Network Rail has used a cost-saving method to complete a £2.9 million railway stabilisation project in Buckinghamshire.

Engineers used a Giken silent piling machine, from Japan, to carry out repairs along a half-mile embankment beneath the Chiltern main line at Bridge Farm near Aylesbury. The three-month scheme was completed between May and August.

A total of 865 six-metre-long steel sheet piles were driven deep into the earth to form rows either side of the railway. The piles formed solid barriers behind which engineers packed 27,000 tonnes of stone, topped off with soil seeded with grass.

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Mark Evans, Works Delivery Programme Manager on Network Rail's London North Western route, said: "By using this innovative Japanese piling method we got the job done quicker and cheaper than traditional kit would have allowed. The Giken machine grips the neighbouring steel sheet pile and silently uses it to lever in the next one, and so on. It's simple, safe and saves taxpayers' cash – exactly how we like it."

(LM)