Tyne and Wear Metro
Tyne and Wear Metro
Nexus, the public body which owns and manages the Tyne and Wear Metro, is to replace two ageing Metro bridges in North Tyneside in a £2.5m project.
The Metro Bridges at Beach Road in Tynemouth and Burnside Road in Cullercoats are life-expired and need to be replaced so that they can carry Metro services for many years to come.
The work forms part of the £350m Metro all change modernisation programme to modernise Metro’s infrastructure.
The Burnside Road bridge works will happen over the weekend of March 2-3.
The Beach Road Metro bridge will be replaced over the weekend of March 9-10.
On each of these weekends the Metro line will have to close between Wallsend and Monkseaton and a replacement bus service, 900, will be in operation instead calling at or near stations on the affected route.
Customer Services Director at Nexus, Huw Lewis, said: “We are investing £2.5m to replace these two ageing Metro bridges in North Tyneside to ensure they can carry our trains for many more decades to come.
“The work is vital and forms part of our Metro modernisation programme. Each bridge project is being packed into weekend working so that the level of disruption to customers is kept to an absolute minimum.
“These are complex engineering projects that are securing the long term future of the Tyne and Wear Metro for the 36 million passengers who use it each year.”
The deck of each Metro bridge will be lifted out and replaced using special equipment.
Each new bridge deck will be jacked into place using a multi-wheeled lifting rig.
The main task of removing and then replacing the two bridges is being packed into two weekends in order to minimise the amount of disruption to Metro services.
The international construction company the SISK Group is delivering the project on behalf of Nexus.
https://nexus.org.uk/news/item/north-tyn...25m-scheme
