Great Western Coffee Shop

From the Wokingham Times (http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/news/s/2122877_work_on_new_wokingham_station_to_start_next_month):

This was being discussed in detail on local radio (BBC Berks) a few mornings ago and mention was made that there will also be extensive alterations to the road system around the station as part of this.

The bit I recall is that the mini roundabout immediately adjacent to the level crossing will be going and that there were be traffic lights, co-ordinated with the crossing, that will control flows instead. I think the idea is to give priority to traffic coming towards the town up Barkham Ride when the barriers are open, which makes sense.

The best thing of all of course would be to get rid of the crossing altogether and put a bridge in, but I suspect space and cost would be the main issues, just like they are in Thatcham!

From  Get Wokingham (http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/news/s/2124075_wokingham_station_work_on_track_for_next_summer)


There is an artist's impression of the proposed front of the station in the article.  I'm sure when Chris from Nailsea has finished his dinner he'll work out how to post it!  ;D

Cheeky git!  ;D


That's a pint you owe me.  :-X

Is the clock tower with the mahoosive 'double arrow' logo really necessary?

Yes, it looks good, but what of the cost for this cosmetic embellishment.

A pint for each of us, from bobm.  ;)

If they rebuild the Molly Millars pub opposite the station (or whatever it is called these days) I'd stand you one there!  Otherwise there is a trusty Wetherspoons a ten minute walk away.  Not that I particularly want to go to Wokingham in the near future!!

Where's the Coffee Shop Christmas party this year? ;D ;D

As to the matter in hand I think that tower will look out of place and not really necessary.

On a rather more serious note: is that tower in fact to be part of the new lift / footbridge structure (allowing for the inevitable artistic licence, obviously)?

The clock is an absolute necesity for any 19th century so that people arriving for their train can find out the correct "railway time" and can find that they have (a) plenty of time and can amble the last few yards; (b) have missed it already (ditto); or (c) are just about to miss it so run and get knocked down by a horse and carriage crossing the road.  

I did wonder that but from that angle it seems a lot higher that what appears to be a footbridge in the foreground.   Also if it is a lift tower it would need a footbridge to get passengers over the line once it had elevated them above track level and would they really build two footbridges at a station of Wokingham's size?

Fair comment.

However, after doing a bit of digging on the internet, I've found another image from the Wokingham Times (http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/news/s/2095656_first_glimpse_of_new_station):

(http://m.gmgrd.co.uk/sbres/152.$plit/C_67_article_2095656_body_articleblock_2_bodyimage.jpg?06%2F07%2F2011%2009%3A05%3A39%3A969)

That's another pint you owe me.  ;)

K. The tower is only a few bricks thick. Not too expensive then. I could knock that up in less than three months, even with my limited bricklaying skills.  :-\

Only took me two and a bit weeks to build the wall in the back garden. Four foot high, ten feet long and two bricks thick. 

:P ;) ;D

Looks very impressive compared to what is there now.  Meanwhile it looks like there has been some sort of aerial dog fight in the skies above it!   ;D ;D

CfN - I have added the pint to your tab.

The original 2011 NR press release here:

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/News-Releases/6105/PLANS-REVEALED-FOR-NEW-STATION-AT-WOKINGHAM

...includes four drawings, and it looks as though the recent news is just re-using old images. 

Can't see any sign of lifts though, so is the 'step free access' simply level access from either of two entrances?

Paul

From the Wokingham Times (http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/news/s/2128202_train_station_cafe_owner_fears_end_of_the_line_with_new_station):

The "Access for all" footbridge and the new station were planned separately, and I think run as separate contracts (managed by SWT and NR respectively). Even the plans they submitted to planning for both showed the other its "before" state, until I prodded them to do better.

The pretty pictures of the station (posted previously) also show the old footbridge. The new one is much taller, because of the lift headgear - that was the main comment during the planning consultation. Of course this is permitted development so neither the public's comments not the planning department can alter any of that. The "totem" is shown as 9.2 m high, and is not a square tower but a flat "plank" 2.4 x 0.67m. The bridge is, from the same ground level, 10 m high so, from the front, the bridge will be more prominent than the edge-on totem.

The work you can see now is for the link road rather than the station. The announcements said the station would be done first, and it may still be finished first, but of course the groundwork takes most of the time.  I suspect a lot has been done preparing for the station and footbridge build, but it has mostly been moving wires so not very visible. While a foundation still has to be laid, I guess that erecting an Ikea station kit on it will be pretty quick.

The station link road plan (rather than the new station itself) does indeed put the level crossing inside a traffic-light controlled junction. When I was preparing my submission to the consultation on this plan, I tried (with Google's help) to find any other examples of this. We only found one: at Basford in Nottingham. Does anyone know of any more?

I also wanted to find out ORR's attitude to giving level crossing orders (LCOs) for such a case, and despite getting to talk to an infrastructure inspector I did not really find out. One aspect of this is that the council have always said changing these junctions to reduce congestion at the crossing depends on the new road, but I think you just need to give priority to traffic off the crossing (remember there's now a roundabout only a short car's length away on one side). The new scheme bans loads of turns by the crossing, and that could be done now too.

The ORR's guidance on LCOs emphasises queuing traffic on level crossings as a bad thing for safety, so removing obstructions to flows off the crossing meets both objectives.  So one thing I wondered was whether the ORR, asked about a new LCO, might insist on these changes to the current arrangement and resist the traffic lights.

Oh, and as I live very close to the crossing, I'd rather you didn't suggest putting a replacement bridge at the same site - i.e. right outside my front door. It's the wrong place, anyway, as we really need to shift through traffic out of town.

PS: one of the banned turns means that if you go down Station Road you won't be able to turn into the station - which has caused some amusement to the locals, but would only confuse visitors.

Many thanks for posting your well-considered thoughts here, stuving.

The only vaguely similar comparison I can offer, on the spur of the moment, is on the vexed question of the possible location of the necessary new station at Portishead - see http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=231.msg131357#msg131357 and subsequent posts.

From  Getwokingham. (http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/news/s/2133433_negotiations_for_crucial_new_railway_bridge_continue)

That's more than odd - we were told that this new bridge would result in the closure of one if not both of the other (i.e. not station) level crossings, and I imagine that any LC closure has a cash value to NR. Of course they do have significant costs in what they have to do so that a bridge can be built over their railway, but even so...

