THERE is light at the end of the tunnel for some residents in Royal Wootton Bassett who have been suffering sleepless nights during work to upgrade the London to Bristol railway line.

Network Rail has told locals this weekend’s piling operation to get the line ready for overhead electric power should be the last in the area.

Over the months while it was going on, often during the early hours when trains were stopped, people complained of loud noise and vibrations.

For Maria Pryor and residents in New Road, the end of heavy work in the area comes as a great news.

After several nights in a row of noise, she said: “It will be a big relief to sleep.”

At the height of the work the problem was so back people’s houses vibrated as the metal piles were driven into the ground along the track.

“Everything in the house vibrated, every wardrobe shook, the bed shook,” she said.

But more recently the noise had not been so bad as the engineers appeared to be working further away.

A Network Rail spokesman said the last piles had gone in near the auto transformer station in Wootton Bassett, where the worst of the noise problems had come from. More work was due to be done in the town next month and a letter has already gone out to householders likely to be affected.

Elsewhere in the area, Ermin Street Bridge in Swindon is due to re-open on December 1 after extensive work that has been carried out there.

The project is being carried out to modernise and electrify the Great Western route, and has been under way in the area for the past year.

It represents the biggest investment since it was built by Brunel 150 years ago.

People living in the Royal Wootton Bassett area suffered disruption when the town’s three rail bridges were closed last year and earlier this tear. The Marlborough Road bridge was demolished and rebuilt, finally opening in late April. Bath Road and Hunts Mill bridges were closed so they could be adapted and the line below Hunts Mill was lowered.