Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering Ltd

Forth Bridge Refurbishment

Client: Network Rail
Value: £10 million (approx) per annum

Balfour Beatty Regional Civil Engineering is currently undertaking a works contract, in partnership with Network Rail, to refurbish the Forth Bridge.

The works on the Forth Bridge are carried out in a series of phased operations at a number of locations at any one time. Complex access scaffold is erected and the work areas screened from the environment before the existing layers of paint, applied over the last 120 years, are removed using an abrasive blasting technique. Steelwork requiring maintenance is then be repaired before the new paint is applied in three protective layers, to preserve the steelwork for years to come.

The Forth Bridge is a marvel of Victorian engineering, carrying the East Coast Main Line railway over the Forth Estuary by way of a 2.5km cantilever bridge.

The bridge was designed by Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker and constructed by Sir William Arrol at a cost of £2.5 million, and incorporates 55,000 tonnes of steel held together with some eight million rivets.

This unique structure has been in constant operation since its opening in 1890 by the then Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) and has been the subject of the legend "like painting the Forth Bridge," a job that has never been done.

The bridge in fact has only ever been painted in a single operation when it was built but has been continuously maintained ever since, with painting being carried out where and when it was required.

The contract is set to mark the end of the modern myth when the painting on the Forth Bridge comes to an end in 2012.

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