European Railroad Discussion > Harbury Landslip

10 days ago there was a landslip on the Chiltern and Cross Country mainline between Leamington and Banbury, just north of Harbury Tunnel, some 75 miles N-NW of London. This is a shot of the cutting as it was back on March 1st 2013

As you can see there was work going on to stabilise the cut back then, improving the drainage but with the rain last year the groundwater has continued to rise and on 31st January approx 350,000 tonnes of earth slipped towards the track.

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/HarburyLandslip/

Last year the damage to the railway along the South Devon coast made news around the world, this which is potentially of much greater impact, to both passengers and freight, has received significantly less publicity. The slip has yet to stabilise, Network Rail are not anticipating starting any substantive work until next week and restoration of through service looks to be months away. In the meantime passengers are being bussed from Banbury to Leamington whilst freight is being diverted via a number of alternative routes, mainly the West Coast Mainline but also, rather improbably, the East Coast Mainline (intermodal trains too and from Leeds in West Yorkshire) and the Cotswold Line between Oxford and Worcester (still replete with semaphores).



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/15 03:18 by 86235.

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And I thought you Europeans were better at everything rail-related! Not so! Us American railroads can fix a landslip (or landslide, as we call them here) in 24 hours!

Tor in Eugene

Torisgod Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And I thought you Europeans were better at
> everything rail-related! Not so! Us American
> railroads can fix a landslip (or landslide, as we
> call them here) in 24 hours!
>
> Tor in Eugene


What they are doing is a long-term solution ... not a quick cleanup!
Look at the info in the link, including some of the photos and you will see the scope of working being done.
As an aside, some might consider your comment to be a bit arrogant.

Will MacKenzie
Dundas, ON

Torisgod Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And I thought you Europeans were better at
> everything rail-related! Not so! Us American
> railroads can fix a landslip (or landslide, as we
> call them here) in 24 hours!
>
> Tor in Eugene

I think the point is that it's not stabilsed, it is still moving. And as NR will tell you it is a long term problem which defies a quick fix.

And eventually there will be over 300,000 tons of material to be removed.
Keith G, London, UK

Looking at the ariel photos, it looks like after the grading and drainage put in, I would plant a lot of trees to help keep the soil from moving. Also, is this the tailings of the original cut sitting there, or has a slide profile of the ground been done, i.e. is it a ancient slide area?

It's a long standing problem going back to the opening of the line. There are some archive photos on line from before 1900 which show work on widening the cut to avoid slippage. Planting trees won't go down well with the operators, Network Rail has embarked on an ambitious undergrowth control programme to reduce autumnal wheelslip problems. Improving and then maintaining drainage will probably be the outcome after they've removed the dirt.

The last thing we need is more trees :-(

Torisgod Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And I thought you Europeans were better at
> everything rail-related! Not so! Us American
> railroads can fix a landslip (or landslide, as we
> call them here) in 24 hours!
>
> Tor in Eugene


Yeah just ask the passengers on BNSF north of Seattle about that. Or anyone who drives the coast highway north of LA. Or storm King Highway, on and on...

march_hare Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Torisgod Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > And I thought you Europeans were better at
> > everything rail-related! Not so! Us American
> > railroads can fix a landslip (or landslide, as
> we
> > call them here) in 24 hours!
> >
> > Tor in Eugene
>
>
> Yeah just ask the passengers on BNSF north of
> Seattle about that. Or anyone who drives the coast
> highway north of LA. Or storm King Highway, on and
> on...

That's exactly what I had in mind. BNSF Scenic Sub. They can fix a landslide there VERY quickly, it seems. But I'm sorry if my comment was a bit arrogant, and it does look like quite a massive landslide in Harbury, comparable to that one that bombed the Union Pacific Cascade Route way back in 2008 and shut down service for months. I'm sorry, it didn't appear too tremendous from the pictures, so I wondered why it would take so long. Probably because they need to stop it gelatinously moving!

Tor in Eugene

Closer to Eugene is the huge slide at Fields (Fraiser?) a few years ago on the former SP Pengra Pass line over the Cascades.
After 24 hours there it was still moving, and continued to move for many weeks, chasing construction crews and equipment out of the work zone more than once.
Without UP's deep pockets that might have closed the line completely.
In all these situations we have to remember that "mother nature" doesn't really care what we want to do, natural forces trump all.

railstiesballast Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In all these situations we have to remember that
> "mother nature" doesn't really care what we want
> to do, natural forces trump all.

That's true.

Torisgod Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And I thought you Europeans were better at
> everything rail-related! Not so! Us American
> railroads can fix a landslip (or landslide, as we
> call them here) in 24 hours!
>
> Tor in Eugene

Can you say, "Thistle, Utah"?

"Can you say, "Thistle, Utah""

Can you whistle in Thistle?

Posted from iPhone

This serious obstruction has created considerable discussion in the UK national press. It would seem that the landslip did not arise from surface soil instability of the kind that could have possibly been prevented by more vegetation on the cutting side. Apparently it was caused by serious rise on the level of the water table (climate change?) which has required some much more fundamental civil engineering work on drainage etc. While certainly not wishing to defend Network Rail, I am not sure whether a facile comparison with the US is fair.

The good news is that the line re-opens tomorrow tonight for freight, but overnight only, and for all traffic on Friday 13th, which I hope isn't an omen. Given that Easter was mentioned as the reopening date this represents a considerable achievement. although i suspect NR were always working to a pre-Easter date. Helps them recover from last Christmas and the debacles at King's Cross and Paddington, nothing like a good news story.

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/News-Releases/Railway-between-Leamington-Spa-and-Banbury-to-reopen-three-weeks-ahead-of-schedule-22ae.aspx