As the world’s first passenger railway celebrates its 200th anniversary, a team of engineers are helping to protect the line of the historic site and key transport routes as work progresses on a major environmental project.
Northumbrian Water is constructing a new sewer pipeline as part of an £11.2m project to upgrade its wastewater network, which will help to protect the environment.
The new 9km pipeline will pass under the original path of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, now part of the existing train line that connects Bishop Auckland and Saltburn, and the A67, which runs parallel.
Engineers are drilling 200 metres horizontally beneath the transport routes, to the east of Middleton St George, allowing the water company and its partners, Esh-Stantec, to install the new sewer without impacting road or rail traffic or disturbing the heritage site.
Specialist contractors, Terra, are carrying out the drilling work.
Work started on the new pipeline, which connects Long Newton with Middleton One Row, via Goosebeck, in March 2024 and is expected to finish in the Spring of 2025.
This innovative approach follows on from similar techniques used on a new sewer pipeline to the north of Durham in 2024, where Northumbrian Water’s project team used similar methods, under the A167, protecting traffic flows, and under the East Coast Main Line, west of Brasside. Larger bore tunnelling techniques have also been employed by the water company on its £155m Project Pipeline: County Durham and Tees Valley, a major investment in water supply infrastructure, allowing new pipes to be installed under the River Tees and A68.
Paul Davison, Northumbrian Water’s Project Manager, said: “This project is part of our Water Industry National Environment Programme and represents significant investment not only in enhancing our network to better serve customers, but also in protecting the environment.
“This drilling allows us to deliver this important road and rail crossing without impacting traffic or trains and in a way that protects this world-famous heritage line in its 200th anniversary year.
“The Stockton & Darlington Railway is a hugely important part of this region’s history and identity and played a major role in the development of passenger rail travel as we know it today, and we are glad to have been able to use this tunnelling technique to protect the line.”
Mark Whaley, Delivery Programme Manager for Esh-Stantec, said: “This is the second Northumbrian Water project in recent months where Esh-Stantec has utilised trenchless operations and horizontal drilling to avoid the need to interrupt Network Rail infrastructure. This method significantly reduces disruption whilst important improvements to the sewer network are carried out.”