Project:
Network Rail ; Regeneration Programme for Waterloo Station. Roofing Refurbishment

Supplier:
Lonsdale Metal Company Ltd.

Product:
SkyGard

Installer :
Kelsey Roofing Industries Ltd

Design Engineer :
Stephen Frankham Associates

Main Contractor:
Amec Capital Projects

Lonsdale was definitely the right choice for the job. The system’s inherent flexibility & tolerance gave us a faster installation than we could have achieved with the linking panel type products currently available - Roy Conway, Project Manager, Amec Capital projects.

The original Waterloo station was opened by LSWR in July 1848 and for several years expanded & developed. A complete rebuilding programme was carried out between 1900 to 1922, but it was to be another seventy years or so until any further major changes were made with the building of the Eurostar terminal in the 1990s. Despite this very modern addition featuring an upto the minute, bolted glass roof, the mainline station was in a sorry state of repair.

The transverse ridge & furrow roof construction was designed by J.W. Jacomb-Hood & his successor A.W. Szlumper and measured 520ft x 540ft on plan covering 19 platforms. This is an area equivalent to five football pitches and is 28,000 sq/m using today’s metric equivalent.

Serving the busy Southcoast mainline route into London, the station copes with thousands of passengers a week & hundreds of trains all of which have taken their toll on the station environment and not least the huge glazed roof.

Years of toll on the patent glazing

Over the years, repairs had been carried out on an ad-hoc basis creating a patchwork of different glass, various glazing bars and even ‘temporary’ timber panels which had long ago been overlooked for replacement. Fortunately, the original steelwork remained in good condition despite being in need of blasting & repainting. The ‘patchwork’ of repairs had to go and a whole new patent glazing system with modern glass be installed.

Over 28,000sq/m of glazing to be replaced with the station fully operational

Although the layman may mistake the roof’s nine barrels to look the same, each one varies in size as they were built in-situ approaching one hundred years ago. The roof covers nineteen platforms all of which had to remain open and functioning for the duration of the contract with minimum inconvenience to passengers or train running times. Amec’s solution was to suspend a ‘crashdeck’ from the steel roof trusses immediately under the glazing allowing contractors to remove old materials & carryout the new installation. A rolling rig was constructed enabling contractors to slide a set of multiple platforms under the curved roof trusses from one end of the roof to the next without having to take down traditional style scaffolding and set up again each time they moved to a new area. Tony Ingram, Roofing Construction Manager for Amec, comments ‘Passengers have only been vaguely aware of something going on overhead, most people don’t know we’re here’

Such an operation needs a ‘rapid-fix’ patent glazing system

A flexible system was essential which would accommodate the tolerance and variance of the site conditions. A simple, easy to handle product was required. Various options from all the major manufacturers were considered, but ‘a few millimetres either way on a linking panel system for example, would cause major problems’ states Roy Conway, Amec Project Manager. ‘We settled for Lonsdale due to the systems flexibility and ‘forgiving’ nature from the installation point of view.’ Despite SkyGard being a tried & tested product, Lonsdale had to develop specially extended fixing brackets to permit ventilation at the bottom of each tier of glazing. This was to allow air-circulation without undue ingress of water from driving rain, so diesel exhaust could escape, carrying with it dirt & grime detrimental to the to the glass & aluminium system. Although a polyester powder paint finish had been considered, this was deemed unnecessary from both an appearance and performance point of view due to the Lonsdale twenty five year warranty. The mill finish option will save the client millions of pounds as a painted finish would require regular cleaning to maintain warranty agreements. To complete the installation 6.4mm laminated glass was fitted, having been specially cut to size by The Dorset Glass Company, Poole using state of the art computer aided machinery.

Swift solution on target to finish Spring this Year

Roofing contractor, Kelsey Roofing, have kept their promises and consistently delivered on time. Currently, completion is due for Spring 2003. Steve Arthurs, Project Manager for Kelsey Roofing says, ‘We have made surprising progress with the Lonsdale system as metre for metre we are glazing in two thirds of the time what we were able to achieve during our last major station at Glasgow Central’

Richard Burgess, Sales & Marketing Director for Lonsdale comments, ‘ We are delighted Lonsdale has made a difference and Waterloo is excellent testimony to what our design & fabrication team can achieve. However, all credit to Kelsey Roofing, as their excellent organisation of this contract & professionalism has made it easier for us to ensure continuity of supply.’

Lonsdale offer a RIBA approved CPD seminar ‘Letting light in, keeping weather out’ – An introduction to Patent Glazing