Our Press team worked alongside Rail Engineer magazine and their editor in chief Mark Phillips to showcase MECX’s work on the Westbury North Junction Renewal. You can read the article online here.
Or you can download a pdf copy here
Christmas and New Year at Westbury saw the station and its associated routes closed for 12 days to carry out some long-awaited major works in one fell swoop. The main work was the reballasting and renewal of 12 switch and crossing units, along with associated plain line, to resolve some track quality and maintenance issues. At the same time, the Westbury station platforms were modified to accommodate the new rolling stock being progressively introduced on Great Western services.
Westbury station lies on the main route from Paddington to the West Country. Whilst many of the faster Great Western services to Plymouth and/or Penzance bypass the station itself by using the avoiding lines, about half the services do call at Westbury. Network Rail media centre also put out a post to invite Westbury residents to find out more about the track renewal work at a drop-in session.
Platform work at the northern end of the station, carried out by MECX, involved removal of existing coping stones, tactile strips and the macadam surface as the last 30 metres of the platform required lowering to enable falls to go to the centre of the platform rather than falling towards the track. This would prevent any issues with prams, wheelchairs and other wheeled objects running away towards the tracks.
The works entailed lowering the levels of the platform oversails and reducing the macadam levels. New dish drainage and carrier drainage, including new catchpit chambers, were installed and this was then connected to the existing track drainage. A new macadam platform surface was laid and the copers and tactiles re-bedded and re-pointed.
MECX also constructed three new signal bases at the south end of the station, where the ongoing signalling work is being carried out by Linbrooke. The necessary civils works associated with the alterations, such as the foot crossing, drainage works and an undertrack crossing, were undertaken by Chris Francis Contractors.
