Stanway Viaduct: Heritage railway line reopens after repairs
A heritage railway line has reopened after a five-month closure of part of the track for repair work.
Stanway Viaduct, near Toddington, has been closed since early November to allow waterproofing and stabilisation works to be carried out.
It meant that Broadway had been cut off from the rest of the line.
Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway (GWSR) said it was "delighted" that the work had been completed in time for the Easter weekend.
Steam trains are due to begin running over the 15-arch viaduct, built in 1903-4 for Great Western Railway, on Friday.
The track has been reinstated after being lifted to allow the repairs which included stabilising the 200m-long parapets after a mortar joint was found to have failed.
GWSR's civil engineering director, Dr Graham Plant, said: "I look forward to travelling over it once again."
GWSR is a volunteer-led heritage railway line which runs between Cheltenham and Broadway.
Last year, it launched an appeal to raise money to fund the now-completed first stage of repair work, costing about £600,000.
It is also fundraising for phase two, set to start in 2025, which will include repairing the structure's water-damaged brickwork.
"In all, complete repair of the viaduct will cost up to £1.8m, so the appeal remains open," Dr Plant said.
"We expect the painstaking task to repair the brickwork to take up to three years to finish."
Significant structure
At 200m long and more than 12m high, the 120-year-old Stanway Viaduct is the most significant structure on the GWSR, and one of the largest viaducts on any heritage railway.
In its early days it provided a direct rail link between the West Midlands, Bristol, south Wales, Devon and Cornwall.
It lost its track in 1979 following a line closure but GWSR volunteers began a campaign to lay a single track in 2005 and it carried passengers again in 2010.
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