22.02.08
The end of a myth - Forth Bridge painters set to hang up their brushes
• New £18.5m annual contract will bring painting work to a close by 2012
• No disruption to passenger or freight services
Network Rail is set to mark the end of a modern myth, when the painting of the Forth Bridge comes to an end in 2012.
Announcing a new £74m contract with Balfour Beatty in Edinburgh today, Iain Coucher, Network Rail’s Chief Executive, outlined the plan to complete the remaining restoration and painting work. He said: “The Forth Bridge is a working monument to the genius of British railway engineering. The work currently being undertaken will restore the bridge to its original condition and preserve the steel-work for decades to come.
“The team currently working on the bridge has now completed some of the most difficult work and they have already overcome the most significant challenges that this project posed.
“For that reason, we have taken the decision to accelerate the work, increasing the annual investment from £13m to £18.5m with the aim of generating long-term financial savings.
“The restoration work has been ongoing since 2002 but, due to years of underinvestment during the 70s and 80s, the scale of the job was initially unclear. Only now are we in the position to name a completion date of 2012.”
The work currently being carried out on the Forth Bridge includes a series of phases. Scaffolding access is erected and screened off from the environment before old layers of paint applied over the last 120 years are removed using an abrasive blasting technique. Steelwork requiring maintenance is then repaired before the new paint is applied in three protective layers.
Marshall Scott, Managing Director, Balfour Beatty Regional Civil Engineering, commented: “Working on the Forth Bridge presents a number of unique challenges and conditions. Over the past six years, the partnership, which Balfour Beatty and Network Rail, together with our sub-contractors have established, has resulted in world-wide interest from engineering groups working on projects of a similar scale.
“Despite the demanding conditions, we have now worked in excess of 2.4 million hours on the bridge over six years without a serious accident and our methods have been adopted across the country as examples of best practice. “We now look forward to taking this project to completion in 2012, and, with the removal of the scaffolding, the restoration of this remarkable bridge will return it to near pristine condition.”
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