Project Description and Background:
The railway on Shakespeare Beach was originally raised on wooden trestles, with the waves breaking on the beach below. In 1927, the Southern Railway constructed the sea wall alongside it and dumped thousands of tonnes of chalk around the viaduct, encasing it and building the railway on top. A large section of the wall was damaged, breaking its foundation in December 2015. The £44.5m project to rebuild the line began in January 2016 and was completed in March 2017. The new viaduct is 235 metres long, supported by on 134 concrete piles sunk into the beach. It has been designed to last 120 years.

In addition to rebuilding the railway, the project also includes defending almost 750m of the sea wall with more than 90,000 tonnes of rock.

Benefits delivered:
Project was completed ahead of schedule
Completed under budget
Major infrastructure engineering project that required working inter-tidal, two shifts per day, seven days a week – by a highly dedicated project team

Client: 
Costain

Piling at the Dover Sea Wall project – MW Civils

Piled raft slab 2 at the Dover Sea Wall project – MW Civils

Dover Sea Wall project – MW Civils