Hawkesbury River Bridge

Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group in Australia delivered a major upgrade to the iconic Hawkesbury River Rail Bridge, a critical transportation link in the Sydney Trains network.

Engaged by Sydney Trains, our main scope on this project involved the design, fabrication, and installation of a new 800 metre walkway which runs along the down side of the bridge. Improving both functionality and safety as it provides a designated walkway outside of the rail danger zone, it also provides a new cable route on the underside of the walkway for relocated high voltage cables.

The project posed unique challenges, including ensuring precise measurements and avoiding clashes with the existing bridge structure. RSRG’s innovative design seamlessly integrated the new walkway with the bridge minimising clashes with the main bridge members. RSRG also created custom lifting equipment, including a lifting frame and jib that ran on the underside of the bridge to install the steel segments from barges down on the water allowing all works to be completed outside of rail possessions. This greatly increased the speed of the project as works would have taken many years to complete if all works were to be completed within nominated possessions. Fabrication took place at RSRG’s Horsley Park facility, with the steel components galvanised and painted for durability.

Another activity of note included the design, fabrication & installation of two maintenance gantries that run along the underside of the bridge on existing bridge runway beams. These gantries replaced a single original life expired gantry that has since been removed and are being used for bridge maintenance and inspection purposes. Both gantries are able to be opened up for access out to each side of the bridge but also closed up to allow access through the piers. Access into the gantries is via access ladders from the newly installed walkway. Again both gantries were built in house at Horsley Park and brought to the bridge via barge and lifted up into place using sequential hoists allowing all works to occur while trains were live on top of the bridge.

Other activities RSRG have completed as part of the upgrade works include major steel component replacement works completed during rail possessions, gantry runway beam strengthening works, bridge bearing upgrade works and new high voltage cable rerouting amongst other tasks.

All projects showcase RSRG’s engineering excellence, successful collaboration, and commitment to quality, delivering the upgrades on time, within budget, and with minimal disruption to Sydney’s rail services.