10 | the rail engineer | november 2012
One of the Roman snails alongside a mobile for size comparison. (Right) A train passing at line speed while work continues.
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Work is progressing well despite the heavy rain experienced across most of the country. However, the project has experienced some delays, and for a rather unusual reason - Roman snails! These creatures are quite impressive beasts, considerably larger than the sort of snail we are used to in the UK, and rare enough to be a protected species. It seems that they were originally brought to Britain by the Romans, who liked eating them and wanted a ready supply here. They have survived in a few places ever since, and this colony are apparently in the habit of hibernating on the slopes of the central spine of the site. They emerged shortly after the contractor began the main works, causing excavations to be stopped for about five weeks whilst permission was obtained from Natural England and the snails were collected and
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relocated. Around 400 were found, and they have been removed temporarily to another suitable site on Network Rail land, to be returned to their original location upon completion of the current works. By the time that the snails are back in their original home, in March 2013, Network Rail should have a much safer cutting with no further risk of derailment or disruption caused by slips. It seems likely that the decision to use a contractor with significant expertise and experience in similar works
will have paid off well, not only through quality, cost and time benefits, but also because their expertise has ensured that the works could be undertaken with no restrictions on train speeds, without any requirement for unplanned possessions and with limited disruptive possessions of the line. However, this won’t be the end of works at Hooley. Before too long, Network Rail will be back to stabilise the parallel Quarry Lines cutting.
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