Kemp Street bridge lifts halted over safety concerns

INLAND Rail has confirmed the installation of concrete girders on Junee’s new Kemp Street bridge has been paused while an urgent safety reassessment of the lifting method is carried out, with no timeframe given for work to resume.

The confirmation follows three days of inactivity at the site, which was shut down after crews lifted the first 45-tonne span into position on Friday morning.

The 700-tonne crane’s boom remained retracted and the site deserted on Monday.

In a written response received by The Junee Bulletin at 5pm Monday, Inland Rail confirmed the pause related to a reassessment of the way the girders were being lifted into place.

An Inland Rail representative said the remaining lifts would not proceed until the organisation was satisfied the lifting method was safe.

“Our contractor paused the planned girder lifts to reassess the way in which the girders were being lifted into place,” the representative said.

“Inland Rail always has safety as our highest priority and the girder lifts at Kemp Street are currently paused while this important safety reassessment work is carried out.

“The original method for lifting the girders into place was designed to avoid removing a nearby tree.

“Works at the site will only resume when Inland Rail is satisfied that the method in which girders are being lifted into place is safe to recommence.”

A nearby tree may need to be removed to facilitate the lifts from Edgar Street | © The Junee Bulletin

The response comes amid local speculation that the setback may have involved the girders themselves or elements of the bridge design.

Inland Rail did not explain the precise issue encountered on Friday, whether the first girder had been correctly positioned and secured, or whether the nearby tree may now need to be removed.

Questions about the potential impact on the construction schedule also went unanswered, and no indication was provided of how long the reassessment could take or what changes may be required.

Sixteen concrete girders were scheduled to be installed between Friday, August 21 and Thursday, August 27, with work planned to continue through the weekend.

Three spans arrived in Junee on Friday, with just one of them lifted into place about 10.30am.

The installation was halted after the first lift on Friday, August 21 | © The Junee Bulletin

Crews work around the first span after it was lifted into place on Friday morning | © The Junee Bulletin

The crane lifted the first span over Edgar Street and lowered it between the bridge’s eastern abutment and first concrete support, but the lifting frame remained attached under tension for more than an hour as workers attended to both ends of the structure.

Crews were still working around the span when a site meeting was suddenly called shortly before midday.

Following the meeting, the lifting frame was detached, leaving the first girder resting across Edgar Street, and the site was shut down without any further spans being installed.

The second girder was unloaded from its jinker trailer and laid on the Edgar Street roadway, while the third span was transported away from the site on Saturday afternoon.

No work has been observed at the site since.

Each of the 16 precast concrete girders weighs between 44 and 48 tonnes and will support the deck of the new road bridge across the Junee rail corridor.

Under the original program, the first spans were to be installed from Edgar Street before the crane was dismantled and reassembled on the opposite side of the bridge to complete the operation.

The crane was then scheduled to return to Edgar Street between August 31 and September 2 to install the next two steel sections of the adjoining pedestrian footbridge.

It remains unclear whether those works or the broader Kemp Street bridge construction schedule will be affected.

Inland Rail says work will resume only after the safety reassessment has been completed and the revised lifting method is deemed safe.