Eadon Consulting recently carried out surveys on the Reedham and Somerleyton bridges in East Anglia.

The surveys were part of a wider railway upgrade plan project that we have been assisting Network Rail with for three historical Norfolk swing bridges. All three bridges were built over 100 years ago and parts of the mechanical equipment have started to create reliability issues.

During our visit we carried out an NDT inspection in the pivot pier to check whether the existing wheel shafts were satisfactory; measured the winch drive rope loading on the bridge using some load cells and took survey measurements of the pulley positions for the winch drive.

Following the survey, we will be finalising the design of the mechanical equipment upgrades.

The improvements to the bridges aim to provide safe operation and better reliability that’s easier to maintain for the next 25 years.