WORK is under way on a £500,000, six-month project to extend the station building at Haddenham & Thame Parkway to cope with growing passenger rail traffic.

Passengers using the station on Chiltern Railways’ route between London, Bicester and Banbury will benefit from a bigger ticket office, a more spacious coffee shop, new accessible toilets in the new building and a heated waiting room on the platform used by London-bound trains.

There will also be improved cycle parking, a new motorcycle parking area and better lighting.

The ticket office and coffee shop have been moved to temporary accommodation next to the taxi office while work goes on.

Haddenham & Thame Parkway, off the A418, opened in 1987, replacing a station closed in 1963 during the Beeching cuts. Improved facilities were provided in 2005.

More than 610,000 passengers’ journeys began or ended at the station in 2011-12, the lastest year for which figures are available, up from 380,000 in 2002-3.