Thursday 19 Jan 2023
Engineers begin repairs to 10-metre Lingfield landslip, which closed the railway between Hurst Green and East Grinstead, Surrey
- Region & Route:
- Southern: Sussex
- | Southern
Network Rail engineers and suppliers are on site and working to repair a landslip that closed the railway between East Grinstead and Hurst Green in Surrey, on Tuesday.
The line had to be blocked after a 10-metre stretch of a 7-metre- high embankment slipped away from the railway, around half a mile towards London from Lingfield station*. In addition, cracks spread six metres on either side of the slip site, leading to fears it could get worse if action wasn’t taken immediately
Colleagues from Network Rail and BAM Nuttall are already on site and working to allow trains to run again as soon as possible. The aim is to return the railway to operation by the middle of next week, if not earlier.
Network Rail’s route director for Sussex, Lucy McAuliffe, said: “I’m so sorry for this disruption to passengers, on top of so much disruption over the past months. My team is working round the clock to get this landslip fixed as soon as possible and our neighbours will see we have already got a team and equipment on site today (Thursday).
“We will be using Lingfield station as the base for the repair operation, along with the site itself in fields to the north of the village, so I’d like to apologise in advance to people who live nearby as you will see a great deal of action in the next week, with lots of people and machinery arriving to repair the damage.
“This railway through Lingfield was built in 1884, out of local Wealden clay, which is notoriously unsuitable for building railways on. Unfortunately, they didn’t know that then, and our passengers are suffering the consequences.
“In terms of timescales, we're aiming for the middle of next week and we will do what we can to get it open sooner.”
Jenny Saunders, customer services director for Southern and Thameslink, said: “We’re very sorry that the current severe weather has caused this serious landslip, preventing us from running trains for several days. We’re grateful for the expertise of Network Rail and their contractors, who have acted quickly to strengthen the embankment, and to our passengers for bearing with the considerable inconvenience while the line is being made safe again.
“We’ve arranged ticket acceptance on other Southern and Thameslink services – East Grinstead car park passes will be valid at Oxted and Haywards Heath stations to help commuters use those – and also on Southeastern services from Tunbridge Wells, and local buses.”
The embankment is built of Wealden Clay, a material that lies underneath most of the landslips that take place in Network Rail’s Southern region, including the major slip that took place at Cookspond, near East Grinstead, in 2020. Clay absorbs water, rather than draining, which makes it vulnerable to prolonged very wet weather and freezing conditions.
Repairs to this site will see a wall of sheet piles (flat steel beams) driven deep into the ground at the top of the slip site to stop it moving further and support the railway properly. Once the emergency repair is complete next week, work will begin on the longer-term fix for the site.
* The location is where the railway forms a triangle between Haxted Road and Bowerland Lane.
Notes to Editors
On services:
For customers on the route, alternative arrangements are as follows:
- Ticket acceptance on any alternative Southern route and on Thameslink services between Haywards Heath and London.
- Metrobus services between East Grinstead and Three Bridges.
- Southdown PSV Buses between East Grinstead and Oxted, and Oxted and Redhill.
- East Grinstead car park tickets are accepted at Haywards Heath and Three Bridges station.
On landslips:
- In the Southern region, we’ve suffered more than 200 earthworks failures in the past three years alone, and 25 of those have resulted in big line closures that have disrupted passengers. They’re becoming more and more frequent due to climate change. The Met Office says the UK has suffered 7 of its 10 wettest years on record since 1998, and more rain means more landslips…
- The Southern Region looks after earthworks that if joined together would stretch all the way from Lands End to John O Groats. We have a £500 million pound five-year budget to look after those earthworks. To rebuild or strengthen all of our earthworks would cost billions of pounds and close stretches of railway for very long periods. So we focus on examinations so we know where to repair and mitigate, carry out regular drainage inspections and maintenance so the water can flow away and reduce the risk of landslips, and in some locations install electronic devices into the ground (remote condition monitoring) which monitor movement and send alerts if there is a landslip so we can close the line and keep passenger safe.
- We can regrade cuttings to make them less steep and more stable, but if we can’t do that in some locations we can build retaining walls or rock netting to stop mud falling onto the tracks. For embankments, we also regrade slopes or build walls at the bottom to keep them stable.
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