The unfinished Colne Valley Bridge traces a gentle curve over several lakes northwest of London, a picturesque symbol that belies the ugly talk of the ambitious but expensive HS2 train line.
The imposing viaduct is the most complex and impressive part of the controversial new high-speed line.
“The architect wanted the viaduct to look like a pebble coming out of the water,” Daniel Altier, project manager of French construction company Bouygues Travaux Publics, told AFP.
“This presented us with great technical challenges, particularly in the construction of the piers,” which raise the bridge above the lakes, he added.
The French construction giant is leading a consortium of companies building the 2.1-mile (3.4km) structure, which will be the UK’s longest railway bridge.
It is also spearheading the construction of a 16km tunnel, which will pass under the Chiltern Hills, a designated area of outstanding natural beauty near Oxford in southern England.
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Above the pop-up viaduct, a giant red launch beam, resembling a horizontal crane, places precast concrete bridge sections into place one by one.
Over 600 of the 1,000 deck sections are now in place.
“A lot of effort went into minimizing noise and making sure the viaduct was completely embedded in the water,” Altier said.
“Inevitably, compared to a much more basic viaduct, this increases the cost per kilometre.”
The French group called it “the most advanced part of the HS2 project”, with a scale that “defies imagination”.
HS2, the UK’s second high-speed line after the one to the Channel Tunnel, is a totemic project in a country lagging behind its European neighbours.
The line aims to speed up journeys between London and some of England’s major cities in central England.
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However, the government recently scaled back its lofty ambitions, taking into account local and environmental concerns, which meant more tunnels and more costs.
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“Here we are not doing injustice to the environment, to planning law, to local authorities and to local people,” Jon Thompson, chairman of state-owned HS2, said earlier this year.
But that comes at a cost, driving up the price of the hotly contested project.
Combined, they have made HS2 one of the most expensive rail projects per kilometer in the world, according to economic development association Britain Remade, which compared infrastructure projects in 14 countries.
As a result, Downing Street recently made two cuts along the way to reduce costs, following heated debates about the costs and benefits of the project.
The project will now end in the city of Birmingham, in central England, away from the northern hubs of Manchester and Leeds that were originally planned.
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Even after the cuts, and without high inflation from 2019, the line will still cost 45-54 billion pounds ($57-68 billion) according to the latest government estimates.
The original 2013 estimate for the entire line was £37.5 billion.
The tunnel and viaduct package built by Bouygues has also increased in cost, from £1.2bn at the start to around £2bn today.
“It’s very beautiful. In the long run, the railway will probably be better for it,” Ben Hopkinson, a researcher at Britain Remade, told AFP.
But taking on such a complex project “when we haven’t really had the experience of building high-speed rail for decades” is “a bit ambitious”, he said.
Completion of the Colne Valley Bridge and Chiltern Tunnel section is scheduled for November 2025.
But they won’t carry trains until the entire line is complete, which is slated to be between 2029 and 2033, according to the latest estimates.
Source: AFP