The railway between Hereford and Newport has reopened after a rapid repair job to the track near Abergavenny after Storm Claudia.

The Marches Line reopened on Tuesday November 18 after flood water washed out part of the track close to a level crossing in Pandy, with engineers working through the night to resume normal service.

The job, which was completed inside 60 hours, could take as much as four weeks in normal circumstances.

Floodwater completely washed away the ballast – the stones that support the track – leaving a two-metre void and the rails suspended.

“Our teams have worked methodically and safely to fix the damage caused by the flooding near Pandy level crossing in just 60 hours”, said Nick Millington, Route Director for Network Rail Wales and Borders.

“Before our resilience work and the rock armour being placed, this would have taken potentially four weeks to complete. We’ve used 600 tonnes of ballast and around 100 people in this recovery operation.”

“A number of our people weren’t rostered to work this weekend but came in voluntarily to help, and I’m proud of their efforts and what we’ve managed to achieve.

“I would like to thank our passengers and freight customers for their patience during this time.”

Despite significant local road flooding, engineers managed to quickly transport specialist equipment and materials to the site to undertake the repairs, including:

Thanks to a resilience investment completed in 2021 – where 8,000 tonnes of rock armour was installed along this vulnerable section of line – the wider route avoided far more severe damage. Historically, an incident like this could have closed the line for three to four weeks. This time, it has been repaired in under three days.

While several eight-tonne rock armour boulders were shifted by the sheer force of the floodwater, the £4m project, four years ago, significantly limited the impact of the storm and prevented damage spreading hundreds of metres along the railway.

In 2019, an unnamed storm dropped 80mm of rain and caused 15 washout sites on this line. In comparison, Storm Claudia dropped 120mm – but the rock armour meant the line suffered just one washout, at a level crossing, where it couldn’t be installed.

Transport for Wales confirmed that services had resumed on Tuesday morning, but urged football fans heading to Cardiff for the World Cup Qualifier against North Macedonia to check before they travel.

"We're pleased to confirm the railway line between Hereford and Newport has re-opened with services resuming on Tuesday morning, 18th November,” said Marie Daly, Chief Operating Officer at TfW.

"We appreciate our customers' patience while we worked with Network Rail to reopen the affected line.”

"We strongly advise all fans heading to Cardiff for the World Cup qualifier to check their journey details before travelling, as services are expected to be exceptionally busy while we work to get our trains back into their normal scheduled locations."