HS2 SPOIL TO BARRINGTON

摘要

THE FIRST train carrying spoil removed from construction works in London departed from HS2's logistics hub in Willesden on 29 June, hauled by recently named GB Railfreight Class 66 No 66764 Major John Poyntz Engineer and Railwayman. Carrying 1,470 tonnes of spoil, the train was the first of many taking materials to the disused Barrington quarry in Cambridgeshire. The Barrington Light Railway from Foxton, on the Hitchin -Cambridge line, to the former cement works site at Barrington had been mothballed by Cemex in November 2008, finally closing in 2012. The rail link was refurbished in 2015 to serve an unloading pad and loop constructed at Barrington on the northern side of the cement site, for inert spoil from the London area to infill part of the former chalk and clay quarries. The works itself was demolished in 2018 and the site is now being redeveloped for housing. The initial planning permission granted to Cemex in 2012 allowed for five years of inward spoil traffic by train, which was due to cease at the end of 2018. This was subsequently extended until the spoil trains ceased in September 2019. However, in 2019 Cemex obtained new planning permission to infill the large remaining area of quarries, using the railway to import suitable inert material as previously (but with even stricter environmental controls) to the end of December 2033, when the railway will be closed and dismantled.