Highest retaining wall in UK?

[darrel]

Marsh lane cutting between leeds and Neville hill is pretty tall and brick lined

[McGomez]

There is a massive retaining wall supporting the railway adjacent to New Mills Junction a short distance south of the station. It is built of stone and looks to be higher than that of the model. It is about 6 to 7 storeys high when judged against a nearby mill.

 

Hi Coachmann.

If you were referring to the wall between Grove St and Albion Road then I think I have found my excuse.

I was looking on Bing and it wasn´t the best angle to see it from but it is certainly very high although as you say it is built with stone

The coincidence is that my layout is called Portland Grove so it fits in nicely.

 

Del.

That´s a cracking photo of the lines at Farringdon. I´ve gone past there a few times myself.

 

Whilst looking at photos of the New Mills area I came across this photo. It is hard to tell how far the drop from rail to water is but it looks to be pretty high.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:New_Mills,_Torr_Vale_above_1748.JPG

[coachmann]

(quote not working - recorded as "Error on page"). Whilst looking at photos of the New Mills area I came across this photo. It is hard to tell how far the drop from rail to water is but it looks to be pretty high.

http://en.wikipedia...._above_1748.JPG quote.

 

Thats the wall.

[McGomez]

Looks like I wasn´t looking in the same place then with reference to the retaining wall between Albion Road and Grove Street!

[Poor Old Bruce]

How about Roade Cutting with it's blue brick walls?

[mozzer models]

opasit the car park at slaithwaite station there is a high wall

http://g.co/maps/nuyax

 

i will try & nip out & get a pic

[mozzer models]

found this pic online 6th pic the wall has a lot of thinks growing out of it

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~owend/I/R/stnpages/slaithwaite.html

[Chameleon]

Galashiels at Ladhope tunnel has a mighty big retaining wall. There was a huge land slip years ago so they rebuilt it bigger and stronger.

[Brake Compo]

...... I think that the main issue with yours (and it's not something that could be changed now) is the size of the buttresses - for the size of the wall these look on the small side.

 

Depends totally on the design of the wall - buttresses are used to provide lateral stabilty to walls that otherwise would be too thin (or more accuately felt to otherwise be to thin, given the empirical nature of early railway civil engineering design), and were not necessarily exclusively applied to the outer face. Given that there would have been quite definate limits to the depth to which foundations would have been dug in the nineteenth century (in homogeneus material, the unit load that the ground can bear increases with depth), a wall of the size modelled by Andy would have tended to have had a very wide base indeed in cross-section to support the weight of the wall above it, tapering down in thickness towards the top, to keep the ground bearing pressure within acceptable limits, and thus any buttresses provided would have been largely cosmetic in my view. Another feature forcing a wide base would be a need to resist the overturning moment, which would be pretty massive on a wall of that height. Indeed I would suggest that brick would only work if it were facing a stone cutting (e.g. because the rock would be friable if exposed to air) - this of couse might mean that there would only be a RELATIVELY thin skin so one might need big buttresses after all!

 

.... AFAIK enginneers bricks have high compressive strength and low water absorbion hence being used for such structures and foundations etc.

 

That is a very good point, looking at my copy of the old 1969 BR Civil Engeering notes, the density of brickwork is given as 1920 kg/cu m, whereas (with lime mortar) the permissible compressive stress in brickwork is 1.59 N/sq mm for Class 4 load bearing bricks and 2.32 N/sq mm for the classic Class B engineering brick. I make it then that one might run into problems with the brickwork crushing under its self weight if the wall is above about 123 m in height for engineering brick! So we should be OK there then.

 

One thing though I would expect some decend sized weep pipes and a drainage channel at the base, on a wall this big - it would be very important to release any hydraulic forces behind the wall.