RMD Kwikform has won substantial work on every one of the five major contracts so far awarded on Section One of the CTRL [Channel Tunnel Rail Link].  This, the company says, has called for an innovative and flexible approach to devising fresh solutions to a number of unique formwork, falsework and access problems.

The new 109kM high-speed link is the first major railway construction project in the UK for more than a century.  Section One is approximately 74kM long and runs from the Channel Tunnel to Fawkham Junction in north Kent, and work is on schedule for completion in 2003.  So far, the contracts have involved RMD Kwikform in the construction of footbridges, retaining walls, bridge decks and cut-and–cover tunnels, including a 3.2kM tunnel through the North Downs.  Section One also saw the company meeting the challenges associated with several multi-span road and rail bridges and a number of viaducts, in particular the 1.2kM concrete box girder viaduct over the River Medway.

At one stage or another, RMD Kwikform has utilised most of the company's formwork, falsework and access systems, plus it has devised a number of bespoke solutions. Indeed it was one of these solutions - for the construction of the River Medway viaduct - that, in all probability, was among the most challenging of the projects. It meant producing special climbing formwork for the complex viaduct piers and creating unique trolley-mounted formwork for the 40.5-metre sections of pre-stressed concrete box girder viaduct deck. which are barrel shaped in section, inclined, and which split part height into two tapering sections.
The need for skewed falsework for the construction of the bridges between Fawkham Junction and the west bank of the River Medway led to the extensive use of RMD Kwikform's Rapidshor system. Parapet construction on the bridges was achieved using Paraslim, RMD Kwikform's unique modular cantilever formwork system. 
 
The 13.8 metre diameter tunnel through the North Downs required RMD Kwikform to devise special travelling access gantries, while RMD Kwikform's Kwikstage Shoring accommodated the widely varying site conditions and configuration requirements of the bridges on the section between Boxley and Lenham Heath.  This solution was also adopted on the 78-span Ashford viaduct, in this instance supported on spanning girders.
 
According to RMD Kwikform, the contracts demonstrate the company's talent for innovation and its capacity to collaborate fully and deliver economic and safe fast-track solutions to challenging engineering problems.  Each contractor was given a single point of contact within RMD Kwikform for the duration of the particular project and the company sees its success on the CTRL contracts as evidence of the confidence that leading contractors have in the company's ability to perform.

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