civil engineering Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...

, a cut or cutting is where

soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, water, and organisms that together support the life of plants and soil organisms. Some scientific definitions distinguish dirt from ''soil'' by re ...

or rock from a relative rise is removed. Cuts are typically used in

road A road is a thoroughfare used primarily for movement of traffic. Roads differ from streets, whose primary use is local access. They also differ from stroads, which combine the features of streets and roads. Most modern roads are paved. Th ...

, rail, and

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface ...

construction to reduce a route's length and grade. Cut and fill construction uses the spoils from cuts to fill in defiles to create straight routes at steady grades cost-effectively. Cuts are used as alternatives to indirect routes, embankments, or

viaducts A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide v ...

. They also have the advantage of comparatively lower

noise pollution Noise pollution, or sound pollution, is the propagation of noise or sound with potential harmful effects on humans and animals. The source of outdoor noise worldwide is mainly caused by machines, transport and propagation systems.Senate Publi ...

than elevated or at-grade solutions. In river management, the term cut or cutting is also used, which refers to the action of short-cutting a

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the Channel (geography), channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erosion, erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank (cut bank, cut bank or river cl ...

, in order to speed a waterway's flow.

History

Railway Cutting at the summit of Talerddig bank - geograph

The term ''cutting'' appears in the 19th century literature to designate rock cuts developed to moderate grades of railway lines. ''Railway Age's Comprehensive Railroad Dictionary'' defines a cut as "a passage cut for the roadway through an obstacle of rock or dirt."

Creation

Beverley BMT sta house from platform jeh

Cuts can be created by multiple passes of a

shovel A shovel is a tool used for digging, lifting, and moving bulk materials, such as soil, coal, gravel, snow, sand, or ore. Most shovels are hand tools consisting of a broad blade fixed to a medium-length handle. Shovel blades are usually made ...

, grader, scraper or

excavator Excavators are heavy equipment (construction), heavy construction equipment primarily consisting of a backhoe, boom, dipper (or stick), Bucket (machine part), bucket, and cab on a rotating platform known as the "house". The modern excavator's ...

, or by blasting. 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 Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock (geology), rock or minerals from the earth. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially ...

. 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 Landslides, also known as landslips, rockslips or rockslides, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, mudflows, shallow or deep-seated slope failures and debris flows. Landslides ...

and a high

water table The water table is the upper surface of the phreatic zone or zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with groundwater, which may be fresh, saline, or brackish, depending on the loc ...

are factors which commonly limit its use in certain areas.

Types of cut

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.Nichols and Day, ''Moving the Earth,'' p. 8.16. A ledge is a cut in the side of a

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff or rock face is an area of Rock (geology), rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. ...

well above the bottom of a

gorge A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tend ...

Lock cut

A lock cut is a section of a river or other inland waterway immediately upstream and downstream of a

lock Lock(s) or Locked may refer to: Common meanings *Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance *Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal Arts and entertainme ...

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.

Notable cuts

Canal

* Culebra Cut (Gaillard Cut) on the

Panama Canal The Panama Canal () is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. It cuts across the narrowest point of the Isthmus of Panama, and is a Channel (geography), conduit for maritime trade between th ...

* Dawesville Cut * Corinth Canal

Rail

Asia

* Hellfire Pass,

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

Americas

* Bergen Hill Cut and Bergen Arches,

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

* Duffy's Cut,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

Australia

* Windmill Hill Cutting,

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

* Big Hill Cutting, New South Wales

Europe

* Archaeological site of Atapuerca, Spain *

Olive Mount cutting Olive Mount cutting, which was opened in 1830, is a New Red Sandstone, sandstone railway Cut (earthmoving), cutting on the line to Manchester, from Liverpool. The cutting is deep and is situated between Wavertree Technology Park railway sta ...

, Liverpool, England * Talerddig cutting,

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

Road

* Sideling Hill Cut on I-68 * Pikeville Cut-Through on U.S. Route 23 in Kentucky

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cut (Earthmoving) Construction Rail infrastructure Road cuttings Building engineering