Network Rail is in the middle of a nine-day closure of the railway line between Ashford International and Maidstone East as it carries out vital work to prevent landslides on the line.

In all £10 million is being spent on the project being carried out during this 'blockade'. Reporter Rhys Griffiths went to Bearsted to see the works first hand...

Scrolling through Twitter on the morning of my site visit to the Bearsted cutting, I was confronted with a stark illustration of why these latest engineering works are so vital.

Tweeted by Network Rail, who manage and maintain the country's railway infrastructure, the picture shows three large Kentish ragstone boulders which have tumbled from the embankment above and onto the tracks below.

Climate change means we can expect wetter, more unsettled, weather here in Kent and beyond. And for those charged with keeping the railways running safely and smoothly, this presents a growing challenge.

Rain soaking into the land around our train lines – many of them constructed by Victorian engineers – is causing erosion and more frequent landslides.

At locations such as the deep Bearsted cutting outside Maidstone, this means the risk to trains, their crews and their passengers is only growing.

Southeastern's Paul Prentice explains the 'blockade' closure

In the past decade alone engineers have visited the site on numerous occasions to secure the railway and install temporary fixes after weather-related movements. New Year’s Day 2021 was the most recent landslip to occur in the area after heavy rain fell.

Chris Denham, a spokesman for Network Rail, guided me around the site.

"Our railway is very old," he told me as we looked south from the Weavering Street bridge and down the closed stretch of track.

"This line here is 170 years old and it wasn't designed to cope with the weather we're having now.

"Climate change for us manifests itself in warmer, wetter winters and wetter summers. All that rain has got to go somewhere, and more often than not it finds its way onto the railway.

"When the railways were built they were built by private contractors, they were built as cheaply as possible for the time, so they were cut through the hillside - very, very steeply - and at Bearsted you can see it's not far off vertical.

"That lasted a good few hundred years and everything was well, but with climate change we are seeing an awful lot more rain which is putting a lot of strain on the infrastructure.

"Here at Bearsted we have got a mixture of Kentish ragstone and sandstone, the sandstone is being eroded away by the constant rain and then the ragstone is just falling out onto the railway."

Making the cutting at Bearsted safe for another century or more is a big job, requiring up to 100 workers on site at any one time as well as many tonnes of heavy machinery.

Those managing the project for Network Rail did consider whether to carry out the work over weekends and bank holidays, rather than shutting the line for nine straight days.

But given the amount of equipment needing to be brought on site - and the fact that leisure travel has rebounded quicker than work journeys post-pandemic - it was decided to put what is know as a 'blockade' in place and do the majority of the work in one go.

Project manager Mike Boucher said: "The equipment we are installing here are called rock bolts and soil nails, what they are is essentially large steel bars that we can drill into the slope itself and then we fit a mesh over the front of it, which is very much like chicken wire but much, much stronger.

"Once we have finished here this is proposed to last for up to 120 years and will ensure that the railway can run safely and that Southeastern can operate a safe and punctual service for their passengers."

While the nine-day closure has been in place, passengers wishing to travel to and from the stations between Ashford and Maidstone have had to use a replacement bus service.

Although this has undoubtedly caused inconvenience to some, with journeys taking significantly longer by road, it is hoped people returning once the line reopens will notice some improvements.

During the blockade engineers will work on power supply feeder cabling between Harrietsham and Charing, and other maintenance work will take place at stations on the line while they are closed to the public.

"Overall we are closing the line for nine days and that's primarily to do the essential works at Bearsted," Network Rail project director Tom McNamee said.

"But while we have the whole line closed we are utilising this opportunity to do other works through the corridor, and overall we are going to spend about £10 million over the nine days in the entirety of the blockade.

"The primary job is the cutting at Bearsted, but not only that, we are doing works up around Wheeler Street tunnel at Maidstone East itself, we are working on every station throughout the corridor, so hopefully when passengers return to the railway next Monday they will see a fresh lick of paint, a nice clean and welcoming platform and station."

One challenge facing the team carrying out the work has been communicating the closure to passengers well in advance, through online communications and also ample signs and information at stations.

Consideration has also been given to those who live close to the railway itself.

Mr Denham said: "Communicating a project like this, there are two strands: there are the passengers and then there are our line-side neighbours, and as you can see they are literally right up against the line.

"They do understand why we are doing the job because their back gardens are literally sitting on top of the railway which we are trying to defend, so if we weren't holding this up their gardens would be under threat.

"So they absolutely appreciate why we are doing the work, and what we have got to do is just let them know as far in advance as possible what the work is going to be, how long it's going to take, and what the disruption is.

"Then they can make a decision on whether they go away for a week, or just move to the front bedroom of the house. It's not easy - there is no perfect answer for everybody - but I'm pleased to say that so far we have got on very well with our neighbours here."

Once the work is complete it should ensure that the railway - and those neighbouring gardens - are protected for many more years to come. Whatever the weather may throw at us.

Read more: All the latest news from Ashford

Read more: All the latest news from Maidstone