Balfour Beatty Vinci (BBV) has completed a major weekend engineering operation on HS2, installing the final two 1,000-tonne viaduct spans over the M42 near Birmingham and finishing the roof of a second major bridge close to the NEC.
The work brought four weekends of intensive motorway construction to a close, with teams carrying out two separate operations during the latest M42 closure.
At Water Orton, a 75-strong team installed two 45m-long viaduct spans, completing all six HS2 viaduct crossings over the motorway.
Each span was assembled from 18 precast concrete segments manufactured at BBV’s Kingsbury batching plant. The sections were transported to site on self-propelled modular transporters before being assembled and locked together using internal tensioning cables.
Around three miles away, a separate 150-strong team installed the final 44 beams on the 300m-long M42 twin box near the NEC.
A 300-tonne crawler crane lifted the 23m-long beams, each weighing up to 92 tonnes, into position to complete the structure’s 9,800-tonne roof. The twin box is now 10m high and supported by two 145m-long walls and 46 internal columns.
Both operations were carried out during the weekend motorway closure, with the M42 reopening at around 4am on Monday, an hour ahead of schedule.
BBV project director Oliver Shore said: “This was a huge engineering challenge and I’m so proud of the way our teams have responded.”
The two Water Orton viaducts form part of HS2’s triangular delta junction, which will connect Birmingham with the main high-speed line heading north.
BBV will now extend the Water Orton 2 structure by a further 40m to close the remaining gap over Gilson Road.
The M42 is due to close again from 23 to 26 October to allow BBV to install parapets above the motorway.
