South Wigston railway bridge in Leicestershire

A specialist diamond drilling and sawing firm showed they are a cut above the rest when they removed half a bridge spanning a live railway line.

The aging, South Wigston railway bridge in Leicestershire has over the years become unstable and needs to be replaced.

The Sheffield branch of D-Drill, which has its headquarters in Shilton near Coventry, was called in by Amalgamated Construction (AMCO) to remove it while keeping a foot path open for public use during the operation.

D-Drill has made large investments in training in recent years and as a result a crew with full personal track safety (PTS) training was available to carry out this project.

Ray O’Connor, head of training at D-Drill, said: 

"Time restraints meant that the crew had to work through the night for two nights on consecutive weekends, giving D-Drill a ten hour window to complete each operation.

We were given a desired outcome and asked to draw up a method too carrying out the operation.

We came up with a method using a diamond wire saw to cut the bridge in half from the top because a wall saw could not be mounted on the cut line due to protruding steel work on the bridge.

This was a little bit out of the ordinary for most drilling companies but this is the type of contract we do best."

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