Front page · Estuary Bridges
Snip! Cosyford gets its bridges, from a footbridge up the creek to the big one at the mouth
A pile rig, a crane on a barge and a very big pair of golden scissors. Izzy Rivett has never met a river she didn’t want to cross, and the estuary has four crossings waiting.
Every bridge starts under the water. A jack-up rig sails in with the first pile standing in its leader, and the hammer goes up and down: tap as it tops out in the green and THUNK, down goes the pile. Get a rhythm going and each blow drives it further. Then a crane barge comes down the estuary with a concrete skip on its hook. Drag it along the pier’s formwork and hold to pour, keeping it moving so it fills level from end to end (stay in one spot and it slops over the top). Up comes the plywood, and there stands a pier.
The spans come in on a barge, girders from the steelworks and all. The crane lifts each one and swings it over its gap, and it keeps on swinging: steady it, line it up in the little scope and hold to lower it onto the bearings. Too wobbly and it clangs off and waits for you to try again. Then comes the finishing: pick a colour and roll the paint along the footbridge’s trusses or up and over the arch, drive the paver across the deck keeping its speed in the green for a smooth road, and on the big one, pull each of the white cables tight and let go in the green for a lovely TWANG.
Last of all the town turns out, with bunting along the railings. You swipe the golden scissors through the ribbon, the confetti flies, and the first bus rolls over the top to cheers from the bank (on the footbridge it’s the schoolchildren, walking over to the woods). Each crossing is bigger than the last: the Creek Footbridge, Mill Lane’s road bridge, the Rainbow Arch by the harbour and, one day, the Estuary Crossing with its two tall white towers. The ones you’ve built stand behind the one you’re building, all the way up the creek.
