It’s official: The railroad crossing revolution for pedestrian bridges has begun.
Greater Anglia has become the first customer to order one of the Ava’s modular pedestrian bridges, which will replace the old concrete pedestrian crossing at Stowmarket Station in Suffolk.
The Ava footbridge was developed by a consortium that includes Expedition Engineering, Walker Construction, X-Treme Systems and Hawkins/Brown. The £5.4 million initiative was funded by Innovate UK and Network Rail, and because it is cheaper and faster to build, it has the potential to disrupt the way rail infrastructure is delivered.
Rather than being built in a steel fabrication yard from standard sections, then shipped elsewhere to be painted before being transported to site along the entire span, the Ava Bridge is designed to be assembled into 1.2m units using structural elements cut from flat sheets of stainless steel and held together.
Truss units can be configured to fit the intended site, taking up as little land as possible. They are fitted with cladding, canopy, lighting and other mechanical and electrical services before being installed as soon as possible to completion.
A demonstration bridge is under construction at Widmerpool in Nottinghamshire, but even without seeing it, Great Anglia was eager to get involved in the project and be the first to buy one for use on UK rail.
Marek Dowejko, Program Manager for the Greater Anglia Asset Management Team, said NCE: “The timing was perfect, because we just got funding for Access For All in Stowmarket. We did a feasibility for conventional construction, but then we went to Network Rail and DfT to ask if we could use the remaining funds for a second feasibility comparison. Less is required than conventional construction, it costs less and requires less maintenance. And we got the green light.”
Eva McNamara, Expedition Director, said: NCE: “The demonstrator is in progress at the moment – we’re in the fabrication and build stage – so I think that’s the biggest good news that the trust around the project is that someone has placed an order before we’re done with the demonstrator. It has Network Rail and Innovate UK in this field.
“I think Greater Anglia sees the savings potential that they can make with this project so they are willing to do it now rather than wait. One of the key things about this offering and the maximization of this investment that Network Rail and Innovate UK have made is understanding the region that it has been Getting rid of the risk with the existing prototype. And when they see that Stowmarket has really taken over, we hope that means the gates are open in terms of orders, which would be great.”
Walker will have the bridge’s prototype installed in Widmerpool in August of this year and the new bridge will be built at Stoemarkt in September or October of 2023. While the ultimate goal is to be able to build it on a single estate – it’s a weekend matter – in This first flight, the engineers have a property in reserve in case the learning curve for building it is steeper than anticipated.
Both versions of the bridge will have Ava’s own “plug and play” lifts for access purposes. These lifts are also usable on other rail bridges, McNamara explains: “This is part of the innovation we have here. The plug-and-play lift is separate from the main bridge’s stability system, and we did that on purpose. So, this could be a product on its own that will Access For All works for Network Rail elsewhere; imagine it’s retrofitted to an existing footbridge, or they have other footbridges in the pipeline where they can take advantage of what we’ve found.”
While they are not yet ready to determine the cost of the Ava Bridge, they will say that it is much cheaper. “We think we’re about a third below the standards,” McNamara says. “When we made the Stowmarket version, they thought they couldn’t afford the bridge, but then when we showed them what we could do, they could afford the bridge. So this option allowed them to be able to afford this new bridge instead of the plaster job on the existing footbridge. there “.
It should also get cheaper if larger orders appear. “Until we get on the economies of scale aspect of things where they are bought in groups of five or ten, the best version of Ava savings is not going to materialize,” says McNamara. “This is a challenge for DfT – they allow purchasing in this way. As I understand it, currently, bridges are purchased individually. So this is a challenge to what we are trying to creatively disrupt here.”
She adds: “The really important point about this is that this is the UK innovation that has been invested in. We are looking for productivity benefits across the construction industry and infrastructure, and here is something that has been proven to do that. Roll up and make these economies of scale really work. Because, once again All of these benefits are getting better and better.”
Original source: https://tornadopix.com/the-first-order-for-the-revolutionary-modular-railway-pedestrian-bridge/
Comments