Well said

Network Rail take possession of a length of track for renewal work and it's 24/7 by their & the contractor's lads until the job is done. Roads Agency cones off sections of motorway & main roads and how often are worksites left to lie idle over weekends, bank holidays etc?

Another year on and the situation remains very much the same on the M6....

yeah but they are doing the M4 as well ,aren't they ?

This is the difference between a task done by workers who are there to do the job and workers who are there to have the job.

Its to allow it to 'breathe' and move and fluctuate in different heat so it doesn't crack

levelled by hand using sand and a plank of wood

Laser guided levelling.

You have to sand it down with your bare hand

because people aren't prepared to pay the bill - this renewal will have cost far more than replacing the entire structure

Ken Bird These old structures are listed and therefore protected under the law.

Xaiano don't think this operation was more expensive than a rebuild. There was nothing particular expensive involved in this renewal. The point is, if you keep up with maintenance at the important points, you won't have to pay an expensive bill in 10,20 or maybe 100 years. This renewal did nothing to strengthen the bridge. By no means this reinforced the bridge, instead the waterproofing prevents future damage to the structure.

This is basically just a roadway upgrade, the structural work is separate from that (but the existence of cleared areas around all the pylons in the overview shot suggests they've also done some repointing here and there).

From the 13th to the 24th of February 2016.

These things date back to the 1840´s. There are no crucial elements so these viaduct bridges (as long as they are maintained) can last pratically forever! The true marvels of victorian engineering! How did they build these things in the frst place without heavy machinery?

A lot of these Victorian structures were completely overbuilt as they didn't have the technology to be extremely accurate in their calculations. Hence many of them still standing after well over a hundred years.

I'm not an expert but I know these structures are checked every few years, if not annually. That viaduct is 180 years old and will be maintained regularly and will probably last another 180 years.

The camera was moved to the other end of the bridge, made it look like the same track was being lifted.

It freezes and then cracks the rail bed bringing yet more work for grubby lil companies that taxpayers have to fork out for. I would have preferred it to be either not done or completely knocked down and replaced with ugly concrete at least the maintainance would be cut and hence the bill

yes, nigel is an engineer and knows all this to be true - now, for reality, there is drainage through-out the viaduct for that reason

There's a good description of this project, explaining how the drainage works, among other things: www.railengineer.uk/2016/03/30/right-on-the-bubble/

@@rumbler900 Didn´t the company give this work an infinate life span????? These bridges are listed & quite rightly so.

@@MikeT-TheRetiredColonel only just bothered to reply to your comment .....not sorry about that lololo

no, that was filmed in Scotland on the far north line (I think) on the line to Mallaig and Fort William, and that line is single track for most of it's length and not electrified

@@karlosbricks2413 Glenfinnian Viaduct was used

Try the railway gazette. Basically the bridge needed new water-proofing & pointing. they did all the jobs at once as the line had to close.

Stabilizes the underlayment in a huge way - with the concrete base, the shifting of the ballast will not be as much, therefore long-term maintenance will be easier and less costly - at least in my opinion :)

There's a good description of this project, explaining how the drainage works, among other things: www.railengineer.uk/2016/03/30/right-on-the-bubble/

in cheshire not far from manchester airport

53°12'28.7"N 2°20'30.6"W

Holmes Chapel, a few miles north of Crewe on the line towards Manchester.

Forgive my asking, but exactly how much experience do you think the operator of the excavator has? More than you perhaps?

Just because he may have been doing something for a long time doesn't make it less dangerous. And, since you asked I have been on machines for 32 years.

Such a chore - well done for coping with life's challenges

grego3150 Holmes Chapel is on the branch of the West Coast line that carries some of the Euston to Manchester services that run via Crewe.

Alan Rickards Caption says west coast main line but its clearly not is it

It's the Saltersford viaduct on the Manchester branch of West Coast main line

Still not the west coast main line though

@@grego3150 It's considered part of the west coast main line as it carries west coast main line train services

Network rail work miracles google bridge replacements, they usually do them in three days.mad.

And 800 million over budget, if it's NSW. Half of Parl. on a higher hourly rate cos they're on a committee investigating why.

um, none of that has ever changed, people often opposed railways being built in their area, but like people opposing new infrastructure often are unable to do anything. we are driven forwards by new infrastructure, despite the constant criticisms it always has universally received, normally unfoundedly.

Individual railways were authorised via discrete Acts of Parliament. The planning process was entirely different from what we have today. Only the key landowners had any say in it (and were given 'inducements'). 'Disgruntled from Tonbridge' had no say in the matter.

Well if they were proposing to drive a railway through something like a castle, I imagine most people opposed to ripping down viaducts also wouldn't be massive fans of that. There's a big difference between putting a viaduct in, and tearing down an old, perfectly working structure to make way for a new one with very few actual advantages

Currently in preparation stages (e.g. vegetation clearance) is the country's second high speed line, pushed through despite opposition from almost every local authority along the route and spiralling costs.

@@mittfh I don't really know who you are trying to counter with that, it's not really relevent to the discussion at hand.

The UK doesn't have the space that your country (France) has. We can't simply build a dead straight new high speed line just like that - even if the money were available to. The UK has the same number of people as France but France is three times as big geographically. You do the math as an American would say. Just imagine if France had a population of around 100 million people - with about 7 or 8 more cities in it..........then perhaps you'd get the idea about over-crowdedness and lack of space. There is HS2 (a brand new High speed line) in the early stages of preparation but even this new 'state of the art' line won't be dead straight.....it'll just have fewer bends that the existing West Coast main line. As I mentioned, the UK is too crowded to have a high speed line without any bends for 40 miles. Oh, and did I mention that the government had chronically underestimated how much it would all cost?? yep over £100billion (don't know what this is in Euros.....but it's an eye watering amount of money). Oh, and the fact that HS2 is opposed by loads of different interest groups (not just Environmental ones) all over the UK. The level of opposition to HS2 is huge.....it may yet never see the light of day, and be 'mothballed' in about 3 years time. I'm willing to bet that HS2 will never happen and will be abandoned. By the time we've built that 3rd runway at Heathrow, paid off the EU, fully de-carbonised our economy, and been dragged into a war with Iran by the US, there won't be any money left to keep HS2 going. So my reckoning is that in the end HS2 won't happen. We'll have just wasted several billion pounds compiling reports and carrying out surveys.

You do know there is a "mute" button, right? smh

Romgenas There are drain holes in the side of the viaduct I presume they hooked up to those existing homes for proper drainage

I'm sure that the *british* engineers completely missed the concept of "rain" existing.

I'm sure your PhD in Engineering made you figure this out ::heavily dripping sarcasm::