Residents in Warwickshire have been invited to find out more about a major piece of work to protect the Chiltern main line from landslips.

The £9m investment is located near Harbury, and is between Leamington Spa and Banbury, it will stabilise half a mile of railway along the busy route.

Network Rail‘s vital work – on the south side of the Harbury Tunnel – will mean that passengers of both Chiltern Railways and CrossCountry will continue to benefit from a safe and also a reliable service on the line that runs between London and the West Midlands.

This vital work will take up to a year in order to complete however there will be no disruption to passengers using the lines during the work and  the train services will continue to run as they do normally.

The cutting, at the rear of Churchlands Business Park, will be made to be less steep and it  will be pinned using large nails and piles in order to make it more stable than it currently is. A new retaining wall will also be being built at the bottom of the slope, this will help prevent the soil moving.

The work is the latest to be done in the area in order to stabilise railway embankments following emergency repairs to a 300,000 tonne landslip on the north side of the Harbury Tunnel which closed the railway for an eight week period in early 2015.

The public information event will take place between 4pm and 6.30pm on Wednesday the  27th of November at Harbury Village Library, High Street, Harbury, CV33 9HW. Network Rail will be on hand to answer questions and provide more information to local people.

This large-scale project will be delivered in two different phases. The first phase involves building a temporary access road for users of the Harbury Business Park to use.

The second part involves the use of the existing road in order to carry out the earthwork repairs. The original access road will then be returned to the Business Park once the work has been completed.

What did the officials say?

Luke Swain, senior asset engineer at Network Rail, said:

“This £9 million investment and strengthening scheme by Harbury Tunnel will help keep the Chiltern main line through the area safe and reliable for passengers and freight for decades to come.

“We want to be a good neighbour and are keen to discuss with local people what the work is, why it is essential and how we will deliver it.”

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