AN embankment which collapsed on to the Tyne Valley railway line in January has been stabilised with 10,000 tonnes of stone.

The 35,000 tonne landslide at Farnley Haugh, near Corbridge, gave way on January 7 and closed the line between Prudhoe and Hexham for four weeks.

Staff from Network Rail and their contractors have been working at the site ever since to clear, dry out and re-profile the slope, which sits on the line between stations at Riding Mill and Corbridge.

And, as the 10-month feat of engineering draws to a close, the Courant was given access to the site to see first-hand how the clean-up and repair mission has taken shape.

“What happened just shows the power of nature, but we have done everything we can to future-proof the area and prevent any more problems,” said Tony Heap, project engineer with Network Rail.

Months of heavy rainfall and the unprecedented winter floods of December saw water cascading across the fields at Farnley and left the slope saturated and unstable.

By the time it eventually gave way in January, the movement was so powerful it took with it dozens of trees and fractured a Northumbrian Water sewer pipe which ran through the hillside.

Since then, Network Rail has taken ownership of around 50 per cent of the field from a local farmer and spent months carefully removing loose material to ensure no further movement in the land.

“The top of the slope has gone back about 30 metres, but about 20 metres of that had already been lost in the landslide,” explained Tony.

Around 50,000 tonnes of earth has been dug back into the land and levelled, while an intricate system of underground drainage pipes has been installed to allow water to drain away.

A huge trench has now also been dug along the field and coated with a layer of impermeable concrete canvas, to catch and withstand future surface water run-off.

“Our first priority was to get the railway line up and running again,” added Tony.

“But since then it’s been a slow and steady process to get everything right.

“The bank side, with all the stone on it, is similar to how it would have looked originally when the cutting was first opened in 1962.”

The 10,000 tonnes of granite was sourced from a quarry at Middleton-in-Teesdale.

And engineers planning the work were tasked with manoeuvring around three scheduled ancient monuments. Although not excavated, the remains of three Roman camps are visible from aerial photographs, and were first registered with Historic England in 1961.

“We’ve had 30 to 40 staff working here for the last few months, and among them has always been an archaeologist,” said Will Johnson, contracts manager with Construction Marine Limited (CML), the lead contractor.

“We used geophysical surveys to map out the forts fully, and handed those maps on to Historic England.”

Network Rail will now have permanent access to the site to carry out monitoring and maintenance work.

A large number of the CML team, including site manager Ray Galbraith, are local workers from Allendale.

The last few remaining members of staff are expected to complete the final reinstatement work within the next few weeks.