Story Contracting were tasked with emergency works on the West Coast Mainline following a failure in the rock cutting between 32m 1430yds to 33m 0110yds.
Loups Fell rock cutting is located near Tebay on the West Coast Mainline. The remit encompasses the rock and soil slopes on both the Up and Down lines.
On the 22nd December 2014 a rockfall in the cess resulted in a train striking the debris at 110mph with the leading bogie.
The rockfall was caused by the partial failure of a composite wedge within a anticline feature. Emergency scaling works where undertaken on the source of the rockfall.
The engineering works undertaken involves:
The project team were able to utilise four existing disruptive possessions of the railway for structure and track works to provide a more efficient delivery and allow the engineering train movements for other schemes in the area. The main focus of the four weekends was to install all the rock anchors and dowels which had to be installed using road rail vehicles. This resulted in greater productivity as the machines did not have to be moved on and off the track between shifts.
All of the de-vegetation was carried out during these weekends, before the spray concrete and installation of the rock fall netting were completed in the follow up Saturday night possession with the netting prepared and top anchors installed during midweek day shift working.
The use of advance light scaling works and the LiDAR laser surveys allowed detailed inspection to be carried out.
This assisted in developing a robust design prior to the de-veg and scaling works being carried out, reducing design changes on site.
Network Rail
The project involved regrading approximately 280 metres of the embankment to enhance structural stability and improve rail safety.