Media centre

Tuesday 1 Nov 2016

Network Rail thanks communities in Northumberland as landslip rebuild is completed

Region & Route:

| Eastern

Network Rail has thanked the community of Hexham after a 10-month project to rebuild an embankment following a huge landslip last winter.

A section of hillside near Farnley Haugh on the West Line between Carlisle and Newcastle came spilling onto the track, stopping trains running between 7 January and 8 February, following the wettest month ever recorded at the end of 2015.

A huge clearance job saw the track cleared and repaired to allow services to resume, before significant work took place to stabilise the embankment, with over 50,000 tonnes of soil removed.

A new drainage system has been installed through the embankment to allow water to run beneath the tracks, while thousands of tonnes of Northumberland-sourced stone has been used to stabilise the embankment. As an additional measure, a gully has been fitted at the top of the hill to catch water running off nearby fields.

This week Network Rail and contractor CML have been putting the finishing touches to the site before clearing away the project compound which has stood on the site for 10-months.

Rob McIntosh, route managing director for Network Rail, said: “It’s with great sincerity that I thank the community of Farnley Haugh and surrounding towns and villages for their patience while our teams carried out what was a significant repair job on the embankment. We do as much as we can to prevent incidents like this happening, even in extreme weather like last winter, and I am confident that the extensive work we have carried out will help avoid another landslip in this area in the future.”