Railway Culvert Repairs

The works were required after the railway company completed a structural report and found issues with the brickwork.

Sisk Rail were the principal contractor on site and possessed the necessary permits to allow the Stonbury team to work under the live railway line, and as with each project a careful risk assessment and method statement was produced to ensure the continued safety of the workers and the line.

Before works to repair the culvert began, the team cleared the existing vegetation from around the site and installed an access track of approximately 350 metres to transport machinery to the culvert without causing damage to the landowner’s field.

To dewater the working area, a temporary sandbag dam was installed to just above water level. Using a two-inch pump, and the area under the structure was then drained. There was a 300mm twin wall land drainage pipe entering our working area, so we redirected this to the other side of the dam.

Once the structure was accessible, the team jet-washed the brickwork clean so that a thorough inspection could take place. During this inspection they identified several hollow bricks and crack lines not previously recorded on the initial survey.

All hollow bricks were removed and replaced, and crack lines were grinded and repaired with crack stitching. About a 20 metres squared area of crack stitching was completed and around 500 bricks were replaced.

All planned repairs plus the additional works were completed within the scheduled programme and the client provided very positive feedback on the work completed.