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Ainscough Crane Hire’s Leeds depot recently answered an emergency call to fix a canal Wykewell lift bridge in Thorne.
The bridge, located at Thorne on the Stainforth & Keadby canal had failed to operate, meaning traffic was not able to cross, and Ainscough was contacted by the Canal and River Trust via their contractor, which undertakes the national contract for the Trust’s Mechanical, Electrical, Instrumentation, Control and Automation (MEICA) Framework .
The site of the faulty bridge was attended by the manager of Ainscough’s Leeds depot, Damian Napper. Upon arrival, Damian undertook a survey and measured up the crane requirements and completed the lift plans and drawings on site, ensuring the required machinery could be dispatched as soon as possible.
Damian then rerouted a 75t crane from a nearby project which had completed ahead of schedule, and successfully applied to the local authorities for an emergency route to enable the crane to arrive at the canal.
Commenting on the work that took place, Damian said: “Once the crane arrived, my colleague Steve Crooks was directed on to the site and the crane was rigged into place. This presented some challenges, as we had to manoeuvre around the overhead BT cables with only inches to spare.
“Once we had successfully achieved this, we were able to provide man basket access to the engineers who undertook the repairing of the bridge. We were able to initially lower the bridge to enable traffic to cross, before returning several times over the next few days in order to further assist the engineers with the full repair.
“This was a complex operation that required absolute precision, and we were very pleased to successfully assist the Canal and River Trust with the repairing of the bridge in an expedient manner.”
