The Thame Valley Viaduct is a

viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide ...

which will carry the

High Speed 2 High Speed 2 (HS2) is a high-speed railway which has been under construction in England since 2019. The line's planned route is between Handsacre – in southern Staffordshire – and London, with a Spur line, branch to Birmingham. HS2 is to ...

railway line in the United Kingdom. It traverses the

River Thame The River Thame is a river in Southern England. A tributary of the River Thames, the river runs generally south-westward for about from its source above the Buckinghamshire town of Aylesbury to the Thames in south-east Oxfordshire. Course Thr ...

near

Aylesbury Aylesbury ( ) is the county town of Buckinghamshire, England. It is home to the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery and the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre, Waterside Theatre. It is located in central Buckinghamshire, midway between High Wycombe and Milt ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (, abbreviated ''Bucks'') is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshir ...

. As early as February 2020, specific consultancies regarding the viaduct have been conducted. A competitive tender for its construction was undertaken during mid-2021. During April 2022, the final design for the viaduct was revealed. It is to be constructed by a joint venture of

Eiffage Eiffage S.A. () is a French civil engineering construction company. it was the third largest company of its type in France, and the fifth largest in Europe. History The company was formed in 1992 through the merger of several long standing comp ...

, Kier, Ferrovial Construction and

BAM Nuttall BAM Nuttall Limited (formerly known as Edmund Nuttall Limited) is a construction and civil engineering company headquartered in Camberley, United Kingdom. It has undertaken road, rail, nuclear, and other major projects worldwide. It is a subsidia ...

, collectively called ''EKFB''. The viaduct shall be largely pre-fabricated and assembled onsite; this approach is claimed to save time and money, while also aiming to reduce any impact upon the local community. Measures to minimise and mitigate the auditory and visual presence of the structure have been incorporated into the design. Once completed, the viaduct will have a length of 880 metres (2,890 feet) across its evenly-spaced 36 spans, while only having a height of . It is intended to be an aesthetically pleasing structure, making use of modern construction techniques and innovations from international high speed railway projects.

Location and history

The planned route for the

railway line crosses the flood plain of the

near

; it was decided that a viaduct would be the optimal means to crossing both the river and the surrounding wetlands. The affected area has not been accessible to the public, largely comprising grazing farmland interspersed with ditches, hedgerows, and occasional trees. It is visible from a mid-distance from several

rights of way A right of way (also right-of-way) is a specific route that people, animals, vehicles, watercraft, or utility lines travel, or the legal status that gives them the right to do so. Rights-of-way in the physical sense include controlled-access h ...

. Public consultancies specific to the proposed viaduct have been conducted since as early as February 2020. On 14 May 2021, a competitive tender for the viaduct's construction was launched, and was closed on 4 June 2021. During April 2022, the final design for the viaduct was revealed. It was designed by the architecture company, Moxon, in conjunction with the ''ASC''

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

, comprising Arcadis, Setec and COWI A/S; construction will undertaken by a joint venture of

, Kier, Ferrovial Construction and

, collectively referred to as ''EKFB''. Precast beams for the viaduct, deck slabs, parapets and 68 piers were cast by Pacadar UK, at their factory on the

Isle of Grain Isle of Grain (Old English ''Greon'', meaning gravel) is a village and the easternmost point of the Hoo Peninsula within the unitary authority, district of Medway in Kent, south-east England. Once an island and now forming part of the peninsul ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

Design

The completed structure will have a length of across 36 spans, each long, while sitting above ground. Lessons from the construction of high-speed railway infrastructure in Spain was a reported influence on the design. Efforts were also made to make the viaduct aesthetically pleasing; to minimise its presence, it is set intentionally low into the landscape and additional planting has been proposed to better hide the structure. Measures to mitigate and minimise the noise generated by high speed trains traversing it have also been incorporated, such as modular

noise barrier A noise barrier (also called a soundwall, noise wall, sound berm, sound barrier, or acoustical barrier) is an exterior structure designed to protect inhabitants of sensitive land use areas from noise pollution. Noise barriers are the most effecti ...

s; other dampening measures have also been evaluated. The viaduct has been designed so that every major structural element can be manufactured off-site and assembled from these pre-fabricated sections, an approach that is claimed by the construction consortium to have made its construction

carbon neutral Global net-zero emissions is reached when greenhouse gas emissions and Greenhouse gas removal, removals due to human activities are in balance. It is often called simply net zero. ''Emissions'' can refer to all greenhouse gases or only carbon diox ...

. This extends to the 35 concrete piers that support the structure, each of which comprise two pier stems that rest upon a pile cap. It uses two wide ‘box girder’ beams per span instead of eight smaller beams, to simplify and speed up assembly. Unlike conventional beams, which are secured together above each piers with the aid of a concrete diaphragm, these precast beams are larger and can be secured directly to one another, eliminating the diaphragm, providing for greater durability and reliability while reducing the time, cost, and labour involved.

New Civil Engineer ''New Civil Engineer'' is the monthly magazine for members of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), the UK chartered body that oversees the practice of civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the appl ...

has praised the approach as "a game-changer for the industry". Furthermore, the viaduct's design was optimised to consume less materials, such as

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...

and

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

, to construct. This approach was also applied to the construction process itself, it is promoted as producing less waste and requiring less deliveries by trucks, thereby reducing the impact of construction on the local community. Work onsite shall be largely performed via a causeway that shall run parallel to the completed structure.

References

{{High Speed 2 articles Railway viaducts in Buckinghamshire High Speed 2 Aylesbury