Media centre

Monday 18 Jul 2005

NETWORK RAIL ‘RE-ENGAUGES’ WITH ITS HERITAGE

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The Settle and Carlisle Railway Trust was recently presented with a rain gauge and railway signs from Network Rail to be displayed in the recently refurbished station at Kirkby Stephen. The rain gauge boards became redundant after a major project to inspect and upgrade the embankments, which began in 2000, was completed. Gary Openshaw, General Manager (Preston) said: “The Settle to Carlisle line is an historic and important route on the rail network. We are happy to help the Settle and Carlisle Railway Trust preserve the heritage of this route by making this small contribution.” The line, which was constructed between 1869 and 1876, has historically suffered from earthwork failures because of the high rainfall experienced in northern England and excessively steep slope angles, which have become weathered since their construction. In January 2000, an investigation was carried out along the 72 mile stretch of line to look at the history, distribution and types of earthwork slope failures, which had occurred, and the factors that have contributed to these failures. The result of this investigation was that a number of sites were identified as needing work. The programme was due to start in 2001 but this was delayed because of the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. This caused problems as many of the sites required access over farmland. While works progressed over the following three years, an early warning system was installed so that in periods of heavy rain train speeds could be controlled to enable the line to remain open to passenger and freight traffic. Rain gauge boards marked out certain areas and at each location rain gauge monitors were installed and connected to computers. When precipitation reached a certain level the Earthwork Engineer was notified who then made a decision on whether to invoke a speed restriction. Work has now finished on the entire line and a number of the rain gauge boards have now been removed. The project team celebrated the completion of the project with this presentation.