What started as a novel project to build a Tesco store over a railway cutting in Gerrards Cross by creating a tunnel, turned into a dramatic event when the tunnel collapsed on June 30, 2005. The story ends on November 29th 2010 when the new store opened at last, five years late. This page serves as Home for a number of other pages built over quite a long period of time.
There is an account of the work preceding the collapse, recorded to display railway activities and construction work from 1999 to 2005 with a few flashbacks to an earlier age.
Then there is the account of the collapse itself and
the aftermath.
In March 2006, it was
announced by Tesco that Costain would take over the
civil engineering project from Jacksons and would first
conduct an investigation into the engineering aspects
affecting the decision as to what should be done at the
site. This investigation is not a very visible
process but nevertheless merits photographic recording
because of what may come next. This page is likely
to change frequently until more definite plans are
announced.
Much was happening in 2008. This page, added in October, gives an account of some of those activities.
After a
lot of preparatory work in 2008 and 2009, a large crawler
crane was brought in and the gap created by the collapse
was filled with new segments.
Meanwhile the handsome west
portal has been constructed.
The site is complete and the Tesco store is open.
Pictures and text © Guy Gorton 2007/2011
guy.gorton@btinternet.com