Here’s one for all you history buffs out there!

We have recently unearthed a plan of the Oswestry station area dating 1892. It is currently owned by Paul Mottram and before him was held by his father.

It is around 10ft x 4ft and was hand drafted in 1892, it shows all the original, station buildings and engine sheds.

1892 Station Plan

It also includes some interesting buildings such as the Anglo-American Oil Company, which other than fact it would later become Esso, i can’t tell you much about!

Here’s more photos so you can take a closer look!

Station Area

Ols Oswestry Works

Engine Sheds

The work on the platform and area at Oswestry Station has been making some great progress over the last couple of weeks.

Firstly, the block wall of the platform has been extended quite significantly. We are now getting closer to building the full 12 coach original length of the platform.

Platform extension

Also over the weekend, some of our very hard working volunteers have been doing some sleeper replacement near coney green footpath. You will notice that they’re not quite bolted in yet, but i assure you, we won’t be running trains over them until they are!

New sleepers

As some of you may have noticed, we have recently acquired a new workforce. At the start of May the Cross-Border Tourism Development Group received 12 new workers in the form of 9 labourers and 3 admin staff. Also more recently another 7 labourer’s arrived to help with work on the platform at Oswestry station.

All of these workers have been engaged thanks to by a  ImageMatch.

ImageMatch are an agency that supply these workers in co-ordination with a government initiative called the ‘Future Jobs Fund’ (FJF). This is a scheme to help 18 – 24 yr olds to get back on their feet and back into work.

All the work that you have seen so far on the building of the platform and block wall has been carried out by these workers and also our committed volunteers.

We’d like to thank image match for supplying us with these employees and helping us to boost and further our project.

Hi all,

here’s an update of what’s been going on at Oswestry station over the past month.

First of all as some of you may have noticed we’ve received a great boost in our workforce. This has come in the form of 9 labourers and 3 admin staff who have been given jobs via the Future Jobs Fund (FJF).

With the great influx of workers we have been able to seriously get moving on clearing the station area at Oswestry. Work is even beginning on the rebuilding of the platform. The first part has been to get the footings concreted and ready for the wall,  followed of course by the building of the wall, which has utilized a lot of materials that have been kept at the station over the years.

Preparing footings

Better make sure its straight!

and the wall appears!

The next step for the block wall is for it to be faced with original brick, to county conservation officers standards.

We have also secured 60 edging slabs (rather heavy ones I might add!) from Denbigh which will be added to the platform when its closer to being ready, which is not long now.

In this next photo we can see the area near the platform having some sleepers removed ready for replacement.

removing sleepers for replacement

That’s you’re lot for the moment, but if you check back even as soon as later today, the blog will updated with even more photos of the progress we’re swiftly making here at Oswestry station.