A deteriorating rock face is not the sort of thing you want next to your railway. The wrong kind of boulders on the line is no laughing matter. So, for the past week, a remedial operation has been underway to stabilise a rock face on the Edinburgh – Glasgow main line. The partners in the operation, Scotland’s Railway and Network Rail, have reported complete success.
To get trains running normally again, engineers worked around the clock for four days to make the Ratho rock face safe to pass. Specialist teams removed over 200 tonnes of material from the 100 metre-long, 10-metre-high outcrop, overhanging the railway to the west of Edinburgh.
Money well spent on small project with big reward
Just west of Edinburgh, the small town of Ratho hasn’t been a stop on the main line for decades. It has, however, brought the railway in Central Scotland to a halt for the best part of a week. The tracks through Ratho are essentially plain tracks. However, they lead on to the junction that carries the busiest route between Edinburgh and Glasgow (via Falkirk). They also lead to the second busiest line between the two cities (via Bathgate). In other words, extremely busy tracks.
For good measure, the line also carries mixed traffic to Stirling, Perth and the Highlands, as well as some freight for the Port of Grangemouth, and the intermodal terminals at Coatbridge and Mossend. Suffice to say, the one million pound rockfall prevention project (about 1.16 million euros) was money well spent.
The irony that Ratho Station lacks a station
Engineers have installed specialist netting and over 160, 3m-long metal rock anchors on the site above the railway to reduce the potential of stones falling during freezing temperatures this winter – or any other winter for that matter. “This project could not have been delivered without a short closure of the line”, said Liam Sumpter, route director for Scotland’s Railway. “We’ve completed it as quickly as possible to get our customers back on the move.”
This may not have been a project on the scale of the Gotthard Base or the Frejus Tunnel, but this rock face project has impacted multiple passenger and freight operators and services from as far apart as Inverness and Felixstowe. Ironically, Ratho is also the home of the Edinburgh International Climbing Arena. A neighbouring community grew up directly as a result of the railway. It appears on maps as Ratho Station and is often mistaken for the older community of Ratho. Despite being on the main line and so named, there is no station in the village.