Cut-and-cover tunnel
High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Environmental Statement, Glossary, abbreviations and references, published by the Department for Transport in 2022, defines a cut-and-cover tunnel as: ‘A tunnel constructed by excavating a cutting constructing a box-type structure and reinstating the ground over the top to its original level. Cut-and-cover tunnels can be constructed in two ways:
• ‘bottom up’ where an excavation is created from the surface, before the tunnel floor, walls and roof are then built and the entire structure buried and the surface restored; and
• ‘top down’ where the tunnel walls are inserted into the ground and the roof added, before the material within the tunnel is excavated from either end.’
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