Network Rail has released a video showing the work it is doing to reinstate the South Western Railways line from Waterloo to the South Coast, including to Portsmouth via Eastleigh, Winchester and Southampton Central.

The line was closed after landslip a week ago took out the embankment underneath it, and the video explains the work done over the past weekend and how the problem will be permanently solved.

To get to the landslip engineers needed to build a 580-metre-long access road across fields to get materials and machinery to the site.

Network Rail Wessex Route Director Mark Killick said: “We’re going to move the track onto a stable section of the embankment so that we can have a line running in each direction.

“While it’s a very unusual approach to change the track layout, it means we can run more trains and give customers a much better experience while we fix the embankment.

“The only downside is that we will need to close the railway again once the embankment is repaired to restore the track layout to its original position, but it’s gives the least disruptive solution for our customers.

“In the meantime, we will be able to continue the embankment repairs, while running a significantly improved train service.”

To permanently restore the landslip, Network Rail engineers will construct a 60-metre retaining wall, made up of almost one hundred 12-metre long ‘sheet piles’ which are driven into the ground to stabilise the embankment and protect the railway from future landslips.

They will also regrade the steepness of the embankment slope to reduce the risk of material falling.

Mark Killick added: “We’ll have hundreds of engineers working round the clock, but we still expect the fix to take a number of weeks, as it’s a very complex engineering project.

“We’ll update customers with a more definitive timescale to reopen all four lines as soon as we can.”

From today (January 23) there will be significantly improved service which will restore crucial transport links.

Line users are advised to visit the website at www.southwesternrailway.com/plan-my-journey to check the latest timetable.