I had a letter from SWT to the neighbours through my door this morning, promising to keep us awake replacing the footbridge. It says "...some of the works will be carried out during pre-planned midweek and weekend nights...".

The use of "pre-planned" is unhelpful. For one thing, isn't all planning by definition done in advance? What could "post-planning" possibly be (except another of those vexatious little oxymorons)? Since all the expected work has to be planned, I think we can infer that some unplanned work may be necessary and in some cases that would be at night.

I would be more interested to know whether we will be notified of these nights in advance, though that may be of little practical help to us. They do give us the dates of three all-day possessions: Sundays 19th May, 7th July, and 28th July.

Perhaps "post-planning" is "in hindsight"?  ;D

I don't think so - planning involves more than just foreseeing. It's more a case of deciding what needs to be done, and when, to achieve a desired result. It will usually involve some conditionality - such as "if we find that needs doing then we will have to get one of those in place earlier".

Obviously this has nothing to do with whatever it is planning departments do. It may relate to what they should do, though, in the sense of deciding how to implement their objectives (adopted policy items) even if there is no immediate prospect of their being affordable.

I have been very critical of Wokingham's planners for not having prepared a route for a new railway crossing in case the level crossing is to be closed. Currently this is an "unfunded aspiration" of both the borough and NR, but it might become funded for a number of reasons: e.g. increased rail traffic, increased road traffic, or political pressure after an accident at a similar crossing. The timescale for such a closure would be perhaps a year or two - far quicker that planning a new bridge from scratch!

There's only one phrase more annoyingly redundant than 'pre-planned', and that's 'pre-prepared'... there seems to be some sort of inflation process going on with these terms; I'm keeping my ears pricked to hear someone say 'pre-preprepared'...

I know - I did spot a "pre-prepared" in my draft for the previous post. I suspect that it may be that just "being prepared" does not necessarily involve doing much or doing it well in advance, hence a need is felt to show when it does.

There are posters in Wokingham station saying that next Sunday (19th May) they will be removing the old footbridge. Not only will there be no trains, but the crane will block the car park so the buses will be at the back of the station in Oxford Road (which is not really suitable for buses). I can't see any sign of a temporary footbridge, so maybe they think we do not really need one. That is not entirely unreasonable given the level crossing and public footbridge, and the absence of any ticket gates.

At last! This vital piece of the new infrastructure has now been installed. (And another one across the road, so drivers can see it, whichever road they approach on.)

Well, the old footbridge has gone. A very slick operation, and quiet! So much so that I missed it. I looked out of my bedroom window at 9 am and could see a digger dangling from a crane, and assumed they were setting up as I had heard nothing. It turns out they were clearing up, and by 11 am the crane was all packed and ready to go. From then on the slickness wore off, as the crane had to wait for a new tyre before leaving.

Not only that, but someone decided it was a good time to cut a trench across the main road, just where the buses were stopping. They were meant to be at the back of the station, in Oxford road, but that's not suitable for anything worthy of the name "bus", and has a 7.5 T limit; they were using 16 T buses.

Presumably there will now be a lot of work preparing the site (digging holes in the platform, mainly) before the next full possession on 7th July. And if they are going to finish the new station this summer, they ought to start on that soon.

So much for their "pre-planning" (or indeed "pre-preparation") then, eh?  ::) ;D

As expected, here is ... I guess we should call it a footbridge replacement poster service?

From  Getwokingham (http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/news/s/2134441_commuters_frustration_at_station_footbridge_removal)

My goodness- do the people of Wokingham not have anything better to bitch and moan about?

To be fair, it looks as much like amateurish reporting. If you offer yourself for people to whinge to, they will - wouldn't you? To then just copy it all down unselectively does give that impression. Not that I'd deny it might still be true, of course.

^It has been absolute carnage. I dropped my husband off on Monday morning and had to drive the entire length of the car park to turn round and come back again...

Yeah right... 

Paul

Pedant alert

Presumably the person who dropped her husband off was driving a chariot with knives on the axles or at least driving very badly. Otherwise how would carnage result?

Talking of Roman times, that word 'decimate' reared its ugly head again... Quinion gives a very good case for avoiding it altogether here (http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-dec1.htm).

Here's a quick update on the new Wokingham station:

•   Groundwork has now started on the site of the station itself.
•   The loss of the internal footbridge has some side effects you might not have predicted: for one there is usually a guy in high-vis.  whose job appears to be to stop anyone trying to reach the public footbridge or level crossing off the end of the platform.
•   There is also a hired diesel generator supplying the North side of the station. Presumably this was easier/cheaper than replacing the feed over the bridge with one under the track for a few weeks.
•   The car park is still much reduced by the work on the new road, though new parts are being opened as soon as they are ready.

You can now see the steel reinforcement for the floor slab of the station. There are no foundations to speak of, but I think there are some piles in there (I only saw one).

The new footbridge is going - down, rather than up - into two big holes for the below-ground lift shafts.

Since the footbridge has gone, there's no vantage point to take a decent picture now.

The car park still has lots of fenced-off spaces, as they take ages to put together the fences around the edges of the terracing.

 Get Wokingham (http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/delay-to-station-improvement-works-4866824) is reporting the completion date of the new station has been put back.

Now that I am back home (having been bagged by another Tour de France) I find the lads in hi-vis have busy bolting steel bits together. Here's a picture from the platform side of the station building, and one that shows the steel frames of the lift shafts are also complete and being brick clad.

Three weeks on, it is clear that the current phase is one of rapid progress - mainly cladding the roof and brick and block laying. Not only are the lift shafts done, but internal and external walls of the station are shooting up. And they are assembling a multi-storey bike shed too.

The main objection to the planning application for the footbridge was that the lift shafts were a lot higher than the old bridge and would be rather overbearing. In reality I think they are pretty narrow and far enough from the houses that no-one will notice.

More rapid progress. I woke up at 5:00 on Sunday morning and heard some kind of building activity - though I was not tempted to go and look! So I was not surprised to see yesterday that the footbridge fairy had visited. As the crane (which isn't actually an Iron Fairy - too big) was still there I expected more last night, so I went to look after the last train (1:15 ECS to Staines). I was just in time to see a complete stairway being lifted off the ground - followed by a very loud crack and a rapid lowering. It's now in place and the crane's continued presence means I expect the final piece tonight.

