Work started this month on repairing the collapsed embankment, known as ‘Chicken Curve’ just north of Winchcombe on the volunteer-run Gloucester and Warwickshire Steam Railway.
The embankment collapsed in January 2011 and severed the railway in two. Since the collapse started the embankment has continued to move.
The £670,000 project involves stabilising the embankment. The company needs another £170,000 to complete the work and re-connect the separated parts of the railway.
The work will involve digging out a substantial part of the failed earthworks and rebuilding with new material.
Other parts of the embankment will be stabilised using high-tech solutions such as ‘soil nails’ which extend through the embankment into the ground beneath, holding the embankment in place. The project also includes substantial drainage works.
It would be interesting to have a cost comparison between a similar project done by Network Rail and this one. One suspects that here and on the Severn Valley Railway where reinstatement of several slips cost a mere £3M , that the equivalent NR cost would have run into millions more!