Freshford platform extension

[whole diary]

[Bmblbzzz]

Visiting Freshford yesterday, I noticed that both platforms are being lengthened by about a carriage length, which would make them 4 carriages long. The work appears very nearly completed but I didn't notice any information on the station about it. I'm not sure which 4-carriage services might call there – on the way out we had a 2-car which terminated at Westbury, on the way back a 3-car which terminated at Bristol TM^▸ (Train Manager, or Ticket Machine, or Temple Meads (Bristol), depending on context) but I'm not sure where it had come from – but I guess it would be some Portsmouth to Cardiff services.
(No, this hardly warrants a thread to itself, but where else would it go?)

[Timmer]

5 car Cardiff-Portsmouth and Weymouth services (3 car 166/2 car 165) will call at Freshford.

[Bmblbzzz]

It's longer than I guessed, then. 

[Timmer]

It's longer than I guessed, then. 

Not sure. It may be to just accommodate 4 of a 5 car set.

[stuving]

It's longer than I guessed, then. 

Not sure. It may be to just accommodate 4 of a 5 car set.

It's on network Rail's list of platforms to go to 5-car length. The full list for project W009 (West of England DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) Capability, oddly) is:

Operational length	No of platforms	Stations and platforms
	to be extended	to be extended
1 car (23m vehicle)	2	Dilton Marsh – Platforms 1 and 2.
3 car (23m vehicle)	1	Melksham - Platform 1
5 car (23m vehicle)	7	Bradford on Avon – Platform 2
		Freshford – Platforms 1 and 2
		Lawrence Hill - Platform 2
		Stapleton Road – Platform 1
		Trowbridge – Platform 1
		Warminster – Platform 2
6 car (26m vehicle)	3	Kemble – Platform 1
		Stonehouse – Platforms 1 and 2

They also note that:
"Works to address stepping distances are only required at specified stations; Freshford Platform 2 and Stonehouse platform 2."

[Bmblbzzz]

Yes, we noticed the big step down and out! Oddly, there are one or two "slabs" of P2 which have been moved out by a couple of cm. They didn't line up with the doors on the train we took, if that was the intention.

Funny, and encouraging, to think this station is being extended. I remember having to "flag down" trains there in the 80s/90s as it was a request stop! Mind you I also, just about, remember the neighbouring Limpley Stoke station being closed in the 70s (or could have been the 80s).

[Red Squirrel]

...or 1966

[Bmblbzzz]

...or 1966

How bizarre and tricky memories are! I would have sworn I remember going through Limpley Stoke station when visiting family there in the 70s. I distinctly remember my grandfather talking about the station being closed and giving his ideas as to why it had been closed but Freshford hadn't – and he didn't even move there till 1971! (And in 1966 I wasn't even born!)