When we got advance notice from "South Western Railway", they indicated there would be three extended possessions: one in May and two in July. The first one happened, and was for the removal of the old bridge. There were none in July, and it seems they have concluded the installation work can be done during ordinary overnight possessions. I suspect there may still be some more for the lifts - don't the cabins and shaft-head machinery need to be lifted in?

If they use the same lift technology as Fareham, Fratton and Southampton Parkway, (each of which I noted being built over a few months), the lift cabs themselves were delivered in sections and built up onto a framework installed through the platform doors.  The machinery is hydraulic, and again is installed through the doors and is mostly set against the side of the shaft, there is no traditional motor and winding gear room at the top of the shaft.  The hydraulic power packs have typically been installed separate from the lift shafts, under the 'half landings' of the staircases - (the grey blockwork structures shown in your photo above being the typical position of the power rooms).

Paul

In fact, this came up during the planning process. The towers are about 3 m higher than the top landing roof, and this was questioned as undesirable. It also does look too much for the above-roof height of the cabin. As I said last time, I don't think that concern really stands up when you look at the real thing.

The reply from SWR was in part:

Now that doesn't make too much sense, if taken literally. I imagine the standards relate to the ventilation equipment (and anything else?) on top of the cabin, rather than the height per se. And the motor room is actually under the upper flight of stairs, but either way it its separation from the shaft means it can only be hydraulic.

Indeed, last night after the last train I craned my head out of the bedroom window to see the second staircase dangling above the station. If I'd realised how brightly it would be floodlit I'd have had my camera ready - the lights were cut as soon as it was lowered, and not even down at both ends.

What did surprise me was to see another crane there as well. It was lifting something onto the roof of the new station, which I saw later was two long wrapped packages ... ducting maybe? There's nothing in the plans, but now it's been unpacked and it looks (though the profile makes it hard to see) as if it's sheet cladding. The plans did say the roof finish was zinc, so I guess that's added now to run full length down the slope rather than factory-fitted to the smaller roof modules.

But why two cranes? Even if there are two separate contractors, it seems a bit over the top (groan).

Hi all

Having just moved into the area and deciding my walk to the station is just a bit to far I have decided to cycle instead.
The old cycle racks get full and people are locking up their bikes against trees and road signs.

I thought I'll wait until the new racks go in as they should massively increase the capacity. However from the rack that has just been installed there seems to little or no increase in the amount of spaces?

Are they going install some more racks (Or leave the old ones in)  ???  If not this seems like a bad bit of planning, especially as the council are supposed to be encouraging people to use their cycles more.

The submitted plans showed racks for 76 cycles in the "cage", and none anywhere else. I've had a quick look and there are indeed 76 new "high-rise" racks, and 25 steel hoops currently in use. I assume that should hold 50 bikes? So you are right - not much of an increase.

There will be a long steel railing beyond the new racks - some of it is already there - so I guess any overflow will use that, unless extreme measures are taken to prevent it. If "they" (SWT, I guess) complain that's untidy, you can reply that it just shows there isn't enough space provided.

And of course I must offer a warm welcome to this forum - and to Wokingham, for that matter.

While I didn't wait up for the footbridge to be lifted into position, the Wokingham Times photographer did - if you are interested see http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/new-footbridge-gives-wokingham-train-5678375 (http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/new-footbridge-gives-wokingham-train-5678375).

There was a letter to the paper (14th August - I can't find it on line) headed "New bridge looks utterly monstrous". This includes the line "we have lost so many historic and lovely buildings..." - surely she is not referring to the old footbridge (see reminder attached)?

She ends with "I look at the front page of The Wokingham Times and see Bracknell. Just terrible".  Note how this is the worst possible put-down, for a true Wokingham resident.

Personally I think the new bridge does look cheap, but it is not finished yet and whether it looks out of place will depend on how the new station looks as well.

I agree with Stuving the old footbridge (and current ticket office) are hardly historic or lovely buildings

As a Wokingham resident I am amused by the comments made in the local press from the Wokingham Society wanting something that reflects the character of the market town (what do they want, something made of oak?) and the Society's Chairman who "had not been down to the station, but knew what to expect" (I wonder which newspaper he reads?)

If the artist impression of the new building is correct then I think it will be a massive improvement (currently much more "Bracknell" than "Wokingham") and given most views of the station will be from Station Road/car park side, the station and the new footbridge is totally in keeping with the light industrial units in Oxford Road (which can be seen in some of the photos in this thread).

If Wokingham were still a picture postcard market town with twee tea rooms and "ye olde gifte shoppes" then they might have a point.

I may have my own views on whether we really need a Premier Inn (and associated chain Pub/Restaurant) and ANOTHER supermarket, but the town certainly needs regenerating and if market forces mean that's what it takes to pay for it...so be it.  It is a market town after all!

Now if SWT could also see their way to laying on fast or semi fast trains to Waterloo I would be inclined to use my bicycle and travel from WOK rather than drive to TWY each morning.

The footbridge and steps are NR 'modular structures' and minor variations on the standard design are being fitted all over the network AFAICS, under the DfT's Access for All budget, not just in SWT's area or the wider south, but nationally.

So the fundamental question is why do the 'Wokingham Society' seriously believe they should get something specifically different/better designed for this station, out of the dozens all over the country that the 'Access for All' scheme is paying for?  Sorry but I just don't get this criticism at all...

At least they've taken the brickwork all the way up the lift towers, there's many places have got far worse finishes. 

Fratton:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/backfrompari/6133648884/

Fareham:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnoram/5332695085/

IIRC Twyford has similar metal-clad boxes?

Paul

 

The Wokingham Society commented on the plans submitted for planning approval. As railways can do much as they like, the council are only required to approve the overall character as suitable for the site, and the WS commented on that question. I have no real idea what they, or the council, would find suitable - but the council only quibbled about some of the finishes and in most cases that was due to a misleading drawing.

We had another example of this - the pub next door but one to me, which has just been demolished (I remind you I live very close to the station - within earshot of the crossing bell, if a window's open). The developers applied to build a pair of semis very like the pub in outline, and one or two little bungalows behind it, as the gardens are pretty long. The council refused permission on the grounds the bungalows were out of character - largely by being single-storey! The planning officer said the character of the houses round the periphery of the block is 2-storey, as if that is relevant to something in the middle.

