Network Rail is making the final preparations for the installation of an 11,000-tonne pre-constructed concrete tunnel on the East Coast Main Line.
Built on-site over the past nine months, the 155m concrete box will be slid under existing rail infrastructure at Werrington, north of Peterborough, where the East Coast Main Line is crossed by a slow-moving east-west freight route. The tunnel will take slower freight trains off the fast route, speeding up services and improving reliability. Work will take place over nine days between 16 and 24 January, avoiding more than a month of passenger disruption if traditional tunnelling methods had been used.
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“This is a massive engineering challenge, but it will avoid hundreds of hours of closure on one of the most important lines in the country,” said Paul Rutter, route director for Network Rail’s East Coast Line.
“This is industry leading work that really puts the needs of passengers first in how we approach improvement work. In the past, Network Rail might have approached this problem by thinking about the easiest way to do the engineering. Instead, I’m proud to say we have come up with a creative and innovative solution that will deliver massive benefits while keeping disruption to a minimum.”
The tunnel, which weighs more than the Eiffel Tower, will be inched into position using massive jacks that will push it at just 1.5m per hour along pre-installed guiding supports. While the line will be kept open during the work, it will mean a very limited number of services will run south of Grantham throughout the operation. Passengers who must travel are asked to plan ahead and think about whether journeys are necessary while the installation is underway.
“Passengers should only travel south of Grantham during these nine days if they have to,” said a spokesperson on behalf of the line’s train operators. “We strongly advise people to check before they travel and allow plenty of time as journeys will take longer.”
Do we know how the thousands of tonnes of sand, cement and aggregate were delivered to site? I’d like to think rail …
The remark about putting passenger priorities first overlooks the real needs for rail freight and suggests this sector of the business is generally afforded lower priorities. Given current low numbers of passenger trains freight has demonstrated it can perform well when not relegated to a lower priority position.
Several years ago on US Interstate-44 at the Gasconade River in Missouri, a complete new bridge deck was built for the eastbound lanes. It was then slid into position in the matter of a few hours. I don’t know how much it weighed, but they emptied the stores in nearby Lebanon of all the Dawn dishwashing soap to lubricate the movement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSz9Int_xvI
Since they don’t even supply train components or even whole locomotives and trains by rail, I would be astonished if they delivered materials to this project by rail. Travel up or down the A1 with any reasonable frequency and you will see HGV’s carrying Wheels, Bogies, engines and whole vehicles on a daily basis;-)
Hilarious. Reminds me of the 2001 film “Evolution” and the novel use they discovered for “Head & Shoulders” shampoo
This was done on the Liverpool Street to Norwich line at Romford when they built the Romford ring road in the early Eighties.
20+ year’s ago the same thing happened in Thurrock, with a pre-built tunnel pushed under the Grays – Upminster line (Chafford Hundred Station on c2c)
What are the jack’s pushing against?
It is incorrect to state that the north/south ECML is crossed by a slow moving east/west freight route The freight traffic is at Werrington also north/south, but needs to diverge to another route to free up capacity on the ECML which is constrained by the existing junction layout. The freight route is not and never has been east/west.
Jill !!
I understand that the tunnel was built on a concrete base which had precast holes in which align with spigots on the underside of the steel (moveable)reaction boxes which the rams push against. Each ram extends 2.7m then a 2.7m spacer is fitted at the end of the ram. Once the assembly has moved 5.4m, the reaction blocks are repositioned, and the cycle ran again.