Landslips can cause severe disruption to rail services.
That’s why we’re using innovative tech to monitor and prevent landslips – giving you smoother and more reliable journeys.
Disruption and delays
A landslip often happens after long periods of heavy rain when the ground becomes saturated or full of water. This causes soil, rocks and earth to fall onto the track, making it unsafe for trains to travel. In recent years, landslips have caused more than 200,000 minutes of train delays.
Stabilising the ground
Clearing the track after a landslip is usually not enough to repair the railway. The slope is permanently weakened and the chances of landslips re-occurring are much higher.
That’s why we have specialist geotechnical engineers working across Britain to stabilise and reinforce the ground on landslip-weakened or prone sites.
Read about some of our biggest projects doing this.
Better forecasting
We’re also working with our weather partner MetDesk to develop better forecasts that will help us prepare and plan for severe weather.
We currently have five-day forecasts but we’re looking at lengthening these to seven days.
Plus, we’ve introduced precise real time rainfall forecasting that details the risk to the railway every five hundred meters.
An alarm is given to our control team when an alert system detects rainfall above a preset threshold.
Better monitoring
We also use high-definition resilient imaging equipment to monitor the railway from the sky and identify problems like flooding from a distance. Our Air Operations team uses a variety of high-definition lenses to carry out aerial surveys. They then alert our teams on the ground as soon as an issue is spotted, meaning we can quickly arrange for repairs.
We also use tech including CCTV and laser imaging to keep a close eye on our earthworks – especially on sites prone to landslips.
Remote monitoring equipment
We first began trialling ground inclinometers or tilt meters to measure earth movement in Scotland in 2022 before rolling out this tech to the rest of the railway.
The wireless tilt metres are drilled into slopes and are typically spaced two-and-a-half metres apart. They use sensors to detect soil and rock movement. They send an alert via the mobile network to our control room when there’s more than a five-degree tilt.
This helps prepare our train controllers of potential danger, so we can slow trains down before they reach the problem area.
The system also shares a photograph of the area to allow geotechnical engineers to assess it remotely.
The system is powered by solar panels with battery back-up available – making it more sustainable.
We’re constantly trialling new technology so we can better manage the impact of severe weather and keep you and freight moving safely.
