Hidden away below the streets of Liverpool’s Ropewalks district, a team of workers and engineers have been hard at work for the last six months.
Around 20 metres below Wood Street, Berry Street and Duke Street, railway engineers have been using the latest technologies to carry out repairs without causing disruption to rail passengers. The Network Rail team have been delivering a £3.5m investment which involves waterproofing and strengthening the ceiling of High Neck Tunnel between Liverpool Central and Brunswick stations.
The entrance down into the work site is only noticeable via a 130-year-old brick ventilation shaft which can be seen from Back Berry Street. Once down inside the tunnel, thick layers of soot line the walls of the shaft as a reminder of the trains that once passed through the tunnel - one of the deepest in the country in terms of the cavity from track to roof.
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Inside, engineers have built a suspended ‘dancefloor’ platform towards the top of the tunnel which allows work to be carried out while trains pass through below. This has hugely improved the amount of time engineers can work on the project, according to Dennis McGonnell, delivery manager of the project for Network Rail.
Without the platform, workers are given a window of “two and half hours” in the night to carry out works, said Dennis. Just above the platform and stretching towards Brunswick Station, five tonnes of ‘ram-arch’ steel mesh has been fitted to existing brickwork which will act as a reinforcement. 820m2 of concrete will also be sprayed on to the structure.
At track level below where the work is taking place, the entrance to a ‘branch’ line remains which would have offered services towards Liverpool University, but was never completed, according to programme manager Ben Campbell. The works are currently taking place around a 10 minute walk from the former St James Station, which has been earmarked to be reopened as a new connection for the Baltic Triangle.
Work on the high neck tunnel repairs are set to be completed in the coming months.
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