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Friday 14 Dec 2012

Hobbits dressed in orange?

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Hobbit author JRR Tolkien is known to have stayed in the village of Great Haywood, on the edge of the Shugborough estate near Stafford. Could Shugborough railway tunnel have been the inspiration for his words "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."?

There won’t be any hobbits or dwarves deep inside the tunnel this Christmas – but there will be dozens of Network Rail engineers and contractors in their full orange protective clothing.

From late on Christmas Eve to the early hours of 2 January they will be completely renewing all the railway tracks through the tunnel at a cost of about £3m.

The work is needed to realign the tracks, which naturally move as trains pass over them. The movement is minute but builds up over a period of time until it becomes necessary to take the tracks up and put them back in their correct position.

This is particularly important in a tunnel like Shugborough, which is on the extremely busy west coast main line between Rugeley and Stafford. As well as passenger services, the tunnel is used by freight trains carrying box shaped containers which are a tight fit through the arch-shaped tunnel.

When the old tracks have been taken away, Network Rail will completely renew the drainage through the tunnel before the new tracks are laid.

The old tracks and the sleepers they are fixed to will not be scrapped. They will be reused elsewhere by Network Rail as part of its commitment to the environment. While not suitable for use on a high speed line, they are perfectly good enough on lines with a lower speed, so will be reused in its routine 2013/14 track renewals programme.

While the work is taking place, the railway line between Lichfield Trent Valley, Rugeley Trent Valley and Stafford stations will be closed from 9 pm on Christmas Eve until 7.30 am on Wednesday, 2 January.

Train services will be diverted where possible or replaced by road transport so passengers are advised to check travel plans with their train operator or online at www.nationalrail.co.uk