M20 footbridge.

[Willy Nilly]

gtidriver said:

What will be the consequences for the lorry driver that caused this mayhem??

It will be interesting. He had been on the hard shoulder to check his tyres and was building up to speed to rejoin the carriageway. If his vehicle was over height for the entire bridge and the bridge was marked it was his fault he hit it, but if it was lower over the hard shoulder was it his fault?

And regardless of him hitting it, it's not really his fault that the bridge fell down in the manner it did.

[CAPP0]

Willy Nilly said:

gtidriver said:

What will be the consequences for the lorry driver that caused this mayhem??

It will be interesting. He had been on the hard shoulder to check his tyres and was building up to speed to rejoin the carriageway. If his vehicle was over height for the entire bridge and the bridge was marked it was his fault he hit it, but if it was lower over the hard shoulder was it his fault?

And regardless of him hitting it, it's not really his fault that the bridge fell down in the manner it did.

He has been exonerated by the police, his load was not overheight, the bridge was too low on the h/s.

I'm not being picky but there is another long thread and all this info is in there.

[frankenstein12]

CAPP0 said:

Don't know whether you've been following the original thread but this was how they knocked it down - almost as you requested:


https://www.facebook.com/Colin.Fox1994/videos/1015...

Oh right I saw some photos of it being apparently taken apart using jackhammer ends on heavy gear so assumed they had done something similar.

Anyone know if they did in fact break it into pieces on site as it appeared from one fairly poor photo I saw?

[frankenstein12]

Willy Nilly said:

...because of course a 100 tonne plus piece of concrete 16 feet in the air will just leap on to the back of a flatbed and the driver of which will have no trouble what so ever taking it where ever it needs to be taken.

You should be in the demolition business.

Did I say it will just leap onto the back of a lorry? No i didn't. I said it should be cut in half and loaded onto the back of trucks (two would do) and carted off to a location to be fully broken down thereby allowing clearing and inspection of the roadway to begin.

You can cut a bridge like that using multiple methods. I would suspect using a cable cutter would be the fastest method much like they use to section and cut up ships. Would probably take a few hours and would be a lot quieter than the hammers they seem to have used meaning less disruption to surrounding area.

[frankenstein12]

speedyguy said:

Willy Nilly said:

...because of course a 100 tonne plus piece of concrete 16 feet in the air will just leap on to the back of a flatbed and the driver of which will have no trouble what so ever taking it where ever it needs to be taken.

You should be in the demolition business.

Opened about 12 hrs early M20 closure to remove collapsed bridge ends 'ahead of schedule' - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-37271071

If they say closed a day and it takes longer they'll be hell up with people complaining if they don't make alternative arrangements, at least opening it earlier than expected is better PR for the masses.

That's fine and being in project management how I would have done it. Always allow extra time "just in case" as its easier to explain finishing ahead of schedule than running over time and having to piss of the customer and soak up un-anticipated costs.


I have been following the story in between other stuff and not done my homework so congrats to them for finishing so far ahead of schedule.

[TooMany2cvs]

frankenstein12 said:

loaded onto the back of trucks (two would do)

If it really IS 100t, then it's going to need at least twice that.

[frankenstein12]

TooMany2cvs said:

frankenstein12 said:

loaded onto the back of trucks (two would do)

If it really IS 100t, then it's going to need at least twice that.

Sounds like it was 170 tonnes as that is what the press are claiming the fallen half weighed.

That being said there are plenty of haulage options to take away two 90 tonnes sections of bridge. Some of the bigger crawler excavators weigh in at 120 tonnes each and they have to get moved around. Just needs a long low rear steer trailer unit and a tractor unit with enough grunt to pull it.

[Willy Nilly]

frankenstein12 said:

Willy Nilly said:

...because of course a 100 tonne plus piece of concrete 16 feet in the air will just leap on to the back of a flatbed and the driver of which will have no trouble what so ever taking it where ever it needs to be taken.

You should be in the demolition business.

Did I say it will just leap onto the back of a lorry? No i didn't. I said it should be cut in half and loaded onto the back of trucks (two would do) and carted off to a location to be fully broken down thereby allowing clearing and inspection of the roadway to begin.

You can cut a bridge like that using multiple methods. I would suspect using a cable cutter would be the fastest method much like they use to section and cut up ships. Would probably take a few hours and would be a lot quieter than the hammers they seem to have used meaning less disruption to surrounding area.

It's a big block of reinforced concrete, not a big log. They will also crush it anyway, so bring the crusher to the bridge, peck it into bite sized chunks in situ, load chunks into crusher and straight into the awaiting tippers. Sweep up. Bigger off.

