 5 years to access the new facilities being built on the adjacent land." Of course! It's next to the Carnival pool bit of the Town Centre Regeneration Project, for which WBC's left left hand gave approval to its right hand at the outline stage last July (application O/2015/1056, including full approval for the new car park). And in the D&A statement for that there is indeed a pedestrian access across the track at a new angle to lead into the regeneration site, and in one sketch it's a "possible new pedestrian bridge".

So it looks more as if NR are doing what WBC asked them to do.

 
From Get Reading

 
Perhaps looking at something like this?

http://www.harrisons-engineering.co.uk/projects/prestatyn-station-footbridge-ramps-stairs-lift-shaft/

As a business, we have been through "legally level" requirements - I forget now but it was indeed something like 1 in 25

 
From getwokingham
(That next meeting will be on July 23rd.)

This links to a more detailed previous article:


The application by NR is for a Footpath Diversion, specifically for a Railway Crossing Diversion Order under s.119a of the Highways Act 1980.

The briefing for the planning committee is here.

At this stage this is not an application for planning permission, though any new bridge will require such an application.

A few of points about this crossing:

• It puzzles a lot of people - why would you have a bridge across the (unelectric and usually less busy) line to Guildford, and a footpath crossing over the 3rd-rail electric line to Ascot?
• The speed of 70 mph is in the briefing, apparently from NR themselves. However, there is a 30 mph restriction through the station starting right next to it - and almost all trains stop anyway, so actual line speeds may be below even that limit.
• I've added some pictures. The main approach from the town side - the important side for its staggering-home-after-a-night-out users, who are one of the main high-risk groups - has an old wicket gate and some new fencing to discourage wandering off beside the track. The view from this side, the inside of the curve, along the track is not good. And note the proximity of the speed sign.
• The map in the council briefing has the word "Subway" next to this crossing. I imagine this comes from the underlying large-scale OS map. That's weird.
• The name "Tan Hill" is not one I've come across before - it probably applies only to the crossing. The path would have been a very minor lane direct to the old Tan House on the Emm brook.

The only thing about this that seems to be at all controversial is the proposal to provide only steps, with a "cycle gutter", rather than a ramped bridge for cyclists and to meet section 149 of the Equalities Act 2010. NR's view is that the footbridge has steps only, and is not due for replacement in the foreseeable future. I'm not sure how old it is - it is not on the 1933 OS map, but looks older. Mind you, reinforced concrete always looks old as soon as it starts getting a bit tatty.

They also say that the ramps would need to be 400-500 m long, which sound excessive. Are they counting both ramps in this total length of "the structure"? Even if they are, and the rise needs to be 10 m (it doesn't - it would be closer to 7), that's 1 in 20-25. Does that mean that a road bridge can't be steeper than that because its footpaths would not meet the EA?

As it is, you will now have two bridges - so you not only have to climb up and then down, but between the two lines you will have to go down to ground level and back up. A span to link the bridges would be about the same length as the stairs down. I know exercise is good for you, but still...

Once upon a time, they were going to replace this with ... a road bridge over both lines, to allow the other level crossings to be closed. That plan (the IDR) was abandoned over 20 years ago, but this small part of it still has some merit.