Cut (earthworks)

Cuts are typically used in road, rail, and canal construction to reduce a route's length and grade.

"[2] Cuts can be created by multiple passes of a shovel, grader, scraper or excavator, or by blasting.

[3] One unusual means of creating a cut is to remove the roof of a tunnel through daylighting.

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 and a high water table are factors which commonly limit its use in certain areas.

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.

Road cutting
Talerddig cutting through the granite Cambrian Mountains , Wales in 2001. Created as part of the Newtown and Machynlleth Railway , with a depth of 120 feet (37 m), it was the deepest cutting in the world at the time of its opening in the early 1860s. The original nearly-vertical sides have since been trimmed back.
Open-cut station of the New York City Subway
A lock cut on the River Thames at Bray Lock , Berkshire . The tall wooden poles are designed for boats to tie on to while awaiting entry into the lock.
Excavation of Olive Mount cutting , Liverpool. Watercolour by T.T.Bury (1833) The cutting was 20 ft (6.1 m) wide and 70 ft (21.3 m) deep. Construction required the removal of 480,000 cubic yards (370,000 m 3 ) of sandstone.