Thursday 17 Feb 2005

WORK STARTS TO STRENGTHEN RAILWAY CUTTING

Region & Route:
A £1.75m project to strengthen a railway cutting at Preston Brook, six miles south of Warrington on the west coast main line, is underway. Without any disruption to train services, both sides of the cutting north of Preston Brook tunnel will be strengthened using a method called ‘soil nailing’. Trees and undergrowth will be cleared from the slopes of the cutting to allow the soil nails to be ‘inserted’. This involves a specialist machine working along the top of the cutting, reaching down to drill into it to remove a core of earth, which will then be filled with liquid concrete, forming the nail. Each nail is five metres long and they are spaced one and a half metres apart. There will be five rows of nails on both cutting slopes meaning a total of nearly 2,500 being created. Where the top of the nail sticks out of the ground it is capped with a square steel plate. Once all the nails are in position, a steel mesh blanket will be rolled down the sides of the cutting and attached to the plates to prevent any movement or loose material falling onto the railway line below. In time, natural vegetation will grow up through the mesh and disguise it. The project is due to finish in April.

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