Handsacre & Armitage, Staffordshire – Four Track West Coast Mainline

Type of work: Soil Nailing and facings

Client: Galliford Try

Value: £1.1m

Summary of Albion Works:

  • Installation of soil nails in restricted site. Width 5m
  • Shortened drill masts
  • 2,420 nr soil nails 14,600 m – Working days and nights
  • 3nr 14t excavator drill rigs

Technical Difficulties:

  • Rail environment
  • Short programme

This project involved converting a 2-track railway into a 4-track railway in order to increase the capacity and speed of the West Coast Mainline.  The existing track ran alongside an cutting and in order to widen the track, it was necessary to excavate further into the cutting and stabilise it using soil nails.

We worked with a number of sub-contractors to overcome a variety of environmental challenges.   The project was on a tight schedule and all of the soil nailing work had to be coordinated with train schedules and additional tasks such as laying track, ballasting, excavating and assembling overhead gantries.

Despite the complexity of this soil nailing job, Albion Drilling Group completed on-time.  To achieve this we worked weekends and nights thus ensuring client satisfaction and successful a project completion.