Cambrian line flood protection completed
A MULTI-million pound project to provide resilience on the Cambrian Line between Welshpool and Newtown has been finished.
In February this year, three separate storms flooded and washed away parts of this key line, severing all services. Teams of engineers from Network Rail and AmcoGiffen worked around the clock to fix more than a dozen washouts caused by unprecedented levels of flood water.
Aware that the line was at risk to extreme weather, Network Rail got to work installing 10,000 tonnes of rock armour along a half-mile stretch of line.
The rock armour was a tried and tested weather buffer which had been proved to reduce flooding on the Conwy Valley line and also near Abergavenny.
During the resilience work, the railway remained open and involved the installation of stone from Cefn Mawr quarry in Flintshire. This autumn, the plan is to plant short hedgerows in the gaps along the railway boundary, which not only help in slowing flood waters in future, but also provide a continuation to nature’s corridors in the area.