station

A VICTORIAN train station has reopened to the public after four years of construction.

The project has faced major delays throughout, with the station initially scheduled to open in 2025.

Darlington Station has reopened after receiving a £140million makeover, with first-time travelers enjoying the revamped facilities this weekend.

Darlington is considered to be the home of the modern railway, but the Victorian station needed a redesign.

Redevelopment for this historic Grade II listed station has been in the works for years, with the project starting in August 2022.

At the time, concerns were raised about whether the modern design would be in keeping with its Victorian history.

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After major building work, such as cutting a hole in the roof to install a new footbridge, the project was pushed back due to “additional design requirements”, surpassing the initial completion date in 2025.

Now, after these delays, visitors in this northern town can enjoy a modern new copper-coloured concourse, an elevated walkway connecting two new platforms, and a 650-space multi-storey carpark.

The design of the station also means that it is now fully accessible, with step-free access across the whole station.

Completion of the station was celebrated on May 15, with conductors whistling in the famous steam locomotive Tornado to mark the occasion.

An LNER Azuma train also took passengers on a special inaugural journey to York, with live music, entertainment and refreshments on board.

On May 17, with the station fully working, locals got to try out the new facilities, funded by £43million from Tees Valley Combined Authority and £96million from Network Rail and the Department for Transport.

Visitors praised the new station, reports The Northern Echo, with one hailing the new station as “like a palace to the railway“, and others saying it was “modern and unbelievable”.

One particularly happy visitor also told the Echo: “If you said something like this would be in Dubai, you would think oh my goodness.

“This is in Darlington – and there’s not a railway station on the East Coast Mainline as good as this.” 

Lola McEvoy, MP for Darlington, has praised the redevelopment of the station: “This absolutely cements it with the connectivity that we need, £160 million, and so many hours and hours of work.

“I just want to pay tribute to everybody who has put so much graft into this.

“I think it’s really important because for visitors and for investors, this is going to mark us out as a place to come and visit and enjoy and build.

“But for residents, what it’s going to do is unlock new adventures and make sure that we get the economic opportunities and the growth that we so desperately need and absolutely deserve.”

A HISTORIC railway station is set to open soon after being reconstructed brick by brick – nine miles from its original location.

The Victorian station was originally built in 1867, but fell into disuse over the last century.

Wansford Road station, near Peterborough, had been facing demolition to make room for the proposed A47 dual carriageway.

However, in 2022 an agreement was reached between Nene Valley Railway (NVR) and National Highways for the building to be dismantled and re-built.

National Highways also granted nearly £200,000 in funding towards the project.

Having been dismantled in April 2024, the limestone station has almost completed its re-location to Peterborough, now under the new name of ‘Woodstone Wharf Station’.

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The historic building will serve as a gateway to both Railworld Wildlife Haven and the NVR, and features a booking office, waiting room and administration office.

Stan Bell, who led the project at The Wansford Road CIO, said: “It’s clear that the building will have a huge rejuvenating impact on this often-forgotten part of Peterborough.

“We’ve been incredibly lucky to have the support of National Highways.”

The original railway served passengers from Stamford to Wansford, although it closed by 1929.

The building was then converted into a private residence, before falling into disrepair.

The £100 million proposal to create a dual carriageway for the A47 was also scrapped in July last year, due to planning complications and rising costs.

A 15-year-old boy, Mahmoud Sahweil, was killed when Israel struck a Gaza police station.

His aunt says he was out selling bread to support his 15-member family. Israel has killed at least 830 Palestinians in Gaza since the October 2025 “ceasefire”.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has shown an ability to make a lot of noise at the government agency known in recent years to be a little sleepy.

But his April 28 announcement that the Walt Disney Co.’s eight ABC TV stations will undergo an early review of their broadcast licenses is his loudest action yet taken on behalf of President Trump, who repeatedly threatened media outlets that he believes are critical of him.

Carr is calling for the review two years before any of the station licenses are up, citing the agency’s inquiry into Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies and whether they violated federal anti-discrimination rules.

The timing of Carr’s move is raising eyebrows as it comes after First Lady Melania Trump’s call for the firing of ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over his April 23 comedy bit on the White House correspondents’ dinner. A tuxedo-clad Kimmel called Melania Trump “beautiful,” saying she had “the glow of an expectant widow.”

