Spa Valley Railway - Landslip

On Friday afternoon 9th November the Spa Valley Railway suffered an embankment slip close to Tunbridge Wells West. This followed a period of sustained heavy rain. The slip area covers over one hundred feet and will require substantial repair works before any trains can operate over the adjacent former up line. The railway is currently blocked to all movements, although was actually scheduled to be closed to the public until 1st December anyway.
The railway is appealing for donations towards the costs of repairing the damaged section of embankment to allow restoration of normal services as soon as possible.

 

That's not good news Jon, how bad is the slip has the track moved? is the ground still moving? Is their any chance of being about to run services on the 1st of December?

I wish you the best of luck in your efforts to repair the slip

 

Having been the one who discovered the slip, its pretty bad and at the top of the embankment so there is not much between it and the track. Apparently it got worse over the course of the weekend.

Matt

 

Let's hope that this doesn't interfere with the Santa trains.

 

An update is now on the railway website Spa Valley Railway - Latest News. In addition to the appeal for donations, an extra Fish and Chip supper train has been added between Christmas and New Year with all profits to the embankment rebuilding campaign.
Works have started this week on the temporary track slew to allow Santa trains to operate using the former down line from 1st December. Theres a lot to do in the next couple of weeks, but we believe its achievable. Meanwhile quotes are being sought for the permanent repairs.

 

Please see working member Stuart Pay's Flickr site for photos of the landslip and the work underway by our P-Way team to slew the line accross allowing our ever popular Santa Specials to operate.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75f

Jonnie

 

Not good news, but having a double-track formation and being able to slew the track was a saving grace - at least in terms of avoiding total closure for the duration.

 

The railway's Pway gang successfully rejoined the mainline (via the slew) late on Sunday afternoon. This was followed by a test train using the Class 12. All that remains is to ballast up the new formation this Wednesday.

Work will then return to what was supposed to be November's shutdown job, extending the headshunt at Tunbridge Wells, which needs all the blockwork etc completing to allow the public circulation area to be restored. Once this is done, work will then turn to repairing the slip!

Matt