Pragmatic Approaches for Reusing UK's Redundant Railway Earthworks

摘要

It is anticipated that there will be an increase in twin tracking and re-opening of redundant lines in future years. Renewing the existing assets to comply fully with modern day standards required for new assets, would be cost prohibitive. The approach should be to take the historical and redundant assets back into use, including the earthworks, at an appropriate cost and acceptable level of risk. Given that there is typically an order of magnitude difference between renewal, preventative maintenance, maintenance and instrumentation then, wherever possible, the latter options should be pursued in preference to the former. This requires a pragmatic approach and system to establish what works are required, and more critically, to justify where works are not undertaken.