The first lady’s remarks came after a man armed with a shotgun, handgun and several knives breached security at the Washington black-tie event on April 25. The suspect, Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, was arrested and faces three criminal charges, including attempting to assassinate the president.

Kimmel’s gag became ammunition for right-wing commentators, who claim the left is stoking political violence.

The host said the joke was about the age difference between the 79-year-old president and his wife. Kimmel denied it was a call for violence and has continued to mock the president on his show.

Carr insisted at a Washington news conference last week that his demand for a review is not related to Kimmel’s remarks.

Although many are skeptical, Carr, who was at the April 25 dinner, told The Times there would be an action related to ABC coming soon. The conversation occurred hours before the shots were fired.

The investigation into Disney’s practices began in March 2025, part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to reverse DEI initiatives across private companies, federal agencies, universities and other organizations.

After the 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which spurred the Black Lives Matter movement, companies such as Disney and NBC-owned Comcast aggressively promoted their diversity efforts.

But experts believe Carr is acting on ABC at the behest of Trump, as the chairman has often expressed support on social media whenever the president criticizes one of the broadcast TV news outlets.

“It might be the case that Disney can get some early relief by saying this should be dismissed because this is really a 1st Amendment issue,” said James Speta, a professor at the Northwestern University School of Law. “We all know what’s going on here — the administration doesn’t like the speech that’s coming out of the talent on the broadcasting airwaves.”

Disney is not commenting on Carr’s DEI investigation, but it earlier defended the record of its TV stations, which are ratings leaders in most markets. “We are confident that record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels,” the company said.

Here’s a primer on what to know and the challenges Disney may face.

Why are TV stations licensed by the government?

Government licensing regulates the spectrum allocated to broadcast channels, largely to prevent interference between TV signals. When renewals come up, the license holder must demonstrate that the station is serving the public interest by providing local news, program diversity and educational and informational shows for children. The procedure once occurred every three years, but deregulation efforts have extended that period to the current span of eight years.

When was the last time a TV station faced a significant license renewal challenge?

The most notable recent example was Fox Corp.’s Philadelphia station WTXF, which was up for a license renewal in October 2023. Activist groups filing the challenge said Fox was unfit to own the outlet after a judge ruled earlier that year that the company’s Fox News Channel had spread falsehoods about voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Fox paid $787 million to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems that alleged the cable news channel damaged the company’s reputation.

Fox News, which operates on cable and satellite and is therefore not subject to FCC control, has a different management team than the parent company’s local TV stations, which mostly cover their communities and do not typically present political commentary. The FCC rejected the renewal challenge in January 2025, noting that none of the false information on Fox News was heard on the Philadelphia station. WTXF was not cited in Dominion’s lawsuit.

Are there any other examples?

Yes. Other White House administrations have threatened to pull TV station licenses in response to negative news coverage. At the height of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, Richard Nixon’s allies unsuccessfully attempted to challenge the TV licenses of three stations then owned by the Washington Post.

Has a company ever lost its broadcast license?

RKO General, a unit of the General Tire and Rubber Co., was the last company to lose broadcast TV station licenses in 1987, including Los Angeles outlet KHJ. The case was related to corporate malfeasance and not broadcast content on the stations.

The process to revoke the RKO licenses took seven years from the moment the FCC voted in favor of the move.

But isn’t this case different?

Yes. Although the rule Carr mentioned is legitimate, the FCC has rarely if ever acted on it, according to one veteran TV executive who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. If Disney or any other company was found to violate the nondiscrimination rule, they would in previous eras probably be subjected to a just a fine, not the denial of a license, which would be viewed by many as government censorship.

What happens in the event that ABC licenses are not renewed?

Nothing immediately, as the licenses are in effect through 2028 to 2032, depending on the outlet. If Disney had to sell the stations, the price would probably be depressed due to pressure to unload the properties.

But public communications attorney Andrew Jay Schwartzman told The Times last month that the bar for denying a renewal is high and any effort would be tied up in court on constitutional grounds.

“The law intentionally sets out a very steep burden for the FCC to deny a license renewal; the process takes many years, during which time the licensee continues to operate normally under ‘continuing operating authority,’” Schwartzman said.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has enlisted new allies in his legal battle to unravel Nexstar Media Group’s takeover of rival television station group Tegna Inc.

