9/4/2020 CES May 2020
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Remote monitoring of a tunnel under
restoration and construction activity
The challenges of monitoring in difficult conditions
One of the five monitoring total stations in position in the tunnel.
VICTORIAN railway infrastructure is ageing, degrading in condition and yet being stretched to cope with more and more use. These
problems were particularly in evidence during work undertaken on and around the 19th-century Gasworks Tunnel in central London. Less
than 500m from Kings Cross Station, this tunnel has two operational bores which carry the East Coast Mainline and a third non-operational
bore. In August 2019, Central Rail Systems Alliance began excavating 11,000 tonnes of material from the tunnel's closed eastern bore in
preparation for it reopening as part of planned works which will ease pressure on the movements in and out of Kings Cross.
Perfect storm of monitoring challenges
Understanding how much a tunnel moves, particularly an older asset where less is known about
how it will react to construction work, presented an immediate set of challenges:
Monitoring