There was another detached house next door to the pub, which was replaced by a pair of semis 40 years ago, and it had (and they have) a pair of 2-storey cottages in its back garden. The planner did not cite that as relevant, as he evidently thinks (as do I, and said so in my comments) that they are out of character, and have been for 150 years.

The final irony is that when their revised plans were refused, they appealed and were successful, and one of the inspector's arguments was that the cottages on the next plot were also single storey. Sometimes I wonder what the point of this planning system is.

The last month has seen a lot of detailed fitting out of the station, but no big milestones. All of the walls are finished, internal and external, the glazing frames in place, and glazing has started. The roof cladding has been completed too, so the guard rail around it has gone.

The footbridge looks more complete, with all the glazing in, and most of the visible fiddly bits - rainwater pipes, cable trunking, ground surface - now done. Wiring and fitting the lifts may take a bit longer.The diesel generator at the North side was sent back to Speedy within a week of the bridge arriving, but the cable that allows that is a temporary one looped through the bridge.

The other footbridge - the public one - is of course a listed structure, which I presume places a responsibility on NR (or possibly SWT) to maintain it. I think they need to do more about this - it's getting past just needing a lick of paint.

We can now see real progress, with the footbridge carrying passengers and two big black cables (now inside the plastic pipes provided for the purpose). The station building appears to be fully glazed as well, and from the footbridge you can see what they have been doing to the roof. Still lots of details to finish, no doubt, but it looks promising.

The footbridge was much used on Saturday - as you may known there was a fatality at Earley and the line from Reading was closed for two and a half hours. I was initially not very impressed by the response to this, but having looked at it a bit more I think that's unfair. Yes, the information coming by announcements and on the screens was confused and confusing, but when there was a train to board (or not, depending on where it was going) that did improve.

A new signal was installed a few years ago so that Wokingam can be operated as a terminus - albeit only with one platform - and the timetable fits very well with turning trains round quickly. SWT's interim service was actually pretty good - no worse than one 70 minute interval in a 30 minute service. FGW's was a bit less so, which I am sure was because they need to send a new crew from Reading to take a train back out.

The trains to Gatwick are really only hourly, with two arriving almost at once, and of course people use them to catch planes. I think their target should be to limit the interval between trains (or connections) into Gatwick to two hours - which was missed by 20 minutes. The train in question left Wokingham 100 minutes after the incident that closed the line, and it should be possible to do that a bit quicker. But still, the basic emergency plan seemed to work.

I can't really comment on how well replacement transport performed, as I didn't use it. As usual, the buses arrived too late to do much, so before that people were herded onto the (apparently plentiful) taxis.

As you can see, we now have something that really does look like a railway station. No sign of that "totem plank" yet, not even a foundation. What looks like the steel for its armature has been around for ages, and several times has been moved out of the way as work advances across the site.

According to the head councillor for transport, the link road past the station was being held up by the station build being late. The last we heard it was still due to open this month, but I can't believe that will be met now - not quite. He also said it wasn't easy to find an engineering company to take on a contract for the traffic lights, to be linked with the level crossing, but that "Network rail were happy".

It rained last weekend, and I'll give you one guess whether the footbridge roof leaked. Of course it did! And where? The flat sections, where they meet something a bit higher: on the half-landings, and from the main span to the lifts.

I thought as I walked past today that it looked as if the name had been put up.

Photo caption: The new station building was constructed alongside the existing building, which will now be demolished

The interior of the new building looked pretty much fitted out today, and lots of work being done on the lifts too.

Today, with no fuss or notice, the station was open. It looks very empty, though it was meant to have some retail provision. I guess that'll be the bring-your-own-booth kind.

It also sounds very empty - given all the hard surfaces of the glass, floor, and plastered walls, together with the high ceiling, it really needed acoustic treatment on the ceiling, and seems to have none at all.

I was looking at the lift, which I had thought was not ready as it has a visible "out of order" sign and no call button. But I wonder if you have to use the "press to speak" button and ask to use it. There is nothing to tell you that, and I doubt anyone would guess unless they are literally unable to attempt the stairs (like in a wheelchair).

As soon as the new station building was in use, the old one was fenced off and work started stripping out pipes, wires etc. Then last week the shelter on platform 2 was fenced off and similarly stripped out. And yesterday it had been knocked flat and by this afternoon carted away, leaving a bare concrete raft. The old station will be gone soon, and as the roads outside (apart from the new link road) are well advanced, it's not far from being finished.

Do you know if they putting any shelters on the up or down platforms at all?  I'm not really sure if the new building includes a canopy at all, but IIRC the only shelter on the Reading bound platform was the old building wasn't it?

Paul

The plans showed two short canopies on platform 2, but one of them was to go where the new footbridge now is. So we end up with even less than the old shelter.

On platform 1 there is also a bit of canopy from the station to the footbridge, but again not much - though in this case we end up with more shelter than there used to be.

Incidentally, the station is built without barriers. The plans show where they would go, if fitted in the station building. There's no indication of what barrier there might be on platform 2, nor even if there will be a TVM (as there is now).

Last night the station was a mere ghost - you could see right through it, between the few bits of wall holding the roof up. This morning, it was just a heap of wreckage being gobbled up by a digger. That's not really a big step in the construction process, but does register as an important change when you see it.

There's an article in the Wokingham Times this week (I can't find it on getwokingham) in which someone complains that the times on all the various displays do not match. She could have added that the display on platform 2 was blank a lot of the time, which I also noticed a couple of weeks ago. There were other comments about the half-built state of the station that show the "news" is that old - not unusual, for the Times.

Quite what that clock issue was about I have no idea - if you can talk to a display to put train data on it, how come you can't give it the right time as well? And don't these displays also provide feedback of what they are showing?

Anyway, things have moved on a bit since then, though not all steps are forward ones. Most urgency has been directed towards laying the new road surface (not the new link road - that comes later). Access for several weeks has been very awkward via a long one-way stretch, controlled by contractor's men with radios. The first width of tarmac has already gone down.

We also have a coffee shop - but no newspapers. And the canopies are being roofed. Not at all modular, just a steel frame and corrugated sheets with insulation in between. The frame's very solid - maybe it's now normal (if not an elfan rule) to build anything kids could climb on solid enough to withstand several of them doing that.

