Media centre

Thursday 2 Mar 2017

Aerial footage shows extent of damage on approach to Liverpool Lime Street

Region & Route:

| North West & Central

Aerial footage released today (2 March) shows the extent of the damage to the wall on the approach to Liverpool Lime Street station.

The wall between Edge Hill and Lime Street collapsed at around 5.45pm on Tuesday afternoon (28 February) dropping nearly 200 tonnes of rubble onto the line below, causing extensive damage to the overhead power cables.

A Network Rail helicopter, which is used to monitor and maintain the railway across Britain, was used this week to capture the footage as part of the repair plan.

A spokesperson for Network Rail said: “The orange army is working round-the-clock to get train services back up and running. The work to repair this damage is set to take several days and this unique footage shows the extent of the damage and the challenge we face.

“Our activities are in three steps: firstly, making the location safe, which we’re doing now. This will allow us to start step two, safely accessing the tracks below to clear the debris, before step three, repairing the damaged railway.

“Overnight we removed 60 tonnes of soil and five large containers, each holding many tonnes of material, from the top of the cutting to prevent further slips.

“Today we’re removing a 10 inch-thick concrete slab. Only once this is removed can we start stabilising the retaining wall in the 10 metre-high cutting.

“Train customers are advised to check before they travel at nationalrail.co.uk, and with train operators, for the latest information.” 

Additional info:

• Train customers can get the latest travel updates here: http://bit.ly/2mrzIum