Groundbreaking new bridge design could transform rail crossings across the UK
railadvent.co.uk
railadvent.co.uk
A few minutes of googling gives me https://www.fibercore-europe.com/en/projects/, which has dozens of FRP bridges. I doubt that’s the only producer in the world. I don’t see what’s special about this one (but feel free to educate me)
That leaves the shape. I would guess the corners in the road are there to avoid having to use land that isn’t owned by the railway. If so, what’s left is the specific design. That’s nice, but other nice designs are possible.
Now, as to the idea of making a pedestrian bridge over a railway: it’s better than no pedestrian connection, but the stairs on such bridges necessarily are fairly high. Train tracks often lie above ground level, and even if they don’t, the total height to the top of the overhead line, plus some safety, plus the height of the bridge’s deck means you’re easily going two floors up and down.
regardless, level crossings work perfectly well: they simply have a gap in the electrified rail over the crossing (and the train is longer than the gap)
if you look closely here you can see it: https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Ash...
A quick search on Google Scholar showed up this article on FRP footbridges, which mentions that the first FRP footbridge in the Netherlands was constructed in 1995.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209580991...
One of the key drivers for cheaper and easier footbridges is to close level crossings. In the UK we have tons of crossings - footpath, private road, and highway - dating back to Victorian times, and Network Rail would like them gone. They're one of the biggest remaining sources of injuries and deaths on the network, especially on 125mph fast lines, and are operationally awkward.
They got rid of a bunch of private farm crossings during our Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak by going door to door with desperate farmers and offering wedges of cash to give up their private crossings. They care a lot.
So plastic? Might look shiny now, but I wonder how these will look after 20 years of sunlight and other weathering.
This reminds me of some family members that lived on a boat. As soon as they finished maintaining one thing (e.g. painting), they could immediately start over again. It was an endless cycle of doing maintenance to the boat. They really wanted to live on a boat. Eventually they sold it and bought something else, though unsure if the maintenance was the cause.
From an operations viewpoint, it’s easier to pick a degree of parallelism that makes this a continuous operation.
You don’t have to close down and start up maintenance work, you don’t have to scale up and down the number of workers, etc.
(On farms, there’s an opposite force at work. Farming itself is highly cyclical (not much to do in winter, relatively), so maintenance was done cyclically, too)
I don't know about your jurisdiction but every bridge in my area gets inspected by qualified bridge inspector at least every 3 years, and if there are potential issues more often.
>Of course, bridges are not normally sitting in salt water
Again, not sure about your jurisdiction, but many jurisdictions use chlorides for winter ice melting.
Hell, just last week I was watching a video about how abysmal the material has been for the wind turbine industry after it tips apart from hail stones.
Sure, theyre moving at 100 mph but I don't see why people would think building bridges out of this stuff is a good idea.
The other boats are metal. As I write this I am trying to remember if it’s aluminum or galvanized or stainless. There is a popular brand, anyway. The metal boats are popular because it is a fashion thingy to not keep them clean.
The more expensive marinas have bigger proportions of polished boats and teak decks.
Anyway, as a fiberglass boat owner, I’m not recognizing the constant maintenance thingy. Nobody’s told us boat owners! :)
Most modern turbines operate with tip speeds around 200m/s, corresponding to around 450 mph.
They really don't hold up at all. FRP degrades rapidly when exposed to UV light, and boats not only are not subjected continuously to high loads but they are also not subjected to vandalism.
Let's put it this way: wheelie bins are FRP.
These bridges will be in use for decades, if not centuries.
Though doubt making it less steep and longer would really be an issue.
>The next phase of the project will include a ramped version of the bridge to support those with impaired mobility.
I don't understand why people are so deeply muddled about this.
There is no train station.
It's for bridges over the railway in the middle of nowhere, far from train stations, along country footpaths.
You cannot traverse the footpaths on a wheelchair, so you cannot even get to the bridge in the first place.
Even new construction train stations don't always get an elevator to go over or under the line to the other platform... although they do get a long ramp and a ramp on the platform to load if the car floors are above the platform.
If these crossings are really in the middle of nowhere along muddy footpaths, I think you could get away with no ramp in the US, too.
