London bridge is going up
Steel contractor Mostostal Chojnice is set to cross a threshold this week as it wraps up production of its most prestigious contract ever: manufacturing parts for the new Millennium Bridge in London. The stakes are high, too. The first person expected to officially set foot on the bridge is the Queen Mother herself.
As one of several companies contracted to build London's first new bridge in more than 100 years, Chojnice-based Mostostal has spent the last two months assembling steel segments in the Gdynia Shipyard area, where it has easy access to transport by sea.
"We are working 24 hours a day," Jan Wojewoda, construction manager for Mostostal said last Tuesday. Wojewoda was keeping a close eye on production. "The line demands such a continuous period of output," he said.
The 340-meter-long Millennium Bridge will consist of 24 segments that will be suspended nine meters above the river Thames. It will link St. Paul's Cathedral with the new Tate Modern Gallery and the newly reconstructed Globe Theatre.
While the total cost for the bridge is expected to hit £16 million, Mostostal would not reveal how much it stands to earn as a subcontractor in the project. The company was hired by Danish contracting group Monberg & Thorsen's MT Steel, the bridge's builder.
"The order we got (from MT Steel) was to make the walkway for the bridge as well as other steel elements such as bridge arms and supports," said Tadeusz Jankowski, project manager for Mostostal Chojnice. "It will be the first bridge in London for pedestrians only."
For Mostostal, the Millennium Bridge is a prestigious contract indeed. "... the Royal Family will open it," he said.
A part of National Investment Fund (NIF 13) Fortuna's portfolio until 1998, Mostostal is now a subsidiary of Mostostal Zabrze Holding, a construction company traded on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE).
"Chojnice is able to make about 20,000 tonnes of steel a year and employs about 570 people," Jankowski said. "And it has only foreign clients now."
Marian Myzyk, a fitter and one of 19 employees from Chojnice on the Gdynia construction site, has worked on the project for the past month. With his colleague, Jan Meyer, the two were trying to complete a difficult grinding task.
"Everything we are doing here is very complicated," Myzyk said. "But the most difficult thing is to keep the correct geometry."
And that's not easy. As Myzyk explained, first a fitter has to assemble all of the parts. Then the welder does his job. Next, the fitter checks to see that everything has been properly welded. "When he (the welder) says yes, that's correct, it's time for the anti-corrosion protection," Wojewoda said. Finally, the last stage painting. "It has to be painted three times," he said.
After a silver paint job, the segments are then ready to be shipped to London. However, given their substantial length and width, the unwieldy items are not easy to transport.
"The segments have to be shipped on a pontoon," Wojewoda said. The first one (pontoon) carried 156 tonnes of segments. "No ship could take it," he said.
The Millennium Bridge is expected to open sometime just before the summer holidays.
