Wet weather has held up restoration work on the stretch of the upcountry railway line between Kotagala and Radella that was damaged by Cyclone Ditwah, with roughly 60 percent of the work now complete.
Athula Wijesinghe, the technical officer for the project, said the difficulty of obtaining granite in the prevailing conditions had disrupted the schedule. Ada identifies him as the technical officer of the private company contracted to carry out the work.
The site in question is a landslip on the Great Western estate, between the Kotagala and Talawakele railway stations. Equipment for the repairs is being carried in from Kotagala railway station on a service supply train.
Wijesinghe said that if the rainfall eases and dry conditions hold, work at the Great Western site is expected to finish by the end of September.
Slope stabilisation, not earthfill
The repairs are being carried out by stabilising the slope rather than filling or rerouting around it, following recommendations from the National Building Research Organisation and JICA, both outlets reported. Ada identifies the programme by its acronym, RLVMMP.
The National Building Research Organisation runs the Reduction of Landslide Vulnerability by Mitigation Measures Project under the Ministry of Defence, using techniques including soil nailing, anchoring, retaining structures and drainage wells. NBRO has previously said it surveyed the upcountry line jointly with Sri Lanka Railways along the Rambukkana–Badulla corridor and identified a set of sites on that segment for stabilisation.
A wet hill country in a dry-weather month
The rainfall slowing the work sits against a national picture dominated by drought. The Department of Meteorology has been forecasting showers for the Western and Sabaragamuwa provinces and the Kandy and Nuwara Eliya districts while dry weather affects more than 81,000 people across seven districts in the lowland dry zone. Kotagala and Talawakele lie in the central hills, on the wetter side of that divide.
The wider restoration
Cyclone Ditwah struck in November 2025 and damaged 223 locations along the main upcountry route. The line was still terminating at Rambukkana in April, and Nanu Oya–Badulla services resumed in June. The Great Western site is among the sections still outstanding.
Neither report said what the completion of this site would mean for train services through Kotagala, whether any timetable change would follow, or what the project’s total cost is. Ada renders the estate name differently from Hiru; this report uses Great Western, the name of the railway station on that stretch.
