Rail Drainage specialist UKDN Waterflow carried out some technically very difficult sewer renovation projects for Thames Water and Crossrail during 2012. The successful completion of these important and challenging jobs received industry recognition by winning two awards from the UK Society for Trenchless Technology (UKSTT)
All of UKDN Waterflow’s awards – for Large Renovation Project, Small Renovation Project, and Young Engineer – were in some way linked to projects on the Thames Water sewer network; the principal client representative was David Martin, High Risk Asset Manager for Thames Water.
David Martin is a highly experienced civil engineer, managing some of the most complex and difficult sewer inspection, repair and rehabilitation works for Thames Water. These sewers are located beneath railways, bridges and rivers, a large majority of which can be found in the most challenging areas within London’s city centre.
David was responsible for the Kensington Canal Sewer (Large Renovation) project where emergency works, underneath a live railway line just prior to the 2012 Olympics, were completed by UKDN Waterflow in just four weeks rather than nine months, thus avoiding any disruption to Olympic period rail travel.
On the Kensington Canal Project David commented “The Kensington Canal Culvert, a brick foul sewer running along the West London Line has been one of the most difficult SCR (sewer crossing railway) remediation project attempted to date; mainly due to the manholes being situated in the railway cutting, and in between the running rails.”
UKDN Waterflow has put in a huge amount of effort to arrange emergency access and to carefully dig out many tons of ballast and silt to enable this works to take place. Their proactive approach to obtain possessions to do this emergency UV lining work and their ability to create solutions for otherwise impossible problems enabled a successful solution to be completed.”
It was also a chance to show off the two other awards received by UKDN Waterflow from the UKSTT, both linked to Crossrail projects.
At Davies Street UKDN Waterflow pushed the boundaries of CIPP lining with the first use of an inflation cage to install two large UV liners to protect a 120-metre long Victorian sewer in preparation for Crossrail groundworks.
The team overcame major installation challenges designing a custom-built flume to navigate a three-dimensional labyrinth of services.
And the Young Engineer award went to James Larkin, who has worked on and more recently Project Managed a number of high profile works as part of Crossrail, including Stratford Place Phases 1 and 2.
Mark Lusher, UKDN Waterflow’sTechnical Director commented “The Small Renovation and Large Renovation awards demonstrate the innovation, project management and capability of UV Lining within rail drainage and the wider UKDN Waterflow business, and the Young Engineer award reaffirms our commitment to nurturing new talent within the industry.”
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