Finally, the bicycle racks have been taken out of their cage again. Not sure why - there's paving still to go down, but the racks are not likely to bolt down on top - maybe they just get in the way.

The fiddly bits of the station are now almost finished, such as the P2 canopy. I checked with the planning drawings, and this is it - no back, let alone sides, to come. I do wonder what the point is of going to all this trouble to put up protection against only the most vertical of rain. And it does look a bit - well, crude, frankly. Its very limited usefulness as a shelter is really rather obvious - most people say exactly that on first seeing it.

Official opening by Baroness Kramer now delayed due to the weather - the second time it has been put off.

From GetWokingham (http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/opening-wokingham-station-delayed-extreme-6691887)

One of the side effects of Baroness Kramer's scheduled opening of the station last week was that it set a deadline for all the frantic final fettling to finish. So here is what it looks like - and with a bit of sunshine, too.

It certainly is prettier than the old one, though given what a slum that was you could call that faint praise. You can see how tall and narrow the canopies are - and I'm still not convinced Wokingham only has the vertical kind of rain. The canopy on P2 (picture 3) is down the level crossing end, in the wider bit where the seats were put. Unfortunately the trains don't stop there any more - even 8-cars only reach back to the entrance gate.

Since our footbridge is glazed, a lot of people wait inside - kids sitting at the foot of the stairs, the rest of us on the overbridge. From there you can see not only the CIS by the entrance, but arriving trains too, so apart from no seats it's far better than under the canopy. I'm sure that it will offend tidy-minded station designers, and that may explain why so many footbridges are not glazed.

If you saw the plans, you may remember there was going to be a "totem" (not a pole, maybe a totem plank?). It would go on the pavement, beside where the lift tower is (picture 4). It was to be 9 m high by 2.5 wide - almost exactly the same as size as the tower - and also of brick, so I imagine that's why it has been left out. It was to have a BR logo captioned "Wokingham" and a clock - the clock might not fit with the lift inside, but I wonder if the logo is still going to appear.

Having waited for a train there the other day, I can safely say that the word "canopy" does not = "shelter". Nice improvement overall, pity about some of the finer detail (or lack of).

According to the local Tories' newsletter/election leaflet that's just come through he door, her baronessship is due to have another go at opening the station on Friday. No time - and no other announcement, so I rather suspect it was information for councillors that wasn't for publication ...

... and if you look at this (http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/Wokingham.aspx) on SWT news, it has already happened! I just went to look, and the velvet curtain remains resolutely undrawn, but you can't prevent a press officer or journalist reporting something just because it has not happened yet ...

... and so it came to pass. The sun came out, a horde of onlookers foregathered and with due ceremony - for this is  the 400th NSIP project - the words were revealed.

Most of the crowd were councillors, DfT and council transport department, or SWT (badged as alliance) I haven't seen so many SWT badges on the station since Tornado came to visit! There were quite a few cameras, both still and video for interviews afterwards (mainly with the Baroness, Tim Shoveller, and John Redwood MP).

In his pre-reported speech, Cllr David Lee (billed as "Leader of Wokingham Borough Council^s leader") said:

On the day, he also said that he hoped passengers would soon have faster trains, and more shelter on platform 2 (apparently the council are working on this), while the level crossing would be closed less of the time. Given that Tim Shoveller repeated the claim about extra services to Waterloo (all of two per day, AFAIK) as a result of the 458/5 programme, if anything it will go the other way.

And you may see it on telly tonight - on South Today, at least,  together with a piece about reopening the line at Botley after the second-hugest current emergency trackbed rebuilding job.

From the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-26578467):


Oh dear.

What "terminal"? The station was open throughout, not the building.

The road access is not yet improved, being work in progress. Whether it will be "better" once the new road layout is finished is moot.

One of those new screens has rarely worked, and is still dark.

The November date was cancelled because that minister (Norman Baker) was reshuffled out of the job. And by 10th February, when Baroness Kramer cancelled (for the following day), any storm damage on this route was fixed.

And the work on the link road started last autumn.

But apart from that ...

As a journalist I just want to cry when I see stories written like that.  If you can't get basic facts right there is no hope for the rest of the article....

The local rag did rather better - this from getwokingham (http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/rail-minister-hails-220-million-6834163) (the Wokingham Times).

I'm not sure whether the ^6 million included the footbridge and roads or whether it's just the NSIP funds for the station - the footbridge was Access for All money.  But that's minor, and none of the parties is making it very clear. And the tendentious content in Cllr Lee's words are all his own work, for which the reporter is blameless.

There also a DfT report here (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/passengers-to-benefit-from-over-220-million-station-improvements?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=news-story-passengers-to-benefit-from-over-220-million-station-improvements). That says NSIP was set up with ^150 M of funds, and has delivered ^150 M of improvements - so maybe be they are grossing up these project costs with everyone else's contribution.

Last night there were some ominous-looking vehicles gathering by the station, and as soon as the last train passes the pneumatic drills started. They were cutting a trench across the road at each side of the level crossing, and I assumed this was the start of work to put in the traffic lights that will surround the crossing (and be linked to it).

This morning I saw that they had actually been renewing the tarmac on the crossing (around the plastic bits next to the tracks). They had also renewed the white lining, but only where it had been removed. Since the white paint outside that part has mostly worn off, you can see that it's quite a blatant example of jobsworthiness. And all for a few months at most.

That's not good, they could have quite easily done the rest of the Keep Clear message..

Is anyone aware if the road layout plans have altered significantly from the plans available on the Wokingham Council website

http://www.wokingham.gov.uk/transport/roads/stationlinkroad/documents/

Having recently started to use Wokingham station regularly to commute to London I am amazed at, what appears to me, to be the counter-intuitive plans for traffic.  I appreciate I may be late to the party however is anyone able to explain the planners thinking?

Considering the morning peak

• All traffic from the south (Finchampstead and Barkham) will need to use the link road to get to the Reading Road therefore this will be permanently busy as it will not just be station traffic
• All station traffic from the town centre and the north will use the link road and (other than buses or taxis) will need to turn right into the car park, across the flow of traffic mentioned above (unsignalled) and across any buses or taxis exiting.  This will include drop off traffic as there appears to be no other facility for drop off from the north
• How exactly do car park season ticket holders (using the car park opposite the station) coming from the north get to that car park (presumably down Station Road, left into Wellington Road to the Carnival Pool roundabout then back along Wellington Road?)

