One of the country’s busiest rail routes has been largely shut down because of a potential landslip, compounded by the partial collapse of a bridge.
Passengers between Basingstoke and Woking on South Western Railway were being urged to travel only if absolutely essential.
It is the second time this year that this section of the South Western Main Line has been affected by a major infrastructure failure. In February, an embankment near Hook failed, closing the line for several days and disrupting tens of thousands of passengers every day for two weeks.
In this latest incident, sensors monitoring the side of a steep cutting south of Woking station, next to St John’s Hill Road bridge, detected movement at a known weak point. That quickly became cracks 45 metres long, half a metre wide, and a metre deep.
A speed restriction of 20mph was imposed on all services from November 30, so that drivers could stop if the cutting wall slipped further.
Although the landslip had not quite happened, the ground was visibly on the point of collapse. A private house stands immediately above the landslip.
Network Rail is inserting 170 ten-metre-deep steel piles to stabilise the cutting side. Each pile takes about an hour to drive into the ground.
Site work started on Monday December 4 (below left). The major piling was scheduled for December 6 (as this issue of RAIL went to press) and December 8-10.
The work has been timed to coincide with a strike and overtime ban by drivers in the ASLEF union, when widespread disruption to services was already expected.
Two of the four tracks are being closed. The route normally has 16 trains an hour in each direction. During the piling it is being reduced to three trains an hour, with hand signalling at low speed through the work.
The partial closure coincides with a
