July 26th – At Telford, the new footbridge at the station continues to take shape. Steel is being erected, steps and glazing are being added and lifts seem to be going in too.
There are now five distinct building sites that make up this construction. Getting to the right one to start work – across a railway, a major dual carriageway and slip roads – can’t be much fun!
July 3rd – I had stuff to do in Telford mid-morning, and was eager to see how the footbridge project was progressing. I wasn’t disappointed.
On site, the assembled over-railway portion of the deck had been lifted into place as I suspected onto the lattice piers – which despite my scepticism last week appear to have been positioned without breaking any glass at all. Remarkable.
The crane used to lift the 96 tonne structure into place was being dismantled on site – by another crane. It was terribly meta.
It was heaven for a machine geek like me, I was transfixed for some time.
It’s nice to see the new footbridge taking shape at last.
June 25th – Over in Telford on Monday morning, sun streamed down on construction workers and engineers preparing for the following week when a huge crane will lift the first, over-railway section of the new bridge into place from where it’s being assembled right next to the westbound platform.
Last week I couldn’t work out how they were going to lift it into place with nothing to put it on – then today I realised that as well as the deck, the piers had been assembled out of their final position too – the two lattice and glass pillar towers beyond the green crane will be bolted onto the matching concrete bases each side of the railway, and the new deck bolted to it, spanning the tracks.
What I can’t work out is why they’ve fitted the glazing before they finally lift the towers – surely moving them will fleet the structure so much the glass will break?
Perhaps it’s tougher than I think… we shall see, I guess…
June 21st – I passed through Snow Hill Station mid afternoon, and noticed a little bit of lost local history that I’d totally forgotten about – the old Snow Hill tram stop.
When the Midland Metro opened in the late 90s, it originally terminated here at one platform of Snow Hill Station. The stop was dark, dingy and low level, with a notoriously unreliable inexplicably single escalator and a dingy, horrible spiral staircase. It was not a great bit of urban design.
When the Metro line was extended around the City Centre to Stephenson Place, the line was diverted to the side of Snow Hill station and up around Colmore Circus, leaving the Snow Hill stop cut off and replaced by a better, street level station. The lines at the old stop are no longer connected to the main line, and the stop, abandoned, unserviced and closed is gladly being reclaimed by nature and slowly fading.
It’s amazing how quickly such things decay when unused.
June 19th – Back in Telford briefly, I noted that the footbridge project is progressing apace, with both new spans being brought to sigh and assembled on the ground before being lifted onto the piers.
This is clearly a complex structure and one whose support arrangements will be very complex indeed. I notice thanks to old pal of the blog Alan Dawson that the shorter, over-railway section will be lifted into place at the end of June – but I’m unclear what it’ll be supported upon, as yet there’s not steelwork present at either side of the station to place it on.
One assumes it’ll all fall into place quickly.
May 10th – Passing on a flying visit to Telford, the new footbridge project is progressing really, really well.
Beside the westbound platform, all the piling and excavations are finished now, and construction of the bridge section to go over the railway continues, while the footings and steelwork for the pier and access ways are beginning to show the final outline now.
Next to the eastbound platform, a forest of steel girders are being piled into the ground for the pier that side.
This really is a most fascinating project.
May 7th – The third day of a long weekend, May Day bank holiday, and I knew what to do. The forecast was for a beautiful, hot day so I hopped on a very early train to Macclesfield, and rode back via the Moorlands, Roaches, Morridge and Weaver Hills.
You can see a full gallery from this ride on my main blog here.
Just on the moors near Thorncliffe, I found this curiosity, something I’ve never seen before – a UK Meteorological Office remote weather station. I have no idea why it’s here specifically, or for the oblique angle it subtends to the road, but it is fascinating, populated with a host of instruments measuring rainfall, win speed, polled count, air quality and other metrics of the atmosphere. All this seems to be remotely operated by telemetry link.
Also in the compound is a GNRR sensor for the Ordnance Survey, a Leica device to provide calibration for GPS signals.
A fascinating and slightly haunting thing, right in the middle of nowhere.
April 17th – The Telford footbridge construction project continues, and there’s a really interesting stage started now; partially build sections of the bridge have been delivered as steelwork skeletons, namely a couple of lattice piers and the over railway deck section. What’s interesting is that they have been fixed temporarily on spare ground, and other parts are being welded and added. The assembled sections will be completed on the ground, and then lifted into place.
I’ve never seen this done before and passing through on a grey, drizzly afternoon it was certainly interesting to watch the engineers at work while I waited for the train.
This is certainly going to confuse people trying to work out the final layout…
March 29th – Again returning from Shenstone, again it was raining as as I alighted from the train. My heart was heavy and I didn’t fancy the wet ride home but something caught my eye in the shrub border to the platform.
An ornamental blackcurrant, in flower. It was dripping with rain, but that glorious pinky red was most vivid in the gloom. And for that, it made me happy.
March 8th – Passing again from Shenstone in daylight, I stopped to take in The Little Holms, the western end of Shenstone’s Lammas Land, a public space that runs along the whole upper side of the village from rear the pumping station to the Birmingham Road, along the Footherley Brook.
This lovely spot gives a great view of the Victorian pump house, still in use with twin 200 horsepower electric pumps. With a storage reservoir underneath, this facility feeds Barr Beacon reservoir, and keeps Walsall and North Birmingham fed with clean water from it’s boreholes.
Brought into use in 1892, it pumps water from a 131 feet deep, 12 foot diameter well, with a 597 foot heading. The steam pump was retired in 1957, and now a 60 horsepower submersible well pump tops up a 10,000 gallon tank under the pumphouse.
After treatment there, water is pumped by 200 horsepower pumps up to Barr Beacon reservoir for distribution. These pumps can supply 1,500,000 gallons per day, and are backed up by emergency generators.
The cottages were originally for the workers, but I think they’re private now. I love the attic conversion in the end one – that gable wind is gorgeous.
BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 