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A team from Ainscough’s Heavy Crane Division has delivered a 500 tonne crane to construct a new motorway bridge in Surrey.
The Woodlands Lane Overbridge beam lift in Windlesham, was delivered for Briton Fabrications Ltd and included the installation of 12 sets of braced paired bridge girders.
The bridge, which sits across the M3 motorway around two miles east of junction three, was delivered in one weekend to minimise disruption to traffic flow.
Using two Liebherr LTM 1500-8.1, 500 tonne telescopic cranes and operating under CPA hire arrangements, the team delivered each carriageway one at a time due to the range of the bridge. Each crane was setup at different stages in each carriageway and the first crane acted as a ‘back up’ crane until the other commenced working.
The stand-alone bridge installation was part of a wider bridge re-construction project and was delivered safely and within the allocated road closure possession times.
Briton Fabricators Ltd are specialists in the design, build and installation of bridges and gantries. Able to supply nationwide, Britons have experience in motorway sign gantries, road and rail bridges, pedestrian bridges and bespoke bridges.
Carl Powell, operations director at Briton Fabrications Ltd, said: “We can’t praise the staff at Ainscough enough for completing this technically challenging lift safely and on schedule.
“The team worked through the night and used a secondary crane in order to ensure the closure of the motorway and disruption to traffic was minimal.”
Detailed planning went into each lift as there were varying weights at a selection of different radii. The most complex lift was a girder pair weighing 22.29te plus hook block and tackle at an installation radius of 40.0m, crane SWL = 29.7te. The rig used was a 165.0te Counterweights / 57.7m Guyed Main Boom.
