WaveWalker wades into Dawlish for sea wall repairs

News

This week’s video comes from Dawlish in Devon where a WaveWalker is helping Network Rail and BAM Nuttall build a new section of sea wall. 

Construction of the £80m upgrade, which began on November 10, 2020, will take around two years to complete and will add further resilience to a section of railway that was devastated by a storm in 2014. The first section of the new Dawlish sea wall was formally opened in September, 2020.

Achilles project aims for added infrastructure resilience

According to Network Rail, the section from Dawlish station to the Coastguard breakwater east of the station is expected to be completed in late 2021, whilst the section between the station and the Colonnade breakwater, which will link up the new wall at Marine Parade, will start to be built shortly after.

A major aspect of this work involves the use of a WaveWalker, which is an eight-legged, self-contained walking jack-up barge. The WaveWalker is only one of its kind in Europeand it will be the first time this type of barge has been used to maintain the UK rail network.

Register now to continue reading

Thanks for visiting The Engineer. You’ve now reached your monthly limit of news stories. Register for free to unlock unlimited access to all of our news coverage, as well as premium content including opinion, in-depth features and special reports.  

Benefits of registering

  • In-depth insights and coverage of key emerging trends

  • Unrestricted access to special reports throughout the year

  • Daily technology news delivered straight to your inbox

Register
Or continue by

Signing in with your registered email address