Twickenham Gateway

Published 23rd August 2022

Since 2009, our team has provided civil and structural engineering and geo-environmental contaminated land services for the redevelopment of Twickenham Station.

Our specialists began by providing engineering input for the station’s redesign, starting with the deck over the existing rail lines and buildings. Our specialists utilised offsite manufacturing in the design and construction of the deck to reduce the impact of working in the ‘hazard zone’ next to the rail. This approach had multiple benefits, allowing us to complete complex works during short line possession periods, mitigate the health and safety risks and keep rail down-time to a minimum.

Twickenham Gateway — Image courtesy of Solum Regeneration

Our structures team also developed a construction sequence to allow piling and construction of in situ concrete pile caps during normal rail working hours to facilitate the installation of columns and the completion of the deck over the rail lines, all during rail possession time. Once the deck was completed, this then acted as the crash deck for the works above, which meant they could be carried out while the train lines were operating.

To enable this, our team devised a series of ‘rail-locked mini-sites’ which were fully isolated from live rail and were Network Rail-compliant in terms of health and safety. In conjunction with specifying offsite-manufactured components wherever possible, this had a huge impact on the project programme, reducing durations for the structural elements and saving three months on the overall construction programme.