The at-grade crossing there is closed for up to 40 minutes per hour, because the railway carries both freight (to/ from a major port) and passenger trains. If you're in a vehicle too bad, "Long Queue. Turn Engines Off" as the signs say but if you're on foot the bridge means you don't need to care too much about that.
You might be wondering: Why isn't there a road bridge? It's an industrial estate, so any road bridge needs to carry large goods vehicles, articulated trucks and so on, which means a fairly large concrete structure with up and down ramps occupying a large footprint and there's nowhere to put that. It's also next to a tidal river, dig down and it'll flood, further into the city they just tunnelled the entire railway under the park, but that is not cheap.
Often they are hundreds of years old, so any new construction needs to allow the public to cross over them. When I was growing up, one of my neighbours did a lot of research into footpaths in the area, and uncovered a lot of forgotten footpaths. Some of them even went through people's back gardens, and as they were legal rights of way, they had no choice but to open them up (apparently there's a way to move them now for cases like this now).
These bridges are needed because a legally mandated footpath crosses a railway line. That's why so they're lightweight - because they're often very rarely used - they're there mainly for legal compliance.
You can't cycle on these kinds of footpath - both legally but also literally because they're usually just mud and across agricultural fields and you would have to cross stiles. You couldn't cycle to them even if you wanted to.
So no there is no cyclebridge, because nobody would be trying to cycle over them.
First you berate someone for talking about bicycles because "footbridge" is in the name, then you ask how people would get to "this bridge", which makes no sense because there was no specific bridge in the first place, then when asked what bridge you are talking about you jump to "cultural context".
The context is that nobody would want to bicycle over these bridges in general because where these bridges are generally used it is not legally or physically possible to get to them on bicycle.
The point therefore is your question doesn't make any sense if you know the context.
Look at the other comments saying the same thing as me if you want another perspective to help you understand if you're struggling.
I don’t know if you’re a non-native speaker? ‘This bridge’ means ‘this bridge design’.
So maybe cheaper, though if they was able to use this design in the more urban area's, would certainly have a larger footprint and that aspect may make it more expensive.
... How exactly is this environmentally friendly? FRPs don't tend to be recycled easily or cheaply[1], not to mention the fact that they are often derived from oil-based products and require high-temperature curing.
[1]: "The recycling of composite materials is on the right track, but challenges still have to be taken-up in order to finally make it a commercial reality" (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S007964251...)
I'd be interested in seeing it in more detail as whilst the design does seem to possibly be wheelchair accessible, it does seem to have some stepping upon the up and down slops.
Though nice design on many levels, feels like the railway foot crossings may leap out of the Victorian era designs into something a bit more tomorrow. Which if you want to see what many footbridges look like - https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2021/03/victorian-footbridge-re... will tick many a quaint and tourist box but for daily use or those less able to climb such gradient stairs, not much fun.
It looks like it's steps on either side, not sure how they're gonna make that wheelchair accessible without dramatically reducing the angle of the slope.
i guess that current pedestrian bridges are expensive.
it makes me think -- wouldn't a crossing at grade (at the ground level) be cheaper? better? allow wildlife to still cross easily? fit more nicely with 'the environment'?
i guess having a bridge could be safer. at least statistically. maybe?
what's the real agenda?
https://www.alamy.com/blaenavon-wales-july-2020-two-people-c...
I get that UK prob have more competent rail than US (not saying much)
But I'm thinking practically
You build some huge walkover bridge
You build a massive fence along...
how long a segment of track to prevent any large-ish living things from crossing it?
Kids tear down the fence so they can cross
The fence becomes yet another barrier between neighborhoods
It's prob super ugly
And all of this is done for the benefit of locals along the tracks?
No
Its done to allow speeding rail commuters access to what is rightfully theirs -- unconstrained ability to haul ass through all these neighborhoods without regard for the safety of the people who live there
Slow down the trains?
No way -- those are important people on those trains
I feel dumb. And had.
What's stopping this from being incorporated into a more traditional bridge?
What happens when teenagers all cram into one, or a marching troop goes over one?
I think it wasn’t too long ago a footbridge failed to take into account synchronized steps (marching) and swayed under foot traffic.
> Nicknamed "The Trembling Lady" because of its tendency to vibrate when large numbers of people walked over it, the bridge has signs at its entrances that warn troops to break step whilst crossing the bridge.