Extreme weather across the UK resulted in a landslip on a section of a railway line running from London to Basingstoke. The heavy rain washed away a section of land leaving a stretch of track hanging in mid-air, resulting in two of the four tracks becoming impassable. This emergency repair work needed swift action, so when we were called by Universal Piling and Construction Ltd to assist, we jumped to it. As this required a quick turnaround and we didn’t have all the equipment available in our yard, we called on our valued customer InterDrive Piling to help us bring in this project in a timely manner. The plan was to construct a 60-metre retaining wall, made of nearly one hundred 12-metre long sheet piles, driven into the ground to stabilise the embankment and to protect the railway line from any future landslips. However, the remote location required a 580-metre-long temporary access road to be built across fields to get the machinery, workers and materials to the site of the landslip. Once the access road was built, Watson & Hillhouse arranged for their JCB excavator and Movax DH-25 drop hammer to be delivered to site with a skilled operator meeting the equipment there. The operator was able to commission the equipment quickly to get started on the project promptly. The emergency repair work consisted of installing piles on the railway line to the Northeast of Hook station in Hampshire. Our skilled operators worked day and night to get this project finished on schedule, so that the railway line could be reopened at the soonest opportunity.
Pictured here is our JCB excavator with a Movax DH-25 drop hammer.