Werrington Grade Separation

Project Facts:

Customer: Network Rail
Client: Morgan Sindall Construction & Infrastructure
Location: Peterborough, Cambridgeshire
Value: £160m
Completion: 2021

Due to slower freight trains having to cross the high-speed East Coast Main Line (ECML) at Werrington Junction, the Werrington Grade Separation project increased capacity in the area north of Peterborough station, which was identified as a bottleneck in Network Rail’s Line of Route Capacity Report (2012).

The construction of a new “dive-under” track (where one set of tracks tunnels beneath another) provided an alternative route for freight trains, allowing them to avoid crossing the ECML, and Danny Sullivan Group is proud to have supplied labour on the project.

The project’s scope included a 160-meter curved jacked dive-under beneath the ECML, twin-bore tunnelling, culvert and river diversions, new footbridge installation, existing bridge modifications, 2 kilometres of piling, track slewing, and other related works.

The project was completed near an electrified railway line (OLE), 132kv overhead power lines, and a live railway.
In the United Kingdom, this was the first curved jacked portal push. The tunnel’s precast concrete box, which weighs 11,000 tonnes, is heavier than the Eiffel Tower!

The new line, which is now complete, will help to alleviate timetable constraints caused by slower freight trains on the Great North Great Eastern route crossing over the high-speed ECML.