Stabilisation to Railway Coastal Defences at Shakespeare Beach – Dec 2015 to Autumn 2016

The railway from Folkestone to Dover opened in 1845, emerging from the Shakespeare Cliff tunnel to cross Shakespeare Beach on a 400m timber trestle viaduct to access the original station at Dover Harbour. Circa 1920 a coastal defence wall was constructed and the timber trestles backfilled with chalk rubble. The wall extends some 700m retaining up to 10m in height. Rail tracks were transferred to ballast.

In the 1980s, construction of Samphire Hoe to contain fill from the Channel Tunnel affected migration of beach recharge material from the west, extending exposure of a wave cut platform in the chalk beneath Shakespeare Cliff; and causing progressive lowering the beach. The process continued until a series of storms in late 2015 undermined the wall leading to rapid loss of fill and severe damage to the coastal protection, triggering the closure of the railway on Christmas Eve 2015.

The paper describes the events leading to the damage, the emergency stabilisation works undertaken, the assessment of the nature and causes of the problem, and the necessary design and construction of a new 250m rail support structure and 700m of coastal protection comprising 100,000t of rock armour to protect and supplement the existing sea defence wall. The perspectives of asset manager, designer and contractor are provided, which will inform practitioners and serve as a record of a significant coastal defence project with rapid response permitting reopening of the railway within 207 days from closure.