Bridge bash solutions
SURELY the simplest answer to this problem is for Network Rail to invest some of the £20 million it currently spends on repairing bridge damage on an electronic height detector on the approach to all low bridges, which could trigger flashing lights on the bridge when activated?
This would alert the drivers of any out of gauge vehicle – including HGVs from other European countries, those conveying large loads such as machinery or straw bales, double decker buses and tractors with impossibly high loads on their trailers.
Brian Rawling Northallerton
IT WAS interesting reading the letters in November’s Railway Magazine and some of the solutions to bridge strikes that were suggested.
In 2001, during the foot and mouth outbreak, part of my duties was to find suitable routes for livestock lorries who were moving animals to market in unaffected areas. This involved using a particular sat nav programme that showed heights of all bridges. I am told this is also available to transport companies but, obviously, it costs more so many of them will not pay for this facility.
Our route plans were then sent to the transport companies on a daily basis to ensure that there were no bridge strikes, or incursion into infected areas.
Tony Birdwood
Llanwrda
I COMPLETED my apprenticeship at the GEC in Birmingham in 1950 and joined a small specialised section that made photo-electric equipment and many other odd things the rest of the massive company did not want to deal with.
In its card system was a record of an order some year previously for a bridge protection system for, I believe, Burton-upon-Trent. The beam of light projected across the road at a height slightly lower than the bridge gap, and when cut by an over-height vehicle, it initiated a massive ‘stop’ sign.
More modern equipment is available, but local councils will not keep them maintained – so is there an argument about who pays for it?
Barrie Cross
Walsall
REPLYING to Alan N Peachey from Bishops Stortford (November issue), there are a number of bridges in the Aldershot & Farnham area fitted with ‘goal post bars’ to protect bridges from lorry strikes. One is on the road adjacent to Aldershot football ground and another is on the A325 at Wrecclesham, just south of Farnham.
Several years ago, a large van passed safely under Wrecclesham bridge whilst delivering furniture to new married quarters at the now-closed Army camp at Bordon. On the return, the now empty and higher lorry hit the bridge and took about two inches off the van’s top. The bridge was undamaged.
R Beaumont
Fleet