Work to extend platforms at the main stations along the Cotswold Line between Oxford and Worcester is running on schedule.
During a nine-day closure of the line, contractor Dyer & Butler, working on behalf of Network Rail, completed the installation of extensions at Evesham, Pershore, Honeyboune and Moreton-in-Marsh, as well as resurfacing existing platforms and renewing drains.
Buses replaced trains between Moreton-in-Marsh and Worcester during the closure, which ran from Saturday, November 17, to Sunday, November 25.
Most of the extended platforms were brought into use in late December, with the exception of Charlbury and Hanborough, where work is expected to be completed by the start of January 2019. The extension to platform 2 at Moreton-in-Marsh is pictured below, in front of the former creamery building at the north end of the station.
Once complete, the platforms at these stations will be able to accommodate seven coaches of GWR’s new Class 800 and Class 802 InterCity Express Trains (IET), which can operate as single five-coach and nine-coach trains, or as 10-coach trains formed by coupling together two of the five-coach units.
At Kingham station, just one platform has been extended. Six IET coaches will fit on both platforms here in future.
Click here for more pictures of the extension work at several stations along the line, taken by William Crossley