This week, the UK’s tallest bridge finally opens to public traffic more than 2,000 days after the first brick was laid back in September 2011. The new Queensferry Crossing will replace the Forth Road Bridge as the primary road link between Edinburgh and Fife, with approximately 500,000 vehicles due to cross each week.
More than £1.35billion has been spent on the project, which has been described as “one of the worlds’ great bridges” by lead engineer Michael Martin.
Sykes Pumps were heavily involved in the early stages of construction, providing dozens of pumps to ensure that barges carrying bridge sections were suitably balanced via ballasting. Steel sections were then loaded onto the boat two at a time, with 122 separate components required in total.
This phase of the development necessitated the use of almost forty of our GP150M General Purpose pumps, and these remained on site for just over a year. Once the loadout operations were complete, a second GP150M hire was arranged from our Grangemouth depot. Our pumps were needed for decommissioning the tower supporting structures and our engineers had a direct involvement in facilitating the erection of every single section of the bridge.
On Monday 4 September, the Queen will officially open the Crossing and the Moderate of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland will bless the structure. Everyday road users will however be able to cross the 1.7-mile distance over the River Forth as from 30 August, commemorating the completion of one of Scotland’s largest infrastructural developments in modern times.