Late Thursday, Bonta announced that five additional states have joined his coalition that is suing to block the $6.2-billion merger. With the additional plaintiffs, the group of top state law enforcement officers has grown to 13 — and the campaign now is a bipartisan effort.

“Antitrust enforcement is not political — it’s about protecting working families and helping ensure the benefits of a vibrant economy are for everyone, not just well-connected corporations,” Bonta said in a statement. “We welcome our sister states into the fray and look forward to fighting alongside them.”

The new states are Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Vermont. They have joined existing the plaintiffs that represent the people of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia.

Nexstar owns KTLA-TV Channel 5 in Los Angeles.

U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley two weeks ago granted a request by the attorneys general to issue a preliminary injunction halting the merger as the legal case proceeds. The proposed merger — which Nexstar rushed to complete despite opposition from the states — would create the nation’s largest broadcast station group with 265 television stations, up from 164 that Nexstar currently controls.

In dozens of markets, including San Diego and Sacramento, Nexstar would own multiple major TV network affiliates. That duplication has raised concerns about staff consolidations and widespread newsroom layoffs.

“State attorneys general nationwide understand just how important robust antitrust enforcement is to American life — and what a rotten deal this is for consumers, for workers, for affordability, and for our local news,” Bonta said.

El Segundo-based DirecTV separately filed a lawsuit to block the deal, saying the Nexstar-Tegna consolidation would harm their business by forcing DirecTV to pay significantly higher fees for the rights to carry their stations as part of its programming lineup.

A Nexstar representative was not immediately available for comment.

Nexstar contends the deal would strengthen TV station economics, allowing stations to bolster their news gathering and expand the number of newscasts. But DirecTV countered that in markets where Nexstar owns two stations, it relies on just one newsroom to program both channels.

Nexstar’s proposed purchase of Tegna would give the Irving, Texas-based Nexstar stations in 44 states covering 80% of the U.S. population.

The federal judge ruled there was sufficient merit in the antitrust arguments brought by Bonta and the others to pause Nexstar’s takeover of Tegna until a trial can be held to decide whether the merger is illegal.

“Nexstar must permit Tegna to continue operating as a separate and distinct, independently managed business unit from Nexstar,” Nunley wrote in his 52-page order on April 17. “And Nexstar must put measures in place to maintain Tegna as an ongoing, economically viable, and active competitor.”

A HISTORIC railway station will finally receive a long-awaited upgrade that’s been six years in the making.

Plans were first announced in 2020 but construction is only expected to go ahead in the coming months.

East London‘s Lea Bridge station is set to get a major upgrade to its ticket hall and entrance, following a campaign by locals.

The historic building was originally constructed in 1840 but closed in 1985 following the closure of the railway route.

It was re-built and re-opened in 2016, however despite being along a busy commuter route, the station features only a small un-gated side street entrance with no ticket office.

After calls from residents to upgrade the facilities, the station will now receive a modernised ticket hall.

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This includes a fully staffed ticket office and automatic entrance gates.

The plans also involve a retail unit and a new cycle hub, which will provide secure parking for up to 130 bikes.

A larger entrance on the main road will also be built, intended to make the station bigger, safer and more accessible for travellers.

Construction will begin this summer, and is expected to last into 2027.

This comes as the area undergoes a period of major regeneration, with 387 homes planned for the site around the station.

Lea Bridge operates between Stratford and Tottenham Hale on the Lea Valley Lines, and serves a daily average of 2,500 passengers.

It offers a 20-minute route into London Liverpool Street and a direct line to Stratford and Meridian Water.

The Federal Communications Commission is considering an early review of the Walt Disney Co.’s broadcast TV licenses amid criticism of ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s provocative jokes ahead of the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner.

The order could come as soon as Tuesday, according to Semafor, which first reported that the review is expected. The licenses for ABC’s stations — which include KABC in Los Angeles — were not scheduled for renewal until 2028.

Disney has not commented on the possibility of a review.

The move was likely in the works before the latest kerfuffle over Kimmel, who is under fire for a comedic bit that satirized the annual Washington gala that Trump attended for the first time. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who has targeted the political content on the ABC daytime talk show “The View,” told The Times on Saturday that an action related to ABC programming was coming this week.

Carr has suggested “The View” should not be exempt from the FCC’s equal time rule that requires broadcasters to bring on a politician’s rival to provide balanced coverage and multiple viewpoints.

