GB Card & Partners (GBCP), the award-winning civil engineering company based in London, Kent and Devon, made members and enthusiasts of the Swanage Railway very happy recently when carrying out emergency works on a damaged Victorian era Bridge in Stoborough, Dorset.

The bridge, situated between Wareham and Corfe Castle, was damaged in August last year when hit by an oversized skip lorry. The damage caused the bridge to be closed to railway operations and meant that the connection from the mainline at Wareham through to Swanage was severed.

The brick and iron bridge, built in 1884, is part of the ten-mile section of the railway line between Worgret Junction and Swanage, upon which heritage and special event passenger trains regularly operate. The Swanage Railway boosts the surrounding Purbeck economy by more than £15m a year.

GBCP were appointed as consulting engineers to assess the damage and to determine what repairs were necessary to return the bridge to operational use.

GBCP were commissioned to carry out a detailed examination of the bridge and design and supervise the necessary repairs to reinstate the necessary load capacity to meet Network Rail and Dorset Council standards.

“We conducted a comprehensive examination of the bridge and determined that repairs were feasible and  straightforward”, said GBCP Chief Executive Dr. Geoff Card. “Our examination revealed that the wrought iron structure of the bridge was in pleasantly good condition, but that a complete replacement of the timber deck and wheel bearing timbers were required as a result of the bridge strike”.  New 11.5m rail bearing timbers had to be purchased and installed.

Dr Card is an industry expert on heritage railway lines and is a volunteer engineering consult to the West Somerset, Swanage, Spa Valley, and Bluebell railways.

Aa 130m-stretch of Grange Road between Stoborough and Creech was closed for 5 days to allow the works to be carried out.

GBCP senior engineer Dylan Wendorf-Brown was put in charge of overseeing the works and ensuring the project was completed in the allocated time frame.

To complete the works, all metal girders and handrails of the bridge were cleaned and painted.