Tain South cutting is an oversteep cutting that suffered from a number of failures in recent years. The risk of further failures has increased significantly in the last year with increased rainfall. Three failures took place in a span of 3 weeks. MHB Consultants were commissioned by AMCO to design emergency remedial measures. Subsequently commissioned by QTS to provide a long-term fix for the whole cutting.

Our design and added value proposition involved:

• Undertaking sacrificial soil nail test in lieu of conventional GI.
• This allowed us to optimise the soil nail design (lengths and spacing).
• Achieved a significant reduction in project cost.
• We also completed TWD for QTS to install soil nails via long reach excavator positioned at the crest. This resulted in a considerable saving on track access.

Client QTS Group.