Work to repair unsafe Nuneham Viaduct ‘on target’

Work to repair an unsafe railway viaduct which was forced to close nearly two months ago will be completed by 10 June, Network Rail says.

Nuneham Viaduct, which crosses the River Thames near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, shut on 3 April.

The closure on the Didcot-Oxford line has meant the cancellation of more than 100 passenger services a day.

Claudia Philps, programme manager at Network Rail, said people were working “incredibly hard” to meet the deadline.

A stronger embankment is being built up to a new bridge abutment to replace one that was sinking into the riverbank.

At the moment, the bridge is being supported by a temporary structure on the bed of the River Thames.

Once the rail tracks have been relaid, Network Rail said trains would run again from 10 June.

Claudia Philps, programme manager at Network Rail, said: “We have a lot of people working incredibly hard, 24/7, making sure that we do meet that [deadline].

“We have engineers, crane operators and machine operators all working in harmony to create that really consistent programme. We are on target.”

Describing the scale of the work, she explained that over the past eight weeks, 5,000 tonnes of material had been removed from the site, along with the track.