WORK to improve a village railway station to allow freight trains to pass through from Teesport has been delayed after the discovery of a sewer underneath the track.

Dinsdale Station, in Middleton St George, near Darlington, was due to undergo major engineering works to lower the level of the track, but the project has been delayed to allow Network Rail to investigate how it will divert the sewer.

The overhaul for the station is part of the Tees Valley Metro project, which will see improvents to all stations on the line, with Network Rail working in conjunction with Tees Valley Unlimited, which helped to secure the funding.

The work to lower the rail tracks at Dinsdale had been planned to allow freight trains to pass under a road bridge over the station, opening up a rail route between Teesport and the East Coast Mainline for the first time.

The main engineering works were planned for October, when the tracks and the platforms were set to be lowered by several inches to allow for the larger freight transports.

The station was due to be closed for four days at the end of October, but this has now been cancelled.

Network Rail have planned a series of exploratory investigations to determine the exact route of the sewer, owned by Northumbria Water, and how it can be moved to accomodate the lowered track.

A spokeswoman for Network Rail said: “We found the sewer running underneath the track. It obviously doesn’t belong to Network Rail so we are working with Northumbria Water to work out what we can do with it.

“We will need to divert it, so we are talking to them about how much it would cost and how it could be done. We don’t have any dates for that yet, so we can’t go ahead with anything else until we know what will happen.”

The second part of work to the station to improve passenger areas, including new shelters, seating and CCTV, was due to be carried out by Darlington Borough Council at the same time as the main engineering works.

A spokeswoman for the council said: “We are waiting to hear from Network Rail as to what the timescale will be for their part of the work. We cannot do the planned upgrades until we know what they are doing.”