Design and Reconstruction of Bridge 2/11~2/12
between Clapham Junction and Waterloo Stations
Matthew Kynoch
Mott MacDonald Group
Introduction
Bridge 2/11~2/12 is a skewed two span structure consisting
of 26 decks, and supports thirteen railway lines that carry
mainly passenger services to and from the south of England
into London Waterloo and London Victoria Stations. Below,
the structure spans over four railway lines which carry
predominantly freight traffic. The site is situated
approximately one mile north of Clapham Junction Station,
UK’s acclaimed busiest railway station.
The £3.5m Network Rail funded scheme involved the
replacement of ten substandard existing decks which
support the five central railway lines. These lines form part
of the strategic link for South West train services operating
between the London terminus, Waterloo Station, and the
south-west region of the country. The work was
implemented using two rail mounted cranes within a 102
hour possession of the railway during the 2004 Easter Bank
Holiday weekend.
The work was procured through the Southern Region
Construction Partnership; a partnership between Network
Rail and Edmund Nuttall Ltd that is responsible for
implementing the bridge strengthening and renewals
programme within Network Rail’s South East Territory. Mott
MacDonald Ltd, as the Contractor’s designer, provided
design and consultancy services.
The key challenges to the design and build team included:
the rail locked nature of the site; the limited space available;
access constraints; and, tight programme.
Figure 1: KIROW cranes in operation during demolition of
existing decks
The Existing Structure
Bridge 2/11~2/12 was originally built circa 1890 and
comprised of mass brick abutments and a central pier that
supported a deck of riveted hogged-backed wrought iron
plate girders; wrought iron cross-girders; and a
longitudinal wheel timbered arrangement that supported
the rails.
The central section of the structure was found to be
under-strength following a recent load assessment. This
section was also in poor condition and the wheel-timber
arrangement gave rise to on-going maintenance issues.
Network Rail therefore proposed that the substandard
decks of the structure be replaced.
Preliminary Design
The decks to be replaced comprised of approximately
14m and 15m spans for the Clapham and London ends
respectively. The deck replacement options were limited
due to the access constraints preventing the use of mobile
road cranes and other installation techniques. This meant
that the decks had to be as light as practicably possible to
enable a rail mounted crane to place the prefabricated
deck unit.
A KIROW 810 crane was determined as the only
commercially available rail crane at the time capable of
lifting the anticipated weights at the required reach. With
no slew, the KIROW rail mounted cranes are capable of
lifting 75t at a relatively short reach, reducing to 29.5t at
a 20m reach (13m from buffers), as indicated in Figure 2
below. For this particular scheme, the crane would be
working towards its maximum reach.
Figure 2: Typical lifting capabilities for KIROW crane (noting
that pad load limited to 50 tonnes)
The key determining factors during the ‘optioneering’
stage were:
• Minimise the prefabricated deck weight
• Minimising the crane pad footing load
Design and Reconstruction of Bridge 2/11~2/12
between Clapham Junction and Waterloo Stations
• Provision of sufficient tolerance during erection
• Maintaining existing construction depth and
headroom clearances
• Working within the limitations of the rail-
mounted crane capabilities
• Construction sequence and planning
• Working within the possession limitations for
the rail-locked site
Half-through, girder type construction was decided upon at
an early stage, as being the most practicable solution when
considering the existing track arrangement and the fact that
this type of arrangement typically provides a light form of
construction. The weight limitations immediately ruled out
the use of concrete or steel composite floors. The form of
deck construction thus adopted was to provide an all steel
modified ‘Z’ type arrangement.
The available construction depth (top of rail to deck soffit)
was approximately 1000mm and the minimum headroom to
the railway lines below was 4200mm.
Figure 3: Cross section of deck
The standard ‘Z’ type deck is normally designed with either
an all-steel ‘T’ ribbed floor, or a floor of concrete-encased
steel beams. These floors include machined end plates that
are bolted to the web of the main girder. To minimise deck
weight and on-site operations, the practicality of utilising
only welded deck connections (as opposed to bolted
connections) was discussed with Network Rail and the
steelwork fabricator. These discussions resulted in an
innovative solution that involved fabricating the bottom
flange of the main girders and cross-girders from a single
16m x 3m x 40mm thick rolled plate. This was achieved by
cutting out rectangular panels from the 40mm thick rolled
plate. This not only permitted a structurally efficient section
and improved fatigue classifications, but also reduced the
Fig 4: Plan on deck
overall weight and avoided the potential maintenance
issues associated with the cross girder and main girder
connections. Welding procedures were developed with
the steelwork fabricator, with particular attention made to
welding access restrictions, distortion and general
buildability issues.
The use of ‘modern’ rail cranes to lift in bridge deck units
is relatively new to the industry. They are predominantly
employed for lifting in and out sleepers and switches and
crossings as part of permanent way improvements; such
elements weigh considerably less than the decks
proposed for this bridge replacement scheme. Prior to
embarking on the design, the full capabilities of the
KIROW crane were interrogated - this being the only
reasonable way that the new decks could be satisfactorily
installed in the time available.
Detailed Design
The preliminary deck design was taken forward with little
further change, other than to optimise plate sizes in order
to minimise the weight of each deck unit.
