News: Rotherham experts help to lay the track for the world's longest guided busway

The construction of a guided busway on a disused Cambridgeshire railway called on designers at Rotherham firm Bennett Associates to come up with an innovate, flexible and efficient solution. Bennett Associates was contracted by Edmund Nuttall Limited for Cambridgeshire County Council to design a bespoke track laying solution that could overcome the problem of laying track through narrow railway bridges as well as having a minimal impact on the environment. A lightweight, compact system in the form of a gantry crane was developed that was productive, yet versatile enough to deal with the constraints of the limited track width and mixed ground conditions. "The design of the crane is completely unique, there is nothing else quite like this. We had to develop a bespoke solution to be able to overcome the difficult conditions presented by the project," said James Hill, Mechanical Design Engineer at Bennett Associates. "The biggest challenge was designing a crane that was lightweight enough to drive along the guideway without breaking it, yet strong enough to lift the 32 tonne concrete track segments," he added. When completed, the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway will be the longest guided busway in the world. It is estimated that 11,500 journeys a day will be made on the guideway.
Bennett Associates website

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