Interested in others' observations

No, that is still the plan - give or take a minor change to the bus and taxi provision.

I reckon the way it came about is roughly like this:

The objectives were:

• to make the new station a traffic interchange (intermodal is still in fashion, obviously)
• to make the level crossing safer, while reducing its traffic-strangling effect
• to improve traffic flow in general (though of course that does not mean removing it from the town centre).

The theory for the crossing is that, when the barrier is down, traffic should still be able to turn left into Wellington Road. Traffic coming up Barkham Road can't turn left then as Oxford Road is not allowed to be a "route avoiding". At the moment the length available in Station Road for the crossing queue is too short, so Station Road has to be one way. When the barrier goes up traffic going straight across (or left into the station) gets an extra-long green, and obstructing turns (such as right into Wellington Road) are banned. This not only improves flow, it is essential if the standard Highway Code rules for level crossings are to apply.

The link road is the only surviving bit of the old IDR proposal, kept as it allows Station Road to be one way (and only incidentally serving the station). However, there is no room for a lane to allow a right turn into it, so it cannot be entered from Station Road. Also, WSP (WBC's consultants) reckon the turn would leave too little pavement space. That is going to confuse a lot of people. Coming from the north you can go down Denmark Street, which is not a lot further than now. Coming in along Reading Road it is much further, if you need that entrance.

The raised car park and the drop-off bay are only accessible from the level crossing end. For the car park that probably does not matter - there will be enough users to fill it coming that way (and it is smaller than the other part).  If that means moving some designated season ticket spaces, I see no problem in doing that. The kiss'n'ride bay is so narrow it will be interesting to see what it does to the traffic. Given that there are traffic lights at the Reading Road end of the Link Road, I expect that crossing through that flow of traffic ought not to be too difficult. Whether there will enough capacity for all the car park users is another matter - but I'm sure WSP have modelled it.

You will have spotted that the level crossing will be inside a junction with traffic lights, though there will still be wig-wags and barriers. WSP and NR are confident they know how to do this, though there are very few precedents (only Basford that I know of). How drivers will react is unknown - at Basford there have been quite a lot ignoring the banned turns (which are similar to those coming here). I even suspect that traffic will still queue back along the Link Road to and across the crossing, which will potentially confuse drivers even more - and may fall foul of NR's ALCRM risk assessment.

Thanks - just what I thought.  Worrying.  Very glad I live on the Reading side of town

And I expect "opening summer 2014" will mean the first week of September

At last! The new station link road has opened, and as the old access road has closed to be rebuilt it is the only way in and out. Which means the work now moves closer to (my) home, at the level crossing and the roads leading to it.

As reported by the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-29423374) (though this adds little to its headline).

Work to finish the roads around the new station is still not finished. WBC have usually blamed Network Rail for delays, though I rather doubt they would have got on much faster left to themselves. The old entrance (Station Approach) is closed for essential road narrowing until after Christmas, and then the junction on the north (town) side (now a mini-roundabout) has to be rebuilt too. And finally the traffic lights get plugged into the sockets being set into the pavement. That's the bit that depends on NR doing their bit.

The road alignment on the south side was done in November, including changing the signs. That leaves the one that's shown rather misleading. In fact, the only thing on it that's correct is the temporary blanking out of the second left turn, which is Station Approach. Everything else is wrong.

The two roads shown as "no entry" are still open, with the roundabout still there at that junction. The railway crossed just before that, though that wasn't on the old sign either (showing level crossings on road signs went out of fashion a while ago). The destinations shown as accessible via the station are in fact still accessible by going straight on (as is the station). And the first left turn - Oxford Road - is currently "no entry", and WBC say it will remain so until Station Approach finally opens.

Do you think this sign deserves some kind of prize for having the most erroneous pieces of information on it?

Here's another case of oops! for our road-builders. Most of the white (and all the yellow) lines were applied as hot gloop. The last bits of white line weren't, presumably as the hot gloop lorry had gone by then. They were applied as sticky tape - rolled out and down onto the road surface which had been pre-heated with a gas torch.

That never looked like it was firmly stuck down. And guess what - where cars start and stop, and especially where they turn as well, the scrubbing of tyre on road has ripped the lines off. And all the bits have stuck themselves down wherever they feel like it. As you can see.

I wonder if that was meant to only be temporary, until the hot gloop lorry can come back? Maybe, but most of the lines are not really needed now anyway, as the side road here (Oxford Road) is coned down to one lane and marked as "no entry". Mind you, I've seen lots of people ignoring that.

Mummy, mummy, what are all those lights for? Yes, it's the long-promised traffic light junction around the level crossing. It was all turned on and the closed roads reopened very early on Sunday, and does seem to work. Several yellow-jacketed observers have keeping an eye on it since. Of course the real test will be on Tuesday, when a full load of rush hour traffic turns up.

The controller for the new lights uses Siemens modules, with a railway signals interface provided by PEEK (now part of Imtech). There are at least two interface boxes on the railway side, put in by S&T Cover for Network rail. The whole road layout was designed by WSP for the  local traffic authority. That sounds like a lot of cooks (and observers turning out over the holiday).

The level crossing is still manually controlled from the signal box. When the signaller presses the button, if the lights are already red against crossing traffic it starts the barrier closure cycle as it did before. If the lights are green, it tells their controller to change to red - even if it's only been at green for a few seconds. Once a signal confirming the lights have changed is received, the barrier closure cycle can be started. So in that case it takes a few seconds longer than usual.

I've been told there is a 25-second limit on waiting for the lights to change. What happens after that, if the light get stuck, or fail? I'm not sure, but ultimately I imagine the signaller can close the barriers come what may.

In 2017 this signal box is to close, with recontrol to the Basingstoke ROC. I had assumed the crossing would get object detection, but apparently it is seen as having too high a risk so that CCTV is preferred.

