Embankment (transportation) in the context of Cutting (transportation)

An island platform (also center platform (American English) or centre platform (British English)) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange. Island platforms are sometimes used between the opposite-direction tracks on twin-track route stations as they are cheaper and occupy less area than other arrangements. They are also useful within larger stations, where local and express services for the same direction of travel can be accessed from opposite sides of the same platform instead of side platforms on either side of the tracks, simplifying and speeding transfers between the two tracks.

The historical use of island platforms depends greatly upon the location. In the United Kingdom the use of island platforms on twin-track routes is relatively common when the railway line is in a cutting or raised on an embankment, as this makes it easier to provide access to the platform without walking across the tracks.

An esker, eskar, eschar, or os, sometimes called an asar, osar, or serpent kame, is a long, winding ridge of stratified sand and gravel, examples of which occur in glaciated and formerly glaciated regions of Europe and North America. They are most often formed by the deposition of sediment at the bottom of ice-walled channels within or beneath a former glacier. As a glacier retreats, the channel walls melt while the accumulated sediment remains, slumping into ridges as the only remaining evidence of the former channel path. They represent an unusual form of sedimentation where the location of the former channel is higher than the surrounding landform. Eskers are frequently several kilometres long and, because of their uniform shape, look like railway embankments.

In earthmoving, cut and fill is the process of constructing a railway, road or canal whereby the amount of material from cuts roughly matches the amount of fill needed to make nearby embankments to minimize the amount of construction labor.

Universitetskaya Embankment (Russian: Университетская набережная) is a 1.2 km long embankment on the right bank of the Bolshaya Neva, on Vasilievsky Island in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Starting at the Spit of Vasilievsky Island, it spans between Palace Bridge and Blagoveshchensky Bridge.

The bank was lined with granite in 1805–1810 (eastern part), 1831–1834 (western part) and the 1850s (near Blagoveshchensky Bridge), respectively. It features an ensemble of Petrine Baroque buildings of the early 18th century, including the Kunstkamera, Twelve Collegia, Menshikov Palace, as well as the neoclassical building of the Academy of Arts.