Carr, who was at the Saturday dinner, made the remark just hours before the event was shut down after a Torrance man breached security at the Washington Hilton while armed with a shotgun, handgun and several knives. The suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, was arrested and faces three criminal charges, including attempting to assassinate President Trump.

Right-wing commentators have gone into heavy rotation with the claim that a routine by Kimmel inspired Allen to act.

During the bit that aired Thursday, a tuxedo-clad Kimmel called First Lady Melania Trump “beautiful,” saying she had “the glow of an expectant widow.” The comic explained Monday that the gag was a reference to the age difference between Trump and his wife.

“It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am,” Kimmel said. “It was not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination. And they know that.”

Since becoming FCC chairman last year, Carr has repeatedly threatened to use the levers of power he has to punish TV and radio stations that irritate Trump. His behavior has alarmed free speech advocates, including the FCC’s lone Democratic appointee Anna Gomez, who noted that early station renewal reviews are exceedingly rare and largely futile.

“This is unprecedented, unlawful, and going nowhere,” Gomez said in a statement. “It is a political stunt and it won’t stick. Companies should challenge it head-on. The 1st Amendment is on their side.”

Other White House administrations have threatened to pull TV station licenses in response to negative news coverage. At the height of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, Richard Nixon’s allies unsuccessfully attempted to challenge the TV licenses for three stations owned at the time by the Washington Post.

RKO General, a unit of the General Tire and Rubber Co., was the last company to lose broadcast TV station licenses in 1987, including Los Angeles outlet KHJ. The case was related to corporate malfeasance and not broadcast content on the stations.

The process to revoke the RKO licenses took seven years from the moment the FCC voted in favor of the move.

April 26 (UPI) — Police in Northern Ireland said Sunday morning that the New IRA is believed to have been involved in a car bombing near a police station in Belfast.

Detectives are treating a car bombing outside a police station in the Dunmurry area of outer Belfast as an attempted murder, and said called it a miracle that nobody was injured, The Guardian and the Belfast Telegraph reported.

A delivery car was hijacked late Saturday night in West Belfast, an explosive device was placed in the car’s boot and the delivery driver was told to drive to the police station and abandon it there, police said.

Bobby Singleton, deputy chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, told reporters that the attack was nearly identical to an attack earlier this year.

“As a consequence of that, our early working hypothesis is that this may well be the work of the New IRA, who claimed responsibility for the attack in Lurgen,” Singleton said.

“Thanks to the swift actions of police, no one has been injured, which is nothing short of miraculous,” he said.

The attempt on a Lurgen police station in March was unsuccessful because the device did not detonate, but the method — hijacking a car and forcing the driver to abandon the bomb on wheels somewhere — was nearly the same, Singleton said.

A MAJOR train station in England has announced its closure over a busy bank holiday weekend.

Passengers are urged to plan their journeys ahead as the station will be shut.

One of the North West‘s busiest stations will be closed over the early May bank holiday.

Liverpool Lime Street station will stop its overground services on Sunday, May 3, and into the morning of Monday, May 4.

Engineers will be carrying out major upgrade works around the station during the closure.

Along with replacing outdated signalling infrastructure in the Edge Hill area, workers will be maintaining overhead power cables and track points.

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This means that overground lines in and out of Lime Street will be disrupted.

Paul Owen, Liverpool area director for Network Rail, said: “We would like to thank passengers for their patience while this vital work takes place.

“Replacing older signalling infrastructure with new equipment will reduce disruption on the railway and create smoother, more reliable journeys.”

Local Merseyrail trains will continue to run while other routes will be diverted or replaced by bus.

Travellers are advised to check with their train operator or on the National Rail Enquiries website for the latest information.

Passengers should allow extra time for travel and expect delays or changes to their journeys.

Some billionaires put their money into space rocket launches. Others invest in longevity treatments to extend their time on Earth.

But when New York grocery and oil magnate John Catsimatidis tapped into his fortune for a passion project, he chose WABC, an AM radio station well past its glory years.

Catsimatidis , 77, acquired WABC in 2019 and has turned it into the most listened to talk station in the U.S., according to Nielsen data, reaching more than 400,000 listeners a week.

He is also on the air every day as part of the station’s award-winning evening program “Cats & Cosby,” where he and veteran journalist Rita Cosby hold a daily salon with like-minded friends and big-name political figures.

