A 5,000-tonne bridge deck has been slid into place on the new A34 Wolvercote Viaduct, where Costain is main contractor.
The work was part of a £44m project to replace the bridge, built in the 1960s, with a new structure designed to last 120 years.
The bridge slide was part of a construction technique that allowed the Highways Agency to demolish and rebuild the bridge while keeping the road open virtually at all times to the 70,000 vehicles that use it every day. The time-lapse video below shows how the operation was carried out.
The bridge-slide, completed overnight on Saturday, involved moving the southbound bridge deck, which weighs 5,000 tonnes and is 250m long, 16m from its current position alongside the A34 to alongside the northbound carriageway, which was finished last year.
The Wolvercote Viaduct carries the A34 between the Midlands and the South Coast over the Oxford to Birmingham railway line, the Oxford Canal and the A40.
The project is scheduled to be completed in June.
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