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December 2017
News
Major work continues at Bristol Parkway By Laura Mortimore etwork Rail has been continuing its Railway Upgrade Plan by carrying out some major work at Bristol Parkway Station, causing the station to be completely closed during the first three weekends of November. As part of the Railway Upgrade Plan, Network Rail is electrifying the railway between London Paddington and Cardiff with the aim being to provide passengers with quieter, more frequent and more reliable services. After the closure of the station for two weeks in September, the first two ten-carriage IETs (Intercity Express trains) entered service on 16th October, travelling through both Bristol Parkway and Bristol Temple Meads stations. They have since
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travelled over 30,000 miles along the Great Western Railway network, providing 20,000 more seats into London Paddington than the trains they replaced. During the first three weekends of November, Network Rail continued the work that they started in September. The work they were undertaking involved: • Continuing work on the construction of a fourth platform • Extending the existing three platforms to accommodate the new IETs • Continuing work to improve the track layout to allow more trains to use the station • Carrying out further piling (installing foundations along the route to support the overhead electrification equipment) Part of the electrification works also involved closing the M4 near
Work to install a new (fourth) platform at Bristol Parkway Station
junction 19 overnight for what was anticipated to be the first two weekends in November. This was to allow Network Rail to install the overhead line equipment needed to run electric train services. Dean Shaw, media relations manager at Network Rail, said: “The work that took place over the M4 at the ‘Blue Bridge’ was a huge success. The work was completed much
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quicker than we anticipated, which meant that the motorway was only closed for the first weekend.” Dean went on to say that the work that was carried out at Parkway Station was “successfully completed, but not quite on time”, adding: “The line didn’t open until 7.15am on Monday (20th November) which caused some longer journey
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