Due for completion in December 2017, the Ordsall Chord connects Manchester’s Piccadilly and Victoria railway stations for the first time, improving rail connectivity, reducing rail service congestion, allowing new railway services to be introduced, and creating over ￡1bn of economic benefit. The Chord comprises a new elevated viaduct, with substantial alterations and widening to existing brick railway viaducts. The Castlefield viaduct is an existing Grade II listed 1845 masonry arch viaduct affected by the widening of the Chord. The longest span, COL120A, was in very poor condition and required strengthening to accommodate the new railway arrangement without any long- term maintenance liability. The design was developed in a strongly collaborative approach, whose benefits are discussed throughout the narrative, to successfully deliver this challenging structure in time for the 2016 Christmas blockade, a heavily constrained period due to other simultaneous major works to be carried out to the Chord.
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