Two 250+ tonne bridge segments have been lifted and shifted by Sarens on the Botany Rail Duplication project.
The Botany Rail Duplication project seeks to extend the 2.9 km single track section leading to the Port of Botany in Australia and include a second track to make freight transport more efficient. The NSW Freight and Ports Plan 2018-2023 predicts that the amount of container cargo handled by Port Botany will increase by 77 per cent, from 14.4 million tonnes in 2016 to 25.5 million tonnes in 2036.
Sarens was contracted to work on the project and remove two old bridge segments to make space for a new bridge on O’Riordan Street, Sydney, aiming to improve freight supply chains and help relieve congestion on local roads. With the project being designed to account for future improvements between the port and airport, Sarens’ Technical Solutions Sales Manager Michiel de Bodt highlighted the difficulty of working near the airports as one of the main challenges.
“The proximity of the project site to Sydney Domestic and International Airport added to our challenge,” he said. “We had to adhere to strict OLS restrictions and most of the work was carried out during night shifts.”
On top of the proximity to the Sydney Airport, Sarens was able to identify several major challenges. There was a steel billboard next to and over the sides of the bridges which couldn’t be moved and the 4-hour lead time to remove them and drive approximately 1km along the public roads next to Sydney Airport to the designated storage yard. The large weight of the bridges also came into account – each weighing more than 250 tonnes – as well as the surrounding structures which made it impossible to deploy a crane, leaving SPMTs as the only viable option.
Sarens was finally able to remove the bridge thanks to the joint action of the operators, lowering it with the stroke of the SPMT which, in the case of the west span of the bridge, required the effort of an additional stroke and the deployment of a CS250 climbing system. Once both bridges were dismantled, the SPMTs transported them to a yard around one kilometre away, where the Sarens team used a gantry system to lift the bridge sections from the SPMTs onto the concrete blocks: a process that took less than 4 hours outside the critical timeframe.
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“It was certainly a difficult project,” said de Bodt, “but with close collaboration from all parties, our team completed it successfully, on time and on budget.”
The Botany Rail Duplication is expected to increase freight movement on the Botany line from the current average of around 20 trains per day to around 45 trains per day by 2030.