Contractor Story Rail had to repair two viaducts some 5km apart on the historic Settle to Carlisle railway line in the Ribble Valley between a Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. The concrete was delivered to a central point, pumped into rail-mounted mixers then transported over 1.5km down the track in both directions for onward pumping to the two locations.
Hanson’s technical services manager Terry Balmer said: “The mix design for the two 80m³ pours was critical. It had to be initially free-flowing and capable of multi-stage pumping, then set rapidly to enable follow on works to take place. And, to make things more difficult, the temperature dropped below freezing during the early hours.
“A critical part of the brief was to ensure the project did not over-run so we used a mix containing steel fibres as a substitute for steel bar reinforcing and worked through the night to ensure every load was produced to the exact technical specification.”
The award was presented at the Concrete Society awards dinner in London where BRMCA technical director Dr Chris Clear said: “Supplying at night to multiple locations and with a specialist concrete was always going to be a challenge, and it is important to recognise Hanson’s high-quality, efficient and professional service.”
The Concrete Society awards recognise and celebrate companies involved in the design and construction of buildings using ready-mixed and precast concrete.
Three projects supplied by Hanson plants also won awards. In the mixed use building category, Number One Riverside in Rochdale, County Lancashire, north-west England, supplied from Oldham, was the winner. In the education category Manchester Metropolitan University School of Art and Design, supplied from Manchester, took the top prize. The civil engineering award went to the radiographic cell at the Heatric manufacturing warehouse in Poole, southern England, parts of which were supplied by the nearbvy Bournemouth and Weymouth plants.
Hanson Concrete managing director Max Colligan also received a special award on behalf of the company from James Luckey, editor of The Concrete Society’s monthly magazine Concrete, for outstanding editorial support. The award marked publication of the 500th edition of the magazine and considered the consistency and editorial merit of articles down the years.