In a windowed studio overlooking Third Avenue in midtown Manhattan, Catsimatidis can be seen scrolling through his mobile phone and looking as if his mind is elsewhere while on the air. But he quickly snaps into delivering a concise opinion or question whenever Cosby directs him.

“John can look like he’s taking a little bit of a nap, but he’s always ahead of you in the conversation,” said radio consultant Jerry Crowley, who first gave Catsimatidis his own program at Salem Broadcasting’s WNYM.

Catsimatidis is among the circle of media commentators who speak regularly with President Trump, whom he’s known for 45 years and strongly supports. The relationship has made WABC part of the national political conversation.

In December, Trump revealed the U.S. military’s first land strike on Venezuela to Catsimatidis during a morning call into WABC, to the surprise of some national security TV correspondents.

Catsimatidis may become even more well-known soon thanks to his cameo role in the Oscar-nominated film “Marty Supreme,” which will be available April 22 to the 60 million U.S. subscribers of streaming service HBO Max.

“Marty Supreme” director Josh Safdie cast Catsimatidis as Christopher Galanis, a financial backer of the table tennis phenom played by Timothée Chalamet in the film. Safdie told Vanity Fair he liked Catsimatidis’ “larger-than-life regional business man” look, which he noticed when the mogul ran for New York City mayor in 2013.

Rita Cosby and John Catsimatidis in WABC’s New York studio with former NY Gov. David Paterson and Edward Cox.

(Justin Jun Lee/For The Times)

Catsimatidis added some verisimilitude to the role as he once rented a basement apartment to Marty Reisman, the table tennis champion who inspired the film.

“He put 20 pingpong tables in there,” Catsimatidis said. “And he was such a hustler. He’d give you 18 points and he’d still beat you.”

The brief scene required five days of shooting. “Even though it was a pain in the ass to do so many takes, I admire Josh for being a perfectionist,” Catsimatidis said during a recent interview at his office, where a plate of peeled or cut fresh fruit is always nearby.

After the film’s Christmas release Catsimatidis was getting calls from people he had not heard from in years.

“I didn’t know how important a movie this was,” Catsimatidis said. “When Josh said he had a role for me, I said, ‘OK. Why not? It’s a new adventure.”

Catsimatidis has had more than his share of adventures.

His father was a lighthouse keeper, living in solitude on the Greek island of Kandelioussa for 16 years before entering a family-arranged marriage with his mother. The couple emigrated from Greece to the U.S. when Catsimatidis was a toddler.

Catsimatidis grew up in West Harlem and studied electrical engineering at New York University. But he showed a talent for selling as a teenager when he hawked bottles of aftershave lotion out of the trunk of his Buick. In the late 1960s, he bought out a 50% share in an upper Manhattan supermarket where he worked as a clerk and, to the chagrin of his parents, dropped out of college to work full time in the grocery business.

John Catsimatidis during a live broadcast of his WABC radio show “Cats & Cosby” at the station’s New York studio.

(Justin Jun Lee/For The Times)

By the age of 25, he had opened 10 stores under the name Red Apple and was earning $1 million a year. In his 30s, he became a jet pilot and owned a regional airline. Investments in real estate and an oil refinery he bought out of bankruptcy have driven his current net worth up to $4.8 billion, according to Forbes.

Business success earned Catsimatidis a seat at the table in national politics. He backed the 1988 presidential campaign of fellow Greek American Michael Dukakis and donated to Bill Clinton. By 2016, he was aligned with Trump, as are most of the hosts on WABC, including Newsmax’s Greg Kelly and Fox Business Network’s Larry Kudlow.

Catsimatidis has been a fixture in the New York tabloids for decades, not always in a positive way as he’s had legal battles with unions at his businesses over the years. He now deals with the occasional furors that arise when managing outspoken on-air personalities in the current divisive political media environment.

He clashed with Rudy Giuliani, who is suing Catsimatidis for removing the former mayor from his hosting role at the station in 2024. Giuliani was pulled off the air after he refused to stop talking about false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election — a matter that cost Fox News $787 million in a defamation suit.

When WABC’s fiery morning host Sid Rosenberg is mentioned, Catsimatidis bows his head and performs the sign of the cross.

Rosenberg, a relentless Trump supporter, called New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani a “radical Islam cockroach” during an on-air rant last month. Catsimatidis had the host deliver an on-air apology and issued one of his own online.

