Construction crews are celebrating some major milestones on the Mersey Gateway project.
The main bridge deck crossing the river between Runcorn and Widnes is now half complete.
A second important checkpoint was reached when the 31st 150m-long stay cable was linked up on the south pylon.
The Mersey Gateway is due to open in autumn 2017, when the Silver Jubilee bridge will then shut for repairs for 12 months.
Merseylink project director Gareth Stuart said: “These are two massive achievements for the project.
“The deck and the cables are integral to the design of the bridge, and will make it instantly recognisable as one of the most impressive looking crossings in the UK.
“We’re now more than 50% through this highly visual phase of the Mersey Gateway construction, where people will be able to see the stay cables connected to the bridge deck as it emerges across the river week by week.”
Merseylink design manager George Moir said stay cables were being installed at a rate of six per week. Each of which contain 91 individual steel strands.
More than 810 miles of the strands will be used on the project, around the same distance from John O’Groats to Land’s End.
A total of 146 stay cables will support the kilometre-long bridge and able to bear a weight of more than 53,000 tonnes.
Mr Moir said: “The first two strands are threaded through the stay pipe then the tower crane lifts the pipe up to the anchor point in the upper pylon where the top ends of the strands are fixed into place.
“The bottom ends of the strands are then attached to the anchor point in the bridge deck and stressed using a hydraulic system.
“This enables us to get the correct level of tension needed to support that segment of bridge deck.
“We then use a winch system through the stay pipe to winch the remaining strands up one by one.
“Once all of the strands have been installed they sit in parallel inside the stay pipe to form the stay cable.”
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