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In pictures | Colne Valley Viaduct’s giant piers
Cristina Lago Deputy Editor
Inside the arches of the Colne Valley Viaduct under construction April 2023 (Image: HS2)
HS2 has completed works on the first enormous V-shaped piers that will carry the Colne Valley Viaduct over a series of lakes just outside London.
The project is being led by HS2’s main works contractor Align JV – comprising Bouygues Travaux Publics, Sir Robert McAlpine and VolkerFitzpatrick working with suppliers including VSL, Kilnbridge, Tarmac and KVJV.
HS2 is building the UK's longest railway bridge (Image: HS2)
The Colne Valley Viaduct will carry HS2 trains more than 3km across the Grand Union Canal, River Colne, local roads and a series of lakes between the end of the London tunnels and the start of the Chiltern tunnels.
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Drone footage showing the temporary bridge and first three Colne Valley Viaduct V-piers (Image: HS2)
For the past year, a 700-tonne ‘launch girder’ – the only one of its kind in the UK – has been assembling giant pre-cast concrete segments to form the first 1km of the viaduct deck along the edge of the valley.
Stone skimming
The ‘V-piers’, each weighing 1,800 tonnes, will support a row of arches inspired by the flight of a stone skimming over the surface of the water.
Each pier took nine months to complete.
A V-pier under construction for the Colne Valley Viaduct (Image: HS2)
To allow for the viaduct to curve eastward, each of the one thousand segments that form the arches and deck are slightly different and have been manufactured at a local temporary factory.
Designed to bear the weight of the 80m wide arches over the lakes, the V-piers are twice as large as simpler piers that carry the viaduct over land.
Each pier took nine months to complete (Image: HS2)
To help the engineers master the complex shape of the pier, a mock-up was built offsite before work began. In total, 11 V-piers will support the viaduct over water with a further 45 piers on land.
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