Catsimatidis, who is also chief executive of the Gristides supermarket chain, is no fan of Mamdani’s policies and is among the New York business types who declared they would leave the city if the Democratic Socialist took office. But he said he maintains a cordial relationship with Mamdani and offered advice on the mayor’s proposal to open city-run grocery stores.

“I don’t care if you’re a socialist, a Republican, a Democrat or an independent,” he said. “As long as you have common sense.”

Catsimatidis made millions from buying New York real estate on the cheap in the 1970s when the city was in deep economic trouble. So he recognized a bargain when his Red Apple Media group bought WABC for $12 million from Cumulus Media.

WABC was the most listened-to station in the country during the heyday of top 40 radio in the 1960s — riding the wave of the Beatles — and well into the ‘70s. The station’s booming 50,000-watt signal at 770 on the AM dial reached 40 states.

WABC switched to an all-talk format in 1982 and boosted the careers of conservative radio personalities Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

The station’s fortunes declined under Cumulus, which was crushed by debt and losing ground to new competition from digital media.

The challenges did not discourage Catsimatidis, who recalls listening to WABC on his transistor radio as a student attending Brooklyn Tech High School in the 1960s. He loves the station’s legacy, and brought back its famous jingles with the dial position and call letters put to the tune of Rodgers and Hart’s “Manhattan.”

Catsimatidis even hired one of WABC’s legendary disc jockeys, Bruce Morrow — known to millions of baby boomers as Cousin Brucie. Morrow, now 89, plays oldies on Saturday nights.

But the investment has gone beyond nostalgia. After taking over, Catsimatidis told its president, Chad Lopez, to drop its weekend infomercials and replace them with locally produced shows. The decision meant walking away from $2.7 million in annual revenue, but Catsimatidis insisted.

“John said, ‘I want to make WABC great,’” Lopez said. “Once we went to more live and local programming, you could see the audience start coming in.”

The station also reduced its commercial load. A typical talk station carries up to 21 minutes of ads in an hour. WABC carries about six to eight minutes per hour at most.

WABC does not break out its finances, but Catsimatidis said it turns a profit, which he puts back into the business. The station has expanded its digital presence, creating podcasts of its daily programs and bite-size versions of longer interviews on the station for downloads.

Every bit of news made on the station’s programs is quickly turned into social media content. The livestream of the station attracts listeners in all 50 U.S. states and 176 countries. WABC programs are syndicated to 532 radio stations in the U.S., including 16 in California such as KINS in Eureka.

Catsimatidis speaks of grandiose-sounding plans to take on the BBC or replace the Voice of America with WABC content, while keeping an eye out for other distressed radio properties he could turn around.

“Whatever we can buy for nothing, we’ll buy,” he said. “They became distressed because of stupid management.”

A FIRST look at a new £40million train station has been revealed.

The hub is set to connect thousands in a rural English village to two major UK cities.

Construction for the new railway station in Charfield in South Gloucestershire began in August 2025 and will host train services for the village for the first time in decades.

Now, locals have been given a first glimpse of the £39.5million project that will provide them with hourly trains to and from Bristol, Gloucester and Yate.

With the station set to open in spring of 2027, a new image of its 70-space car park has been shared.

“This 70-space car park will support future rail users by providing safe, convenient access to the station and is a big step forward ahead of the station welcoming its first passengers in spring 2027,” a spokesperson for South Gloucestershire Council said.

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There will also be other facilities built as part of the two-platform station, such as a pedestrian footbridge, bus stop and cycle parking.

Located off of Charfield’s Station Road, the renovation will provide the village with train services for the first time since 1965.

Thanks to funding for the project from the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority, residents will enjoy fast links to nearby cities and be able to reduce reliance on car travel.

“It will improve the local and regional road network and give people the option of fast, clean travel to the heart of neighbouring towns and cities for work, education and leisure,” said South Gloucestershire Council Cabinet Member for Planning, Regeneration, and Infrastructure, Councillor Chris Willmore.

“We know this project has been a long time coming, and there will inevitably be some disruption while the work is carried out, but it’s an investment for the future of the village and the surrounding area and we are so pleased to be getting on with delivering the infrastructure that people need,” he added.

Charfield is one of five new station builds set to take place in the West of the country over the next few years.

