Alderley Edge bypass

One of the major jobs that Network Rail carried out over the Christmas holiday was to complete the building of a  bridge that will carry the Crewe - Manchester railway line over what will soon become the A34 Alderley Edge bypass. We carried out all the prep work in Christmas 2008 and the job last Christmas was to slide the bridge deck into position.

All went according to plan and the railway was handed back for train running four hours ahead of schedule.

Thought you might like to see a few photos to give you an idea of the scale of the project.

The first couple show the bridge deck being inched into position on multi-wheeled 'jacks' working in tandem.

The third shows a Virgin Pendolino train passing over the new bridge, but my favourite is the last one. 

This is a view looking down into one of the support pillars that hold the bridge up. It is so huge and so deep that the last bit of excavation had to be done by lowering a mini digger - and operative - into the pillar.

Rather him than me!