This work presents a study about a retaining structure designed for the duplication of the rail FEPASA on the 74th km between Santos and São Paulo. This structure, an anchored retaining wall, was instrumented in the anchors heads with strain gauges in order to monitor its loads. The load measurements occurred during the performance test, locking and also after the works were concluded. A decrease on anchors loads is noticed in the moment immediately after the locking, during construction and after the works finished. It was observed that a loss of load in the anchors occurred to a maximum of 54 per cent. Highlighting the relevance of field monitoring to better understand the structures behavior, in the first part of this dissertation we present a theoretical background as well as the calibration of sixteen electrolevels as a proposal for the measurement of horizontal displacements in Geotechnical works.