WHILE Dundonians were sitting down toturkey dinners and presents on Christmas Day, demolition crews were working around the clock to complete one of the biggest and most complex pieces of the Waterfront jigsaw to date.
During a brief 56-hour window while the trains were off over Christmas, giant diggers and cranes moved in to tear down two bridges over the Dundee-Aberdeen railway line.
The demolition centred on two bridges over the railway line, one a concrete bridge which formerly held up the Riverside roundabout, dating from the 1960s, plus part of the cast-iron structure supporting the train station, which was built in the 1800s.
The work will pave the way for the new grid network of roads at the heart of Dundee’s redeveloped waterfront and provide a foundation for the new £14 million train station.
City engineer Gerry Conway, project manager for the central waterfront team, said: “It was a relief to get it done.
“We had the track until 5am on Thursday but we were finished 24 hours ahead of planned completion.”
“The main operation was to separate the two bridges,” said Mr Conway.
“From midnight through to 10am on Christmas day, we were putting down protective boards over the line and the cables on the walls.
“We then cut along the line to separate between the two decks, which was completed by midday and after that we were able to go at it with the machines.
“We tore out the masonry and brick until we’d exposed the beams, then used a crane to lift them out.”
The team set up a wall of straw bales to shield neighbouring flats from the noise of the late-night demolition work and in the end no noise complaints were received despite the round-the-clock work.
By the time the sun came up on Boxing Day the job was done, heralding yet another radical change to Dundee’s waterfront landscape.