London Bridge is one of the busiest areas in the city. Big station, carrying thousands of people every day; big bridge taking people and road traffic to and from work in the City; big bus station taking people to and from other parts of London; big hospital sorting out people who don’t feel too good; big market where thousands go to buy great food.
And in the middle of all this hubbub are two massive projects: the Shard and a new railway bridge. Both are being managed superbly.
I worked in newspaper production. It’s a fairly simple process; it’s the same process every night; most of the people work for the same company. And it is always chaos.
A building is much more complicated. Each one is different; hundreds of sub-contractors do their specialist bit; the raw materials are heavy.
The Shard is wedged between the stations and the hospital, but all the concrete, steel and glass cladding comes in and is dealt with, just in time and without disturbing the buses and ambulances too much.
The bridge goes across Borough High Street at the end of London Bridge and its viaduct goes through the famous market. The engineering solution: Build the viaduct first, build the bridge on top of it, then slide it over the road over a bank holiday weekend, without disrupting any of the trains going over the existing bridges. They did it this weekend. The sub-contractor they called in to do the sliding was Mammoet, the Dutch team who are the world champion heavy lifters.
And in the middle of all this hubbub are two massive projects: the Shard and a new railway bridge. Both are being managed superbly.
I worked in newspaper production. It’s a fairly simple process; it’s the same process every night; most of the people work for the same company. And it is always chaos.
A building is much more complicated. Each one is different; hundreds of sub-contractors do their specialist bit; the raw materials are heavy.
The Shard is wedged between the stations and the hospital, but all the concrete, steel and glass cladding comes in and is dealt with, just in time and without disturbing the buses and ambulances too much.
The bridge goes across Borough High Street at the end of London Bridge and its viaduct goes through the famous market. The engineering solution: Build the viaduct first, build the bridge on top of it, then slide it over the road over a bank holiday weekend, without disrupting any of the trains going over the existing bridges. They did it this weekend. The sub-contractor they called in to do the sliding was Mammoet, the Dutch team who are the world champion heavy lifters.
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I take my hat off to the engineers who are doing these massive jobs. I also marvel at the people who did massive jobs in this same area hundreds of years before. Those who built Southwark Cathedral and the brickies who built the arched viaduct which takes the railway through South London to Kent. They had no tower cranes, no computer design or control systems.
Engineers have always been giants. Thank you, gentlemen.
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