In civil engineering, a cut or cutting is where soil or rock from a relative rise along a route is removed. The term is also used in river management to speed a waterway's flow by short-cutting a meander.
Cuts are typically used in road, rail, and canal construction to reduce the length and grade of a route. Cut and fill construction uses the spoils from cuts to fill in defiles to cost-effectively create relatively straight routes at steady grades.
Cuts are used as alternatives to indirect routes, embankments, or viaducts. They also have the advantage of comparatively lower noise pollution than elevated or at-grade solutions.
The term cutting appears in the 19th century literature to designate rock cuts developed to moderate grades of railway lines. [1] Railway Age's Comprehensive Railroad Dictionary defines a cut as "a passage cut for the roadway through an obstacle of rock or dirt." [2]
Cuts can be created by multiple passes of a shovel, grader, scraper or excavator, or by blasting. [3] One unusual means of creating a cut is to remove the roof of a tunnel through daylighting. Material removed from cuts is ideally balanced by material needed for fills along the same route, but this is not always the case when cut material is unsuitable for use as fill.
The word is also used in the same sense in mining, in particular Open-pit mining. The use of cuttings often provides byproducts as a form of mineral extraction, commonly sand, clay or gravel; the cost of building drains, reinforcing banks against landslide and a high water table are factors which commonly limit its use in certain areas.
There are at least two types of cut, sidehill cut and through cut. The former permits passage of a transportation route alongside of, or around a hill, where the slope is transverse to the roadway or the railway. A sidehill cut can be formed by means of sidecasting, i.e., cutting on the high side balanced by moving the material to build up the low side to achieve a flat surface for the route. In contrast, through cuts, where the adjacent grade is higher on both sides of the route, require removal of material from the area since it cannot be dumped alongside the route. [4]
A ledge is a cut in the side of a cliff well above the bottom of a gorge.
A lock cut is a section of a river or other inland waterway immediately upstream and downstream of a lock which has been modified to provide locations for boats to moor while waiting for the lock gates to open or to allow people to board or alight vessels.
The Bridgwater and Taunton Canal is a canal in the south-west of England between Bridgwater and Taunton, opened in 1827 and linking the River Tone to the River Parrett. There were a number of abortive schemes to link the Bristol Channel to the English Channel by waterway in the 18th and early 19th centuries. These schemes followed the approximate route eventually taken by the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal, but the canal was instead built as part of a plan to link Bristol to Taunton by waterway.
The Llangollen Canal is a navigable canal crossing the border between England and Wales. The waterway links Llangollen in Denbighshire, north Wales, with Hurleston in south Cheshire, via the town of Ellesmere, Shropshire. The name, which was coined in the 1980s, is a modern designation for parts of the historic Ellesmere Canal and the Llangollen navigable feeder, both of which became part of the Shropshire Union Canals in 1846.
Bow Back Rivers or Stratford Back Rivers is a complex of waterways between Bow and Stratford in east London, England, which connect the River Lea to the River Thames. Starting in the twelfth century, works were carried out to drain Stratford Marshes and several of the waterways were constructed to power watermills. Bow Creek provided the final outfall to the Thames, and the other channels were called Abbey Creek, Channelsea River, City Mill River, Prescott Channel, Pudding Mill River, Saint Thomas Creek, Three Mills Back River, Three Mills Wall River and Waterworks River.
The Montgomery Canal, known colloquially as "The Monty", is a partially restored canal in eastern Powys and northwest Shropshire. The canal runs 33 miles (53 km) from the Llangollen Canal at Frankton Junction to Newtown via Llanymynech and Welshpool and crosses the England–Wales border.
Bergen Arches is an abandoned railroad right of way through Bergen Hill in Jersey City, New Jersey.
In earthmoving, cut and fill is the process of constructing a railway, road or canal whereby the amount of material from cuts roughly matches the amount of fill needed to make nearby embankments to minimize the amount of construction labor.
The Macclesfield Canal is a canal in east Cheshire, England. There were various proposals for a canal to connect the town of Macclesfield to the national network from 1765 onwards, but it was not until 1824 that a scheme came to fruition. There were already suggestions by that date that a railway would be better, but the committee that had been formed elected for a canal, and the engineer Thomas Telford endorsed the decision. The canal as built was a typical Telford canal, constructed using cut and fill, with numerous cuttings and embankments to enable it to follow as straight a course as possible, although Telford had little to do with its construction, which was managed by William Crosley.
