Glos Warks Landslip

Anyone know how the repair work is progressing at Cheltenham?

John

 

The last I heard a couple of weeks ago was the repairs were going well and on target to be finished at the end of Feb / beginning of March in time for the race trains. Hopefully though all the snow in the last few weeks hasn't caused this to 'slip' [-o<

 

I see there has been another landslip on the Honeybourne line with services terminating at Gotherington.
I have no idea how bad it is, although from the write up it seems to not be affecting the track.
All a bit worrying with the GWR 175 Gala only 5 weeks away.
http://www.gwsr.com/news/latest-new...s-continue-despite-gotherington-landslip.aspx

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Regards, Bill.

www.youtube.com/steamvideo

 

Odd that it should happen now, when there's been no rain in these parts for 2 weeks and everything is bone dry.

 

Ground has dried and shrunk and a large bit has therefore separated from the rest and moved? Just a suggestion I'm no geologist!

 

I read somewhere--cannot recall where--that this embankment problem might be due to the underlying geological formation, hence the reason a number of bore holes are being drilled to find out exactly what is underneath.
Quite why the land can remain stable for a hundred years and then move is something only an expert might be able to explain, or not as the case maybe.
I guess the best the Glos-Warks can hope for is that the underlying ground is stable, and the movement problem is limited to the embankment itself. Even so, digging out a section and rebuilding will be expensive, as the SVR well knows.

46118

 

See the GWR web page for more information. Parts of the Honeybourne Line run over clay which may, or may not be a cause of this problem. It has been very dry for the past month and clay will shrink.

 

I remember seeing a vast amount of holes in the embankment between Cheltenham and Bishop's Cleeve at the Festival of Steam two years ago. It seems the southern portion of the line is rather prone to these land slips, which I believe was one of the reasons for dismantling platform two at Cheltenham Racecourse.