You will see our level crossing now has a yellow box marking. Those were used at all AHBs, but have now been removed where the traffic flow is low, and are exceptional on other crossing types. After all, the box only enforces what is already the rule for level crossings - don't go on unless you can get off. I raised the point in the consultation that some drivers with a green light may think "I got told to go" and assume they can ignore that rule. In addition, visibility round the corner to where a queue would form in Station Approach (its new name) is poor. Maybe whoever decided on a box (LTA, NR, ORR?) thought the same. I have no idea why box markings at level crossings (to diagram 1045 in TSM section 4) are different from junction ones, using two densities of hatching.

The original plans didn't show the box markings. Neither did they show that odd-looking little area of soil (presumably to be grass) - it was meant to be footpath up to the joint foot/cycle path on Wellington Road. Perhaps it was found late on to be too steep for a footpath ... and hastily modified.

I guess it's time for a progress report on our "new" level crossing - though really the crossing has hardly changed, it just now has traffic lights around it for the roads each side.

In terms of the reasons for this change, it's working pretty well. The original objective of WBC's transport department was to increase the traffic flow over the crossing, which was also going to be helped by the new road layout: with Station Approach (the Station Link Road) and Station Road now one way.  The old layout suffered from having a mini-roundabout immediately to its north-east and another side road immediately to its south-west. That meant that, for much of the barriers-up time, traffic couldn't get off the crossing, so huge queues built up. A second reason that emerged later was that this road layout is obviously not one the ORR would allow, in that it is not compatible with the Highway Code rules for crossing crossings. Once NR's inspectors had spotted this, something had to be done - though you do wonder why they took over 25 years to notice.

Now, when the barriers are up, traffic from Barkham Road over the crossing gets a clear run most of the time. Consequently it does not need very much green time to clear the queues.  When the barriers come down, queues still build up in Barkham Road, but Wellington Road (and pedestrians) share all the "go" time. Then, once they go up, the lights give crossing traffic a longer green to clear the queue.  I can't say how this copes with the morning peak, since I no longer dash out into it every day, but the neighbours say it does work. I have seen the crossing exit briefly blocked by a tailback, but only from the pedestrian crossing, not the full length of Station Approach (but morning rush hour may be worse).

The other main question was how drivers would cope with the new one-way roads and banned turns. Well, I've seen plenty of cases of drivers ignoring both - some quite scary - but the incidence is decreasing. That suggests it's mainly the unobservant using internal autopilot, or wilful contravention by those who didn't know about the changes before they got there. As a pedestrian crossing the road, it certainly is unnerving to be almost flattened by a car you knew couldn't be there, driven too fast by a driver who realises it was wrong.

One of the makers' men from Imtech told me they had put in six of these linked light systems before this one, and mentioned Sleaford and Lymington. In addition, Basford (David Lane) and West Worthing are older linked systems, which rather deflates the claims made for this being a new idea that had to be developed for Wokingham. (Incidentally, the original Imtech company in the Netherlands has gone into receivership - but all the UK operations seem to already have been sold off.)

Sleaford would be Southgate East, which looks like a sensible candidate as there is a main road right next to the railway there. However, if the dates on Street View are to be believed, it has had junction traffic lights from before 2011. I wonder whether these were previously unlinked. This crossing was due to be closed, but the bridge and link road to replace it were to be paid for by s.106 money from Tesco - who have just dropped their new store plan.

Lymington hardly looks a prime candidate, though once again Street View shows the lights now in place. The side road they control is not that close to the railway, and is a cul-de-sac leading to new housing. If Lymingtonian drivers can't cope with that layout unaided, are they unusually dozy down there?

And then there are all the new road signs ... don't get me started on them.

And now our not very big local station and link road have been given a not very big local prize:
The ICE South East England Engineering Excellence Awards 2016 Urbanisation Award in association with Bechtel (https://www.ice.org.uk/near-you/uk/south-east-england/awards/engineering-excellence-awards#profile-wokingstation)

The citation is:

While the completion of the project to bring 10-car trains to the Reading line was announced two weeks ago, there was also a clue - the unwrapping of the new stop boards at Wokingham. Platform 2 was extended ages ago, as the "Wokingham turnback" project, and P1 was finished in February.

You might think the signs would be decided by the platform length, provided the lengths of trains being operated are all covered. But, being the railway, it's a bit more complicated than that. You can see that there are now stop boards for down trains on both platforms. That's new - P1 had none before, and P2 had boards for 2-4, 5 (a recent addition), 8, and 10.

In the Up direction there is an S board on P1 and nothing on P2. For down trains on P2, we now have 2-3, 4-5, and 8-10. For P1, though (and there isn't a 2-3) they are 4, 5, 8, and 10. Bidirectional signalling in P1 is new - and if you look clsely you can see the malevolent red glare of the new limit of shunt indicator (ground signal) just next to the arriving 707.

Trains will mostly be 3 or 10 cars, occasionally 5, and 4 and 8 are in use now. Longer trains on the GWR service have been talked about, but only by one carriage (however that might be achieved in a 166). But why are the boards chosen as different on both sides? You might expect only the minimum possible on P1 - after all, it's not often used that way. But at the moment it's P2, where an 8-car train uses the same stop board as a 10-car one, that is a surprise, as it is 40 m further up the platform (away from the footbridge and entrance) than it needs to be (as pictured).

As to why the platforms are different lengths - the October 2016 EAS says this under "Principal Change Timetable 2018":

Wokingham 1 - Up 169
Wokingham 2 - Down 169 *

* To be extended to 294 metres from March 2009. To accommodate 12 cars

Maybe that will now be updated! It looks as if P1 has only been built for 10 cars, though the  limit of shunt indicator allows room for a 12-car one. Maybe in 2009, when P2 was done, longer trains were planned but the decision to only go to 10 cars had not been finalised.

And what is this about? Some mysterious steel posts with weighted bases appeared a few weeks ago, and now I see they carry TV monitors. There are three sets, next to the (reverse direction) 5-car and 4-car stop boards, and where the 3-car one would be. The one shown is by the 4-car board (visible at the right).

I can only imagine they are to show the far end(s) of the platform to the guard who is despatching the train. But why just those ones - and not on the other platform? Is it an experiment? Two of them are on these movable posts, though the other is on the station building.

As to why this one is "not for use with 10-car trains", it is roughly at the middle of an 8-car as it usually stops. The others are at the midpoint of a 10-car, and close to the back of a 3-car. But I'm sure I've seen despatch done from the back of an 8-car, and that must be worse for seeing to the far end. No doubt this all forms part of someone's cunning plan.