The Sankey Viaduct is a railway viaduct in North West England. It is a designated Grade I listed building and has been described as being "the earliest major railway viaduct in the world".
The Dudley Canal is a canal passing through Dudley in the West Midlands of England. The canal is part of the English and Welsh connected network of navigable inland waterways, and in particular forms part of the popular Stourport Ring narrowboat cruising route.
A road, railway line, or canal is normally raised onto an embankment made of compacted soil to avoid a change in level required by the terrain, the alternatives being either to have an unacceptable change in level or detour to follow a contour. A cutting is used for the same purpose where the land is originally higher than required.
The Itchen Navigation is a 10.4-mile (16.7 km) disused canal system in Hampshire, England, that provided an important trading route from Winchester to the sea at Southampton for about 150 years. Improvements to the River Itchen were authorised by Act of Parliament in 1665, but progress was slow, and the navigation was not declared complete until 1710. It was known as a navigation because it was essentially an improved river, with the main river channel being used for some sections, and cuts with locks used to bypass the difficult sections. Its waters are fed from the River Itchen. It provided an important method of moving goods, particularly agricultural produce and coal, between the two cities and the intervening villages.
The River Don Navigation was the result of early efforts to make the River Don in South Yorkshire, England, navigable between Fishlake and Sheffield. The Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden had re-routed the mouth of the river in 1626, to improve drainage, and the new works included provision for navigation, but the scheme did not solve the problem of flooding, and the Dutch River was cut in 1635 to link the new channel to Goole. The first Act of Parliament to improve navigation on the river was obtained in 1726, by a group of Cutlers based in Sheffield; the Corporation of Doncaster obtained an Act in the following year for improvements to the lower river. Locks and lock cuts were built, and, by 1751, the river was navigable to Tinsley.
Bosley Lock Flight is a flight of twelve canal locks, situated on the Macclesfield Canal at Bosley, near Macclesfield, Cheshire, England. The locks are substantially built with stone blocks, and unusually for narrow locks have mitre gates at both ends. They were each built with a side pond, which enabled some of the water to be re-used during a filling and emptying cycle. The side ponds have been disused for many years, but there are plans to reinstate one of them for demonstration purposes.
The Petworth Canal was one of Britain's shorter lasting canals, opened in 1795 and dismantled in 1826. Upon completion of the Rother Navigation, the Earl of Egremont used his estate workforce to build the 1¼ mile long canal from just upstream of the Shopham Cut to Haslingbourne, with two locks, each with a rise of 8 feet and 6 inches. The Haslingbourne Stream was diverted to provide the water supply, and still flows in the canal bed from Haslingbourne to the site of Haines Lock. The initial intention was to extend the canal through the Shimmings Valley to Hamper's Green on the north side of Petworth, then northwards to join the Wey Navigation at Shalford.
Spon Lane Junction is the original junction of the Wednesbury Canal and the Birmingham Canal, near Oldbury in the West Midlands, England.
Bromford Junction is a canal junction at the foot of the Spon Lane Locks where the Spon Lane Locks Branch meets the BCN New Main Line near Oldbury in the West Midlands, England.
The Slough Arm is a short canal branch from the Grand Union Main Line to Slough in Berkshire, England. It was originally opened to serve the brick-making industry. The last commercial traffic was carried in 1960, but as the plans to fill it in were opposed locally, the stretch was re-opened in 1975 and has remained in use since.
Three Mills Lock, also known as the Prescott Lock is a lock on the Prescott Channel on the River Lea in London. The project was led by British Waterways and the lock officially opened on 5 June 2009.
The Pequest Fill is a large railroad embankment on the Lackawanna Cut-Off in northwestern New Jersey, touted at its 1911 completion as the largest railroad fill in the world.
The Burnley Embankment is an embankment carrying the Leeds and Liverpool Canal across the Calder and Brun valleys in Burnley, Lancashire. Also known as the Straight Mile, the embankment is 1,256 yards long and the canal runs up to 60 feet (18 m) above the valley floor. The structure was chosen as one of the original Seven Wonders of the Waterways, and has been awarded a Red Wheel by the Transport Trust.