The 2.5 mile (4.1km) Barton Hartshorn to Mixbury cutting, near Brackley in Northamptonshire, will be HS2’s longest cutting with 1.3 million cubic metres of material set to be excavated in stages over the next three years.
Running across the boundaries between Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, the cutting will be up to 11 metres deep and will be crossed by six bridges to keep communities connected.
Material from the excavation – expected to be a mix of clay, sand, gravel and limestone – will be reused elsewhere on the project to help create embankments, noise barriers and landscaping.
Excavation has also recently started at the nearby Calvert cutting, which will take the line for 2.1 mile (3.4km) past the Buckinghamshire villages of Calvert Green and Steeple Claydon, roughly following the route of the disused Great Central Railway, which closed in the 1960s.
The cutting will take the line under four road bridges and the new East West Rail route, which is also currently under construction.
Around 685,000 cubic metres of material will be excavated to create the Calvert cutting which will be up to 9.7 metres deep and wide enough to allow extra local railway lines to be added alongside the HS2 main line at a later date. Other major cuttings, at Turweston in Northamptonshire, Waddesdon in Bucks, and Ladbroke in South Warwickshire, are also under construction.
Leading the work in this middle section of the London-Birmingham line is EKFB – a joint venture of Eiffage, Kier, Ferrovial Construction and Bam Nuttall.
EKFB deputy project director Dan Hockey said: “The earthworks at our longest cuttings are well underway and progress is steaming forward. While our works continue to progress, we have our local communities in mind and we’re continuously using our internal site access road to move people and materials around, reducing the impact on the local roads around our site areas.”
Across its 80km section of the HS2 route through Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and West Northants, EKFB will need to shift approximately 36 million cubic metres of earth and rock over the next three years. Around 99% of this will be moved within HS2 land using a dedicated network of haul roads to reduce traffic on public roads.
In total, the first phase of HS2 will include 70 cuttings to keep the railway level as it crosses the countryside between London and Birmingham.
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