It was proposed to utilise the KIROW cranes for both the
demolition and installation of the new works. Excluding
demolition, there were a total of 44 crane lifts. These
comprised ten deck units, eighteen cill units, ten ballast
wall units, four robust kerbs and two walkway hand rail
assemblies. Minimising the weight of the individual units
and reducing the number of crane movements and set-ups
was considered to be key to the success of the scheme.
The deck spans varied slightly due to the tapering nature
of the existing abutments and central pier. This resulted
in a range of deck weights between 32 and 36 tonnes.
The calculated (predicted) weights were confirmed during
a trial erection undertaken prior to the possession.
The bridge skew is of the order of 40° which worked to
the crane’s advantage as it meant that three bridge decks
could be placed from a single set-up (by placing one in
front and two to the side working back with the skew).
With each set-up requiring the crane to track back to the
nearest set of crossovers to change line, the reduction in
number of set-ups saved a significant amount of valuable
possession time.
Careful planning of the crane movements and the flat-bed
wagons that delivered the deck units to site was required,
to ensure that sufficient time and space were available to
remove the existing deck, raise the new deck units, and
locate them in their correct and final positions.
Design and Reconstruction of Bridge 2/11~2/12
between Clapham Junction and Waterloo Stations
girders. The assemblies were then welded to the top of
the profiled bottom flange plate, after which the cross-
girder web plates were subsequently welded to the
bottom plate and webs of the main girders. The final
plate to be added was the continuous floor plate. Having
welded the deck plate to the webs of the main girders, the
assembly was inverted to enable the floor plate to be
welded to the cross-girder webs. Following assembly, the
decks were coated, acrylic waterproofing was applied, and
ballast protection boards were installed.
All the cill beam units and deck assemblies were trial
erected with the assistance of a mobile road crane. As a
separate exercise, a KIROW crane trial lifted the heaviest
deck to verify the ‘read out’ from the crane’s on board
computer were similar to the theoretically values obtained
from the design software.
Fig 5: KIROW crane lifting first deck into position In addition to the five tracks directly affected by the deck
Another key design factor was to keep the bearing pressure replacement works, the four adjacent tracks (two at each
below the crane pad supports (at formation level) to a side) were also closed as a result of their proximity to the
reasonable level to avoid the need for extensive ground construction works (affecting the Windsor and Brighton
preparation works. For the size of temporary crane pad Lines). The works were constrained further in that the
envisaged, the load to each footing was limited to 50 possession of the adjacent Brighton Lines could only be
tonnes. This limit only became an issue when the decks taken 20 hours into the reconstruction programme, and
were slewed to the side of the crane; however, this was would have to be handed back 52 hours later.
overcome by using the crane’s telescopic counterweight to Accordingly all the deck demolition and replacement work
balance out the loading between the four pads and six on the adjacent UP and DN Fast Lines had to be
axles. substantially complete within the 52 hour period.
The demolition work commenced on the Siding Line
To minimise the reach of the crane during the instalment of (adjacent to the four Windsor Lines) and continued
the units, the crane’s front wheels were positioned as close eastwards towards the four Brighton Lines.
as safely possible to the abutment excavation as to allow for
the construction of the cill units, ballast walls, back of wall
drainage and granular backfill. The rails were fitted with a
temporary buffer stop to prevent the crane’s front wheels
from exceeding this point.
Computer software was provided by the crane operating
company to assist with the lift design. For each lift
scenario, the software checked that the lift was within the
limitations of the crane, and also that the 50 tonne crane
pad load was not exceeded. The theoretical crane utilisation
was between 75 and 90% for the majority of the deck unit
lifts; however, for three of the lifts the utilisation was
nearing the crane’s safe working load limits.
Vertical, longitudinal and lateral tolerances for the
placement of the decks were provided in a number of ways.
The vertical tolerance was taken out by using flat jacks
positioned between the steel bearing plates (which were
later adjusted whilst other units could be placed). Lateral Fig 6: KIROW crane lifting last deck into position
tolerance was provided by specifying regular 25mm joints
On a deck by deck basis starting adjacent to the Brighton
between multiple cill beam units, thereby minimising the
Lines and working westwards, the reconstruction
potential accumulative errors that can occur during
consisted of the installation of (in order): the precast
placement along the abutments and central pier. Further
concrete cill units; the bearings; the deck units; and
lateral and longitudinal tolerances were gained at the cill
ballast walls. Installation of back-of-wall drainage, new
beam holding down detail; bolt locations within the cill
ballast and replacement lengths of track followed. The
beam were specified with generous oversized pockets which
track bed was then tamped to the correct line and level.
were later grouted up once the final position had been set.
This project has been quoted as being Network Rail’s
largest structure replacement scheme in the southern
Reconstruction region for more than 30 years.
Peterborough based N Class Fabrication Ltd was appointed
to fabricate the steelwork which took place over
Acknowledgement
approximately 3 months. The fabrication initially involved
assembling and welding together the top flange, top flange The author wishes to thank Network Rail and Edmund
doubler plate and web panels for the main longitudinal Nuttall Ltd for permission to publish this paper.