“Instant tunnel” on the A12 in the Netherlands

[roadtester]

I don’t think this has been posted here before but it dates from 2016 (someone tweeted a version of the time lapse video today which drew my attention to it).

A pre-formed tunnel is installed beneath the A12 motorway in the Netherlands over a single weekend:

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/world- ... 91.article

[nowster]

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[Isleworth1961]

Just imagine how long it's take to do here...

[RichardA35]

Just imagine how long it's take to do here...

A weekend is a weekend wherever the work is done.

[Euan]

Where along the A12 is the tunnel? I can't seem to find it on the map.

[Euan]

Just imagine how long it's take to do here...

A weekend is a weekend wherever the work is done.

It's not so much a case of where the work is done, but how it is done. This particular work was obviously completed in a very swift and efficient manner.

[koppie]

To put a bit of a dent in this story: The tunnel is placed in a weekend, but the proposed road through it is stranded in a legal battle, all the way to the highest (EU!) court. So it still unused..... It seems to be a problem of emissions.

In dutch: 2017 story and EU-discussion.

Location here

[Euan]

Maybe that is why the tunnel was fitted so quickly - it would surely have to be removed again if it were to lose any legal battle. Still, a lot of time and effort would be saved in dealing with any legal issues first.

[KeithW]

It's not so much a case of where the work is done, but how it is done. This particular work was obviously completed in a very swift and efficient manner.

They have been doing plenty of that on the new A14 .




The first video is a very impressive example of how to install 2 large bridges quickly and efficiently.

[WHBM]

Not wishing to pour scorn on this but the technique has been in use for some considerable time, and may have been pioneered by British contractors. The first Hydraulically Jacked (the term for this) structure I can recall was the A406 widening under the railway at Edmonton, North London in the late 1990s. Murphys were the main contractor but they had a specialist subbie (can't recall) do the jacking. I think Mott MacDonald were the consultants who devised it, and who later used it extensively on the Big Dig in Boston USA. https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6147642 ... 384!8i8192

You can't readily make it out nowadays, as the actual jacked part under the railway line was considerably extended by conventional cut-and-cover, but the landscaped area in the foreground was where the tunnel section was assembled, and was then jacked eastwards. The tunnel runs right underneath where the image was taken from.

The Netherlands example is not so much a tunnel as an underpass. Here in Britain, too, the railway have long been experts at rolling these in from construction alongside over a weekend. I had a trivial hand * with the contractor on this one in Walthamstow, which went in, whole thing, right down to the handrails, over a weekend in 1983 (actually finished early, on Sunday afternoon). It was a new road, and the structure was assembled in the foreground. Never even took the railway electrification wires down. That was pulled on rollers by hydraulics and cables rather than jacked.

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5817201 ... 384!8i8192

* : Not too trivial; we did the site operatives payroll !

[Bryn666]

M1 J15A, when the A43 under it was dualled, used the same method.

[Big L]

This is a bridge, of course, not a tunnel.

[KeithW]

This is a bridge, of course, not a tunnel.

Yeah the going over the top bit is a giveaway

The point is that use of prefabricated structures and innovative design to reduce construction times is hardly new , hell Julius Caesar built a bridge across the Rhine in 10 days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar%27s_Rhine_bridges

During the Jacobite rebellion General Caulfield, Wade and others built the first real roads in the Highlands
https://www.scotlandinfo.eu/general-wad ... -scotland/

In the 19th century the British army built a new railway from Egypt to the Sudan to destroy the Mahdi army - the ISIS of the day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudan_Military_Railroad

In WW2 we built two entire pre fabricated ports
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_harbour

I recall being on a coach in Northern Italy at the end of the 60's that used a Bailey Bridge to cross a river (the Po I think)

[belgarion]

There's a railway bridge next to the village I live in and its going to be closed from January for 8 months whilst they demolish it and build a new one, just to increase capacity under the bridge by 4 inches for larger freight wagons.

8 months is a far cry from the weekend bridge in the OP took.

I know its gonna cause chaos as any time there are roadworks which closes the bridge, we have major traffic problems.

Vince

[Andy33gmail]

There's a railway bridge next to the village I live in and its going to be closed from January for 8 months whilst they demolish it and build a new one, just to increase capacity under the bridge by 4 inches for larger freight wagons.

8 months is a far cry from the weekend bridge in the OP took.

I know its gonna cause chaos as any time there are roadworks which closes the bridge, we have major traffic problems.

Vince

Can't they ask Citroen to design a suspension for their trains ...

[mikehindsonevans]

There's a railway bridge next to the village I live in and its going to be closed from January for 8 months whilst they demolish it and build a new one, just to increase capacity under the bridge by 4 inches for larger freight wagons.

8 months is a far cry from the weekend bridge in the OP took.

I know its gonna cause chaos as any time there are roadworks which closes the bridge, we have major traffic problems.

Vince

I'm sure that the W10 rebuilds of railway bridges in Hampshire (back around 2012) didn't take eight months - they seemed to be remarkably efficient (also on the diversion line through Romsey).

Who's doing the work - Philip Green?

[Andy33gmail]

Give me a JCB and a week, I'll dig the ground 4 inches lower.