In order to keep a road or rail line straight and/or flat, and where the comparative cost or practicality of alternate solutions (such as diversion) is too prohibitive, a piece of a hill or mountain is cut out to make way for it. Contrary to the general meaning of cutting, a cutting in construction is usually blasted out with carefully-placed explosives. The cutting may only be on one side of a slope, or directly through the middle or top of a hill. Generally, a cutting is open at the top (otherwise it is a tunnel).

The word is also used in the same sense in mining, as in open-cut mine.

See also

• Windmill Hill Cutting

Rail infrastructure | Road infrastructure