Thursday 19 January 2017

Installing a plastic bridge

On Sunday 1st January 2017, whilst many were still celebrating the New Year, two bridge spans of a new pedestrian footbridge were installed over the Folkestone to Dover mainline railway line in Kent.

Constructed of Glass Fibre Reinforced Plastic by PipexPx in Plymouth, the spans weighed just 6 tonnes each and were lifted into place by a 40 tonne RoadRail crane.



Although the landings were also installed during the same possession, the three flights of stairs had to be installed on a subsequent visit the following week.



The bridge will not be open to the public until Easter as work is still being carried out on the beach to complete the installation of 100,000 tonnes of rock armour following damage to the sea wall in December 2015.

Given a working design brief, the bridge was designed and fabricated by PipexPx and has become a model for future installations.