Comansa at Montreal’s New Champlain Bridge

A 21LC550 model tower crane is currently being used for the construction of the main pylon of this infrastructure, which will replace the damaged Champlain Bridge, Canada’s busiest vehicle bridge

Opened in 1962, the Champlain Bridge in Montreal is one of the city’s main road links and Canada’s busiest vehicle bridge, with an average of 136,000 vehicles crossing it each day. Due to the extreme climate conditions in Montreal, as well as the use of gritting salt on the pavement, the bridge is suffering a progressive deterioration, which maintenance and repair plans have not been able to halt. Thus, the Canadian Government decided to build a new bridge to replace it.

Since 2015, the Signature on the Saint Lawrence consortium, formed by SNC-Lavalin, ACS and HOCHTIEF, has been working on the construction of the New Champlain Bridge, located in parallel with and a just few metres away from the current bridge, which is still open to traffic. The new bridge will feature a spectacular 170-metre tall main pylon which is being built using a Comansa 21LC550 crane.

The crane arrived on site in early September and was erected on the deck of the bridge with a hook height of 67.8 metres. When the crane finishes its work, it will be 180 metres high from the base of the pylon and 123 metres from the deck of the bridge. The 21LC550 crane being used in Montreal has a maximum load capacity of 25 tonnes (this model has another 20 tonne version) to hoist large precast concrete structures and heavy formwork panels.

Work on the New Champlain Bridge is excepted to be completed in December 2018.