Media centre

Monday 17 Nov 2025

VIDEO: Hereford-Newport line set to reopen just 60 hours after Storm Claudia damage, thanks to rapid round-the-clock repairs and resilience investment

Region & Route:

Wales & Western: Wales & Borders

The Marches Line between Hereford and Newport will reopen to passenger and freight services on Tuesday 18 November after repairs following an isolated track wash out near Abergavenny.

Teams from Network Rail Wales and Borders have worked intensively, day and night, to safely reinstate the railway and reopen this vital passenger and freight corridor, after the biggest flooding event ever recorded in this area.

Floodwater completely washed away the ballast – the stones that support the track – near a level crossing at Pandy, on the Marches Line, leaving a two-metre void and the rails suspended.

Despite significant local road flooding, engineers managed to quickly transport specialist equipment and materials to the site to undertake the repairs, including:

• 600 tonnes of ballast, moved by 30 articulated lorries
• 4 rail-road cranes
• 2 tamping machines
• Over 100 staff working across multiple shifts

Thanks to a resilience investment completed in 2021 – where 8,000 tonnes of rock armour was installed along this vulnerable section of line – the wider route avoided far more severe damage. Historically, an incident like this could have closed the line for three to four weeks. This time, it has been repaired in under three days.

While several eight-tonne rock armour boulders were shifted by the sheer force of the floodwater, the £4m project, four years ago, significantly limited the impact of the storm and prevented damage spreading hundreds of metres along the railway.

In 2019, an unnamed storm dropped 80mm of rain and caused 15 washout sites on this line. In comparison, Storm Claudia dropped 120mm – but the rock armour meant the line suffered just one washout, at a level crossing, where it couldn’t be installed.

“Our teams have worked methodically and safely to fix the damage caused by the flooding near Pandy level crossing in just 60 hours”, said Nick Millington, Route Director for Network Rail Wales and Borders.

“Before our resilience work and the rock armour being placed, this would have taken potentially four weeks to complete.

“We’ve used 600 tonnes of ballast and around 100 people in this recovery operation.

“A number of our people weren’t rostered to work this weekend but came in voluntarily to help, and I’m proud of their efforts and what we’ve managed to achieve.

“I would like to thank our passengers and freight customers for their patience during this time.”

Marie Daly, Chief Operating Officer at TfW said: "We're pleased to confirm the railway line between Hereford and Newport has re-opened with services resuming on Tuesday morning, 18th November. 

"We appreciate our customers' patience while we worked with Network Rail to reopen the affected line. 

"We strongly advise all fans heading to Cardiff for the World Cup qualifier to check their journey details before travelling, as services are expected to be exceptionally busy while we work to get our trains back into their normal scheduled locations."