The construction process continued, and Col Yolland inspected the line for the Board of Trade on 20 November 1866. Yolland found a number of deficiencies and declined to approve opening to passenger traffic. In particular, at Bishops Stortford no arrangements had been made by the GER to accommodate the trains from the Braintree line, and the station was considered too small to handle the extra traffic. At Braintree the line to Bishops Stortford diverged some distance from the existing terminus; the intention was to work trains in and out of the old terminus by reversing, an arrangement deprecated by Yolland. Paye, page 27