“Local people in and around Charfield will see and feel the difference, with new travel options thanks to regional investment with the support of local and national partners,” said Mayor of the West of England, Helen Godwin.

“Delivering projects like Charfield station lays the foundations for a better transport system overall for the West of England, building the kind of regional railway network that other places take for granted.”

ONE of the UK’s most-loved National Parks will soon be much easier to get to without a car.

Last year, Dartmoor National Park in Devon celebrated winning a court debate that allowed the public to wild camp for free.

And now it’s getting a new £15million station on its doorstep, allowing more people to visit the park.

The new interchange station will open at Okehampton, which is on the northern edge of the National Park.

The station will be called Okehampton Interchange and is a different station from Okehampton.

Work on the station began back in February last year.

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Once complete, it will be the newest stop on the Dartmoor Line since it opened in 2021 and will connect Okehampton to Exeter, as well as Crediton in North Devon.

And if you are travelling from London, it won’t take you too long to get there, making it the ideal escape for the weekend.

You’ll need to hop on a train between London Paddington and Exeter St Davids, taking just over two hours, and then switch to a service to Okehampton.

The single-platform station is planned to open this summer.

I was fortunate enough to grow up within short distance of Dartmoor National Park, which is the ideal spot for hikes and walks.

In my opinion, the Dartmoor doesn’t get the love it deserves.

It is the only place in England where you can wild camp without prior landowner permission, which is an incredible situation that shouldn’t be undervalued.

While tourists head en masse to the Lake District and the Peak District each summer, Dartmoor still feels like an undiscovered gem.

On many of my hikes, for example, I haven’t come across another soul – unless you count the free-roaming sheep or loveable Dartmoor ponies.

To head on a hike from the new station, exit onto Hameldown Road before reaching and crossing the B3260.

Then drop onto Fatherford Lane, where you’ll head under the bypass and onto Dartmoor.

From here, there are several walks you can go on.

For a two-hour round walk, you can venture to Belstone, which is a tiny village at the edge of the National Park.

Once you reach the village, you can stop by for a pint at The Tors Inn.

If you want to head off on a longer hike, you can also use Belstone as a base, as there are a couple of holiday lets in the village.

Points of interest in the moorland surrounding the village include the Nine Stones Circle, also known as the Nine Maidens or 17 brothers.

It is a Bronze Age stone circle that was a burial ground and is mentioned in folklore, where locals are nervous of carrying out restoration work on the circle as they believe those who tamper will become cursed.

If you don’t mind a longer route, you can head to Meldon Reservoir, which dams the River Okement and was built over 50 years ago.

On your walk around the Reservoir, you can expect breathtaking views, and you can also spot Meldon Viaduct, which was built in the 19th century.

For the keen hikers, you might want to visit High Willhays – the highest point on Dartmoor and in southern England.

Reaching 621metres above sea level, it is no small feat to hike to the top, but once you do you will be greeted by panoramic views.

And depending on the time of year, High Willhays often has snow when the rest of Dartmoor doesn’t.

You can also add in a stop to Yes Tor, which is slightly more rugged.

The best thing about hiking on and visiting Dartmoor is that it remains the only place in England where visitors have a legal right to camp for free, without seeking landowners’ permission beforehand.

The National Park just asks that you do it within the areas marked on their backpack camping map and that you stay no longer than two nights.

The right to wild camp on Dartmoor was threatened last year when, back in 2021, landowners (and millionaires) Alexander and Diana Darwall claimed that visitors should not be able to camp without landowner permission.

Over four years of back-and-forth debates, the Supreme Court eventually ruled that wild camping was allowed.

Even though wild camping on Dartmoor often means you’re exposed to the elements, there is no way to camp closer to nature in the UK.

But before you visit Dartmoor, make sure to check the live firing times which are posted on the Gov.uk website.

Though this might sound scary, it is nothing to be worried about – the British military use Dartmoor as a training site and have since the 1800s.

This means they will sometimes carry out exercises using live ammunition, but in the areas they do, red flags or lights will be displayed to warn the public.

On several occasions I have come across army cadets hiking and training, as well as seeing empty ammunition shells on the ground – though, The Ministry of Defence advises not to pick them up.

And if you are heading on a hike, you’ll need good boots as a lot of Dartmoor is boggy.

