A STATE-OF-THE-ART machine is being used to tunnel beneath a stretch of railway in East Renfrewshire as part of a £120m water mains engineering work.

Scottish Water is using a Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) to install two parallel sections of concrete water main of around 85 metres each beneath the railway line to the south of Barrhead.

The work is part of a major investment in the drinking water network in Ayrshire and parts of East Renfrewshire which will benefit more than 200,000 people and businesses.

Caledonia Water Alliance, Scottish Water’s alliance partners, have been using the TBM, which is is about five metres long and is remotely operated.

It had to go under the Neilston railway line at Barrhead, near Balgraystone Road and Balgray Reservoir, because no other alternative crossing method was available.

It is part of a the first key stage involving a 13 mile-long section of water main from near Newton Mearns to the Fenwick/Waterside area.

The route of this, which mainly goes over farmland and open moorland, starts at Waulkmill Glen reservoir near Newton Mearns.

Road users may also have seen lengths of blue piping near the M77 when the work goes south via Drumboy Hill to Amlaird Water Treatment Works near Fenwick, with branches to the South Moorhouse and Corsehouse water treatment works.

In another major engineering challenge on the same phase of the project, special geological engineering techniques are being used to enable the installation of a 2.5 mile long stretch of the water main where its route goes across peat bogland on Fenwick Moor to the south.

Stewart Davis, Scottish Water’s programme manager, said: "The peat, by its nature, is a soft and wet material which does not have the competent geological structure to support a steel pipe which weighs four tonnes per 13 metre length when full of water.

"So our engineering solution was to excavate to competent clay type soil and then fill the ground back up again with imported stone to provide a competent structure to lay the pipe on."

"The work on the peatland on Fenwick Moor, and under the railway line near Barrhead, have presented us with major engineering challenges but we have met or are meeting those challenges head-on and progressing well with this important first phase of the overall project."

The project was announced in December 2015 and will install more than 30 miles of new water mains to connect the system in Ayrshire with the Greater Glasgow area’s network.

Scottish Water say it will enable a greater security of supply and allow it to respond more effectively to operational issues such as burst water mains and minimise disruption to customers.