Winvic installs eight concrete beams at A5 rail link bridge

Winvic Construction recently lifted eight railway bridge beams into place - comprising 440 tonnes of concrete - in the Intermodal Rail Freight Terminal at Prologis RFI DIRFT in Northamptonshire.  

It is one of three bridges that Winvic is constructing, as part of a £29 million contract to deliver the new terminal. 

The beams were lifted into place on to the reinforced soil abutments and wing walls during a single day under a 43-hour road closure. A 50m-tall Liebherr LTM 11000D crane arrived on site on Friday evening and was rigged on the usually busy trunk road in under ten hours. 

The A5 rail link bridge that will carry two tracks has an effective span of 30m over the highway and is a fully integral, single-span, prestressed concrete structure. 

The line will be networked to the existing DIRFT terminal and the West Coast Mainline at one end and the new Intermodal Rail Freight Terminal at the other. The terminal will comprise a five-track, 800m long siding with a rail traverser and a 79,000sqm concrete terminal slab. The facility will be capable of receiving up to 24,775m-long trains each day. 

The project started in June 2020, with earthwork re-engineering of the plateau, and the scheme will be completed this summer.

Rob Cook, Winvic’s Director of Civils and Infrastructure, said last weekend marked the culmination of years of planning, design and hard work. He praised his team’s skills and "impeccable partnership work" with Prologis and Highways England that have made the journey a smooth one.

"I couldn’t be more proud of them for reaching this key project milestone at DIRFT III, and that they executed the very complex beam lift without any hitches, to schedule and – most importantly – safely," he said. "It has been an exciting and impressive thing to watch, but now our focus is primarily on the other two bridges and the rail track installation, and we look forward to completion this summer."