Jubilee Bridge

The old Jubilee bridge had its battles with Mother Nature over the years, it had been through tropical cyclone Larry, numerous floods, the massive tropical cyclone Yasi plus a magnitude 4 earthquake off the Innisfail coast. All these factors had taken their toll on the old bridge and had left the bridge structurally unsound. The bridge was closed to traffic and pedestrian as it was feared another trigger may bring the bridge down prematurely. With a bridge in such disrepair and that there was a threat of collapse, bridge demolition experts were required.

In 2011 BMD Albem Joint Venture engaged Southern Cross to demolish the old bridge and one of our first priorities was to conduct an engineering review to ascertain where the structural weaknesses were on the bridge, what loadings could be applied to these sections and the demolition methodology required to maintain the bridge’s structural integrity so that it would not prematurely collapse during the demolition process. The outcome was smaller machines were required to remove the decking to gain access to the concrete supporting beams. Selected beams were chosen to be lifted out using a 200T crane positioned on the new bridge with the balance of the beams being removed by a barge mounted excavator within the Johnstone River.