Design, procurement and coordination of the Ordsall Chord rail project, Manchester, UK

The Ordsall Chord in Manchester, UK is a new railway viaduct and associated track alteration, renewal and re-signalling scheme to provide a direct connection between the city’s Piccadilly and Victoria stations. Completed and opened to traffic in December 2017, it was designed and delivered to achieve the aspirations for a landmark structure within a constrained and complex setting. This paper highlights the benefits of the alliance procurement arrangement, which enabled genuine collaboration between the parties and early engagement of specialist sub-contractors. The benefits of installing adequate monitoring instrumentation are also discussed.