A historic milestone has been reached in the ongoing construction of HS2. On September 5, as contractors working on the Colne Valley viaduct in South Hertfordshire successfully lowered the final deck segment into place, solidifying its position as the longest rail bridge in the United Kingdom. The UK’s Longest Railway Bridge therefore comes in as an integral infrastructure part of the High Speed 2 railway line (HS2).
Length of UK’s Longest Railway Bridge
Engineers laid the final ‘deck segment’ of the 2.1 mile-long (3.4 kilometres) Colne Valley Viaduct near Denham on Thursday.
The structure which will carry trains travelling to and from London to Birmingham at speeds of up to 200mph (320km/h).
The bridge is slightly longer than the 2-mile (3.3km) Tay Bridge linking Fife and Dundee, which had previously been the country’s longest rail bridge since 1887.
On its way out of Greater London, the Colne Valley Viaduct crosses the Grand Union Canal and passes by Denham Waterski Club.
Project Factsheet
Length: 3.4 kilometers
Developer: HS2 Ltd
Duration: 2 years, 4 months
Project name: HS2 High-Speed Rail
Location: Colne Valley
Project Timelines
Building work on the viaduct’s deck began in May 2022, with HS2 contractors using a huge launching girder to lower 1,000 segments into place over the following 28 months.
The HS2 project client director, Bill Price, described the completion as a “major moment for the HS2 project”.
Mr Price said: “It’s great to see Highfurlong Brook finished and I look forward to seeing many more of our viaducts, bridges, stations and tunnels come together over the next few years.”
Scott Corsar, project manager for the contractors EKFB, said: “We have achieved many ‘firsts’ with Highfurlong Viaduct, from the first viaduct to have its full deck installed to the first structurally complete viaduct on the HS2 programme following the recent installation of 136 parapets.”
HS2 bosses have claimed that the huge infrastructure project will ‘significantly reduce journey times’ once complete and that it will free up space on the existing mainline for more local and freight services
But HS2 hasn’t been received well in Buckinghamshire, not least by the leader of Bucks Council Martin Tett, who said in October that the railway line had ‘destroyed lives’ in the county.
The unitary authority chief called for Bucks to receive ‘significant compensatory investment’ for HS2’s disruption to residents and ‘devastation’ of the countryside following the cancellation of the project’s Birmingham to Manchester leg.
HS2 has caused huge sinkholes near the Buckinghamshire village of South Heath, which residents have called ‘frightening and disgraceful’.
Similar Projects; The Tay Bridge
Tay Bridge (or Tay Rail Bridge) is a railway bridge that spans approximately 2.25 miles (3.62 kilometres) in length that spans the Firth of Tay located in Scotland, between the cities of Dundee and Wormit. Tay Bridge has been called the Tay Rail Bridge since the construction of the Tay Road Bridge over the firth.
The original rail bridge served as a replacement of an early train ferry. Lastly, just to note, the bridge was opened for passenger traffic on 1 June 1878. This bridge is quite unique in Britain in that it stands as the first ever rail bridge in the United Kingdom.
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Longest bridges in UK (United Kingdom)
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