The site of the 425.6km bridge renewal project is located within Mt Whaleback Mine precinct in Newman, Western Australia. Ore trains, pulling up to 300 cars at a time, utilise the bridge after depositing ore at the car dumper for processing, enroute back to the mine site. The bridge is in close proximity to a height-restricted tunnel and the deck had been degraded through decades of heavy use.

BHP undertakes a limited number of tightly-scheduled track closures in a given year. During this particular “shutdown”, the Rail Engineering team was given a 24hr timeline to complete the deck casting, followed by a 48hr curing period to achieve target strength prior to handover to the Track Renewal team. The scope of the repair required pouring UHPC to an average depth of 0.15m, onto the existing corroded and damaged steel troughs. Unlike an overlay, the UHPC in this project formed the main structural bridge deck, bolted and clamped to the existing girder.