While most of us have had our feet up, Fulton Hogan teams around New Zealand had their heads down working on projects that aren’t possible when the country isn’t on holiday.

Among them was the team building the cycleway underpass on the railway line in Petone, Wellington. The project, part of the new Petone-to-Melling Cycleway, is for Waka Kotahi (NZTA) in conjunction with Aecom and WSP.

From start to finish there was just two weeks to set up, decommission the rail tracks, remove around 6,000 tonnes of fill from the confined space, pour concrete foundations, install 18 pre-cast concrete units made by Stahlton in Auckland, and reinstate the tracks over the 27 metre long underpass. At its peak, 200 tonnes of fill was removed per hour.

Up to 35 people worked at a time, rotating shifts 24 hours-a-day between 26 December and 3 January.

Project Manager Laurence da Silva said the team did a “brilliant job, capping off almost four months planning.”

Laurence says unknowns included the weather and groundwater. Despite two major downpours and the proximity of the sea (150 metres away) this didn’t prove a significant problem.

The picture shows one of the 32.5 tonne concrete units being lowered by a 350 tonne crane with 140 tonne counterweights, before being slid into place with hydraulic jacks.

This is the second of two underpasses on the cycleway built by Fulton Hogan. The other, a smaller version​​, was completed over Labour weekend.