[TooMany2cvs]

frankenstein12 said:

TooMany2cvs said:

frankenstein12 said:

loaded onto the back of trucks (two would do)

If it really IS 100t, then it's going to need at least twice that.

Sounds like it was 170 tonnes as that is what the press are claiming the fallen half weighed.

That being said there are plenty of haulage options to take away two 90 tonnes sections of bridge. Some of the bigger crawler excavators weigh in at 120 tonnes each and they have to get moved around. Just needs a long low rear steer trailer unit and a tractor unit with enough grunt to pull it.

And then what do you do with it, once you've got it to the next m'way junction?

At a MINIMUM, you need to get it into sections that can be carried without being oversize.

[Cyberprog]

It's also worth pointing out that just because the one half came down quickly, that the second won't. The second half is a much stronger structure, and will likely be interlaced with rebar. No surprise really that they took 2 days to remove it and tidy up.

[frankenstein12]

Cyberprog said:

It's also worth pointing out that just because the one half came down quickly, that the second won't. The second half is a much stronger structure, and will likely be interlaced with rebar. No surprise really that they took 2 days to remove it and tidy up.

Apparently whole operation took 12 hours less than planned.

[frankenstein12]

TooMany2cvs said:

frankenstein12 said:

TooMany2cvs said:

frankenstein12 said:

loaded onto the back of trucks (two would do)

If it really IS 100t, then it's going to need at least twice that.

Sounds like it was 170 tonnes as that is what the press are claiming the fallen half weighed.

That being said there are plenty of haulage options to take away two 90 tonnes sections of bridge. Some of the bigger crawler excavators weigh in at 120 tonnes each and they have to get moved around. Just needs a long low rear steer trailer unit and a tractor unit with enough grunt to pull it.

And then what do you do with it, once you've got it to the next m'way junction?

At a MINIMUM, you need to get it into sections that can be carried without being oversize.

Yet again. Getting it into sections that are not oversize would not be difficult. It was not a particularly big section of bridge. Roughly 1m-1.5m wide.

Once knocked down al they need to do is cut it in half and load it up. Using a steel rope to cut it in half (similar to the sort of thing they use to cut ships in half) the steel rope would barely notice the rebar as it cut through it.

As to getting it past or off the next junction it really would not be an issue as it would not be a tall structure.

[frankenstein12]

Willy Nilly said:

frankenstein12 said:

Willy Nilly said:

...because of course a 100 tonne plus piece of concrete 16 feet in the air will just leap on to the back of a flatbed and the driver of which will have no trouble what so ever taking it where ever it needs to be taken.

You should be in the demolition business.

Did I say it will just leap onto the back of a lorry? No i didn't. I said it should be cut in half and loaded onto the back of trucks (two would do) and carted off to a location to be fully broken down thereby allowing clearing and inspection of the roadway to begin.

You can cut a bridge like that using multiple methods. I would suspect using a cable cutter would be the fastest method much like they use to section and cut up ships. Would probably take a few hours and would be a lot quieter than the hammers they seem to have used meaning less disruption to surrounding area.

It's a big block of reinforced concrete, not a big log. They will also crush it anyway, so bring the crusher to the bridge, peck it into bite sized chunks in situ, load chunks into crusher and straight into the awaiting tippers. Sweep up. Bigger off.

Yet again the point of the exercise was to minimise time that the road was closed. Crushing it on site as they did would take longer than cutting it in half and moving it away from the road where it can be crushed at leisure.

Cutting it in half would take maybe a few hours at most using a cable saw which would mean the work could have started friday evening at 9 or 10 and been finished by 8 am on the saturday morning as the cable saw would make noweher near as much noise as the hammer heads they used to break the bridge up on site.

[Chrisgr31]

Not sure the driver has been exonerated by the police http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-38614558

Couldn't find a longer thread on it, sure there was one.

[CAPP0]

Chrisgr31 said:

Not sure the driver has been exonerated by the police http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-38614558

Couldn't find a longer thread on it, sure there was one.

Interesting, I was one of the people who commented previously that the police had said it wasn't his fault. I can't remember where I got that from but I know I didn't make it up.

I guess it comes down to whether the peak height of his load was within parameters or not. I live right by there and as I probably said before, depending which side of the roadworks he picked up from, he would already have passed under at least three, possibly four motorway bridges, and the bridge which came down had a significant downward slope on it (I've walked and cycled over it many times).

Anyway I guess we will hear all about it from the court reports.