Make sure you know where the bird nesting areas are as well, as they cannot be accessed during certain times of the year.

Dartmoor National Park’s website lists the different areas with maps and also the times you cannot enter them.

Some do have set paths through them though that you can use.

There are also so many more places you can explore and hike to on Dartmoor than High Willhays, Meldon and Belstone.

The National Park has been used as the filming location for a number of major productions including Sherlock Holmes’ Hound of the Baskervilles, War Horse and even the upcoming HBO Max Harry Potter series.

As you explore the National Park, make sure to look out for the wild ponies that also call it home.

And if you fancy a bit more of an adventure, there are some companies that offer canoeing and rafting on the moors’ rivers.

Name a better place to enjoy ponies, peaks and pubs…

If you are looking for other places to camp in the UK, here’s the English campsite named the best in Britain that families are raving about, and it costs just £12.50 each a night.

Plus, here are five affordable campsites with some of the UK’s best views – and pitches from just £11.

A STANDOFF between unions and operators means a town’s brand new train station is still closed – two years after being built.

A transformative railway line aiming to link Oxford and Cambridge is continuing to see setbacks, leading to delayed openings of stations.

The £7 billion project by East-West Rail (EWR) aims to improve transport links for millions of residents in the region and boost economic growth.

Finished in 2024, the line between Bicester Village and Bletchley, a 36-mile journey, was due to open last year.

Currently, passengers trains are running on the tracks – except they have no passengers on board.

A series of disputes between trade unions and the operator, Chiltern Railways, have meant that the stations remain closed and only empty trains are travelling along the tracks.

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The ghost-trains currently running through the station are a combination of freight trains and those used for driver training.

Currently, the only EWR trains on the new line in use are those between Oxford and Bicester Village.

Winslow is one of the towns located on the Bicester Village to Bletchley line that has been affected by the closures.

The £5 million station was completed back in 2024, but has remained closed amid the rows.

It’s opening has also been delayed by concerns raised over the platform length at the station which are going to have to be extended to accommodate the number of travelers.

Both setbacks have frustrated local residents.

A local told the The Telegraph, that the exasperating delays have caused “difficult and annoying delays” for her daughter who has to travel to Oxford to work.

They said that the delays indicate that Britain “doesn’t work like it used to”, and believe a situation like this would “never” have occurred when they were a youngster.

The cause of the row boils down to who operates the doors.

Chiltern Railways, the operator, beleive that the train line should run as a driver-only operation (DOO) meaning that only the train driver is in charge of opening and closing the doors and no guards are required.

They are in a standoff with the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, who represent train guards.

The back-and-forth between the two parties means that plans to continue with the lines opening have be brought to a standstill.

An action group has been set up on Facebook by upset locals to discuss ongoing updates.

It has also become a place for residents to vent their frustration with the continued delays, with one local calling the lack of passenger trains running “an absolute farce”.

A NEW £15million train station is set to open this summer in a pretty English market town, making it easier than ever to reach a stunning national park.

Excitement is already building ahead of its launch, with a brand new billboard unveiled, teasing a summer opening.

The new Okehampton Interchange station is currently under construction in Okehampton, right on the edge of Dartmoor National Park.

Posting online, Devon & Cornwall’s Great Scenic Railways said: “Hurrah! Shiny new billboard in Okehampton to promote the town’s second station, which opens this summer.”

They added the sign will be updated once the official opening date is announced.

Rail bosses say the long-awaited addition will make it far easier for visitors to reach the scenic beauty spot and surrounding countryside.

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Thanks to its vicinity to the National Park, the scenic town is the perfect place for anyone who enjoys outdoor activities such as riding, swimming, fishing and golf.

It’s also home to the second oldest Norman Castle in the county. It lies in ruins now but is still a place to marvel at for any history buffs.

The £15million project forms part of wider upgrades to the Dartmoor Line, linking the town with Exeter and beyond.

Once open, the new station is expected to boost tourism by improving access to Dartmoor’s rolling hills, walking trails and outdoor activities.

It will sit close to the A30 and aims to serve the growing eastern side of the town, while easing traffic in the centre.

The interchange will also help reduce pressure on parking at the existing Okehampton station, which will remain open.

Plans for the site include cycle parking, electric vehicle charging points, and better walking and bus links to encourage greener travel.

Construction is well underway, with a footbridge, lift shaft and platform already taking shape.