Fraco units finish up bridge work

Mast climbing platforms from Fraco are finishing up a $198 million project in Pitt Meadows, B.C., Canada. The Pitt River Bridge project is part of an infrastructure rebuild that consists of a cable-stayed bridge that will provide the crossing eight traffic lanes. It will also expand upon vertical marine clearance as well as providing an area for cyclists and pedestrians to use.

The bridge, which construction began on in 2007, will eventually have six pillars holding 96 cables. ABC Fraco Inc., a subsidiary of Fraco Products Ltd., was chosen by general contractor Peter Kewit Sons, Co. Twelve Fraco ACT-8 units will provide access.

But the bridge's columns provided quite a challenge for Fraco's regular setup; in order for workers to install and adjust cables tension, Fraco had to develop a solution. The company came up with a fully adjusgtable drawer extension which can be mounted on its regular ACT-8 units.

"From the beginning, we knew that ACT-8 platforms were the perfect answer to the challenge of accessing each cable level of pillars," said Francois Villeneuve, executive vice-president at Fraco Products. "The idea was to find a way to access each cable face of pillars and still being able to move the platform up and down in a short period of time. The drawer platform can be quickly extended and retracted on demand each time a cable needs to be installed or adjusted. The drawer can also move laterally in order to adapt to the taper shape of each pillar."

The ACT-8 units, which feature an elevation speed of 38 feet per minute, tackled the 130-foot-tall columns one by one beginning in October 2008. As of May 2009, the project was almost complete.