In the first months of the year, Colas Közlekedésépítő and the Major Projects Division were awarded the contract for reconstructing the bridge over the Sajó River in Sajópüspöki. The assignment required us to build a new structure on the Ózd-Bánréve section of main road 25 after tearing down the old bridge, while keeping traffic continuous. In line with the approved designs, the new bridge should have been built in two stages next to the old one. On the new bridge, the deck is located 1.5 metres higher – in practice, this means that a new (10.7-metre-wide) monolith reinforced concrete deck slab should have been installed above the existing (8.5-metre-wide) old deck.

The weakest link of the concept proved to be the load bearing of the old bridge. Subsequent to taking over the site in April, we subjected the structure to a wide range of destructive tests, and found that it had suffered damages that rendered the original plans infeasible. At this point, the construction process took a sharp turn, and we drew up a plan for a detour and a temporary bridge in just a few weeks. After convincing the decisionmakers, design works commenced in May, and by the end of August, we managed to build a detour with the adjoining 60-metre-long TMM-3 vehicle-launched military bridge, including the obtainment of the necessary permits from the Traffic Authority.