Regional approach
“At a high level within Network Rail I think there is good awareness of the issues,” says William Powrie, Professor of Geotechnical Engineering and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Southampton.
“Getting that message out to the routes to implement it seems to be a challenge. Making sure the resources are available is also a challenge.
“And trying to educate the public is still a challenge - getting people to understand the impact of climate change, but also to understand that it is not an exact science. We are inevitably talking about levels of probability.”
Network Rail has devolved responsibility for managing climate change to its regions. As it plans for the accounting period from 2019 (Control Period 6), each route will bid for a set of interventions to meet its local needs.
“The response and context is different across the country,” explains Mike Gallop, Director of Route Asset Management (Western) for Network Rail.
“There have been some substantial events in the recent past in my area which can be attributed directly to climate change. The challenge we face is around flooding on the Somerset Levels, the coastal flooding around Dawlish, and on the Thames at Oxford.
It is different for London North West, which has the Settle-Carlisle problem where half a hillside is moving. My colleague at London North East has the Peterborough Flats, and my colleague in Anglia has a different set of challenges again.
“On Western we are a special case. In response to the catastrophic events in 2014 the Government effectively gave us £31m to spend on a series of targeted interventions. We now need to build on that. A regional response is rational. It recogises geography, geomorphology and geology, and different climate challenges.”
Gallop says major coastal improvements are required between Exeter and Newton Abbot. On the Somerset Levels the work is about mitigating (but not preventing) flooding of the tracks. At Cowley Bridge (near Exeter) an additional culvert is being built and weirs on the River Exe and River Culm are being removed. And this July a 16-day closure of the line between Didcot and Banbury will enable an £18m project to lift the railway 1.5 metres higher above the flood plain of the Thames, installing two large culverts. This should increase protection from what Gallop describes as a 400 metre-long puddle.
Downstream at Maidenhead, Gallop has already moved signalling equipment clear of occasional trouble. In 2014 high ground water levels severed the Great Western Main Line for several days. Signal cabinets have now been lifted on stilts to stand four metres higher than before.
“What we are doing is buying resilience,” he says. “We are not buying prevention. Between Exeter and Newton Abbot we are looking at resilience for the next 150 years.
“We have employed world-class consultants from HR Wallingford. We have taken advice around the Government’s climate change agenda and we have conformity with how the rest of the UK is planning to ameliorate climate change.”
