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| SURVEYING AND GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING
Striking a balance at Bearsted BAM Ritchies offers collaborative, digital, integrated, value driven ground and geotechnical engineering
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AM Ritchies is the ground engineering division of BAM Nuttall. We provide fully integrated services for a wide range of customers – both public and private sector, from small local projects to national infrastructure projects. Over 60 years, we’ve built a reputation as the go-to ground engineering team for complex problem solving and best-value, sustainable delivery – with no surprises. Whether we’re stabilising earthworks or drilling rock, we use industry-leading digital construction methods to build it before we build it. So, you’ll know exactly what to expect from your project, and we’ll get it right first time. Real value in earthworks solutions comes from combining cross-sector experience and inhouse geotechnical engineering expertise. This enables BAM Ritchies to challenge standard design, finding innovative solutions to address complexity and project risk presented by issues such as ground conditions, access, and land footprint. Our expertise also facilitates collaboration with designers and stakeholders to add value, for example by developing better sustainable solutions for maintenance. In the past decade, there have been several incidences of unplanned disruption for passengers as engineers have scrambled to the Bearsted cutting site for urgent fixes of weather-related movements. New Year’s Day 2021 was the most recent landslip due to heavy rain in the area. The most serious of which was when
a train hit a boulder on the track. A rockfall even took place while the work was ongoing, highlighting the importance of the project. The greatest challenge has been the logistical planning as we needed to have so much plant and equipment on track. We have needed to work to incredibly short time frames and deadlines. We developed digital rehearsals of the works so that we could precisely plan and predict how the blockade would unfold.
Normally a blockade like this would take a couple of years to plan but we only had five months, so that gives an idea of the planning and organisation undertaken to make sure that these works were completed safely and on time. The proximity of the slopes to the railway in Bearsted means that the line is extremely narrow, which meant that a full blockade possession was required to ensure the safety of all workers on the track. With Bearsted Digital rehearsal
a large amount of equipment required to carry out the work, the line closure was also required to provide enough time to complete the drilling. Closing the rail line for nine days in a row means there is less disruption than completing the work over a higher number of weekends. The closures have been carefully planned for the summer school holidays, when passenger numbers are traditionally lower. What the work involved In total, this blockade project delivered over £10 million of improvements. The railway line was closed between Maidstone East-Ashford from Saturday 7 to Sunday 15 August 2021 and the work was completed as planned. After nine days of solid work at Bearsted cutting and on other sites along the line, Network Rail handed back the railway to passenger services first thing on the morning of Monday 16 August 2021.
Bearsted Facts & Figures Rail Professional