PS:- I can think of one explanation: the curvature of the platform. A quick burst of geometry (and based on the radius being 1800 m) suggests that you would need to stand back 2.7 m from the centre of a 10-car train to see to the ends, but only 1.7 m from an 8-car one. But there are lots of other curved platforms, some more curved so this would be a problem with 8-car trains.

And, while I'm here ... this was today's novelty explanation for disruption:

South West Trains have identified a problem with the information system which matches train crew rosters to the train timetables. This means that some journeys across the South West Trains network may be cancelled, revised or delayed by up to 20 minutes.

This disruption is expected to continue until the end of the day.

Fratton is another station with poor visibility due to curved platforms that has had despatch monitors for a few years now.  I think they may have coincided with the ASDO system being introduced, prior to that only a single 444 or 8.450 had all the doors open,

Perhaps a new risk assessment has been done for the longer 10 car trains to be used at Wokingham.

Note the date ... so it's nearly five years on, and the local papers (as well as the borough) announce that the road and bridge have been granted planning approval (no. 172934).

In the Wokingham Paper's report, it said that Network Rail designed the bridge, but in the application all the drawings are WSP's. I found just a couple of mentions of NR - in something called the "Planning Supporting Statement". Here it says that the design meets NR's requirements, that closing the nearest level crossing meets one of their objectives, and names an NR drawing of the bridge, though that's not in the application documents. There's nothing about NR having to do with the construction phase.

Of course Network Rail are statutory consultees, and there is an e-mail exchange with NR Property (http://planning.wokingham.gov.uk/FastWebPL/Documents/GetDoc.asp?REF=172934&Folder=Response%20from%20Consultees&File=172934rc%202017%2011%2017%20Network%20Rail.pdf). This is truly bizarre. It starts after the application, and ends with a standard set of NR requirements for works near the railway, including not encroaching or oversailing NR land. The only way I can make sense of it is that NR are actually building the bridge themselves, and this relates to the roads each side. In which case they will have been talking to the developers and WSP for ages, won't they? There's no sign of any planning application for the bridge itself, and as we know bridges - even if permitted development - always need planning approval of their design.

Look what we're getting for Christmas (next year sometime) - a new siding!

Last Friday I got this letter from Network Rail - obviously bad news, as it started "Dear Railway Neighbour".  Once again, they are going to be noisy at night, but this time mostly some way down the line. Starting last Sunday night,  they will be renewing the siding at Wokingham station, which is alongside and accessed off the Down Guildford. Originally it was 350 m long, but for years has been blocked at about 150 m, roughly where the third rail stops. The letter says the work will be continuous until the 29th January - somehow I doubt that's literally true!

So on Sunday night a couple of digger RRVs were unloaded (by Quattro, the owners), and an engineering train or two turned up. By Monday they'd obviously ripped up the old track and dug out the ballast, and had started "ground works". For some reason they seem to be preparing a layer of coal to put the ballast on ... I've no idea why.

But why is it now needed? I has been too short for 8-car, let alone the now-standard 10-car, trains for years. I've not even seen a Turbo in it recently, only the odd RHTT. I guess SWR have identified a need for parking the odd train there, and presumably did so some time ago to get the work signed off and booked into the EAS. One limitation on its use is that the siding is not accessible from the Up line (platform 1 ) - there is mention of "track replacement", but it's unlikely that will be more than the siding itself.

Here's a picture from Monday. The safety fencing had been put in in advance - if "safety" is the right word. I can see a tiny little trip hazard - can you? The siding is down beside the advancing train.

The work on the roof the signallers' outhouse is coincidental, and it's not clear what they are up to yet. This box is due to be recontrolled to Feltham ROC soon, though I don't think it was part of the last announcement by Grant Shapps of the Government's largesse - "?9.74 million for signalling and infrastructure enhancements delivered on the Wessex route at Twickenham, Bracknell and Virginia Water as part of the Feltham and Wokingham Signalling Renewal Programme, which will help improve the reliability and flexibility of services starting from Easter 2021". Maybe it's a sun lounge, for underemployed signallers.

We've all noticed how whatever work gets done on the railways costs far more than looks reasonable. So how big a job is relaying a siding? A hundred years ago, when we had already had mechanical cranes and shovels for decades (and were replacing steam ones by petrol or diesel), you'd have said a gang of ten blokes for a couple of weeks would be more than enough. But now it's going to take more than two months, not counting the new year break.

The first point is that the contractor is not a small local one, but AMCO-Giffen of Barnsley - second level, behind the really big boys. The current activity was a bloke on a mini 'dozer (an RRV one), who had two helpers to stand watching and wave their arms. There was another one too, sitting peering at his phone.

There is also a nearby works site, with a pair of office cabins plonked next to what is now the something shed. (It was a men's shed when it opened only two years ago, but not for long.) There were at least three more staff here, doing ... whatever. I'm sure it all makes perfect sense to someone!

More activity than Reading Green Park. The last few times I have been down there, not a sign of the workers. Compared with the large multi-storey building next to the down line it is snails pace (if that isn't insulting to snails).

The building next to the box at Wokingham is the relay room.   Apparently earlier this week the work caused a leak in the roof and various electrical components were doused in water.

It looks a lot of scaffolding if the work is just to relay the roofing felt. Which would be a bit ironic, of course.

Someone better let them know that "time and motion" Stuving is on their case - might make them speed up a bit!

If it's not for EMUs then it maybe it is for DMUs, 769s? Or would they have fitted in with the previous length?

I'm sure it was easily long enough, though I can't find a picture of where the marker was. This year's TPR has its length as 8 cars, which agrees with what I estimated as 150 m (ish).

Another weekend, another mob of track workers out - in the rain, this time. About ten certainly working on the siding on Sunday, but there were at least twice as many from other contractors so probably doing other stuff. As you can see, yesterday we got some sleepers, and by today (last pic) they run the full length. Still about ten people doing the usual vital work: watching the sleepers, moving long bits of wood from place to place, etc. ...

Excuse my eyeballs, but I can't make out sufficient detail, are those sleepers suitable for third rail?

After a very serious incident 2 years ago where a technician received electrical burns in a traction power substation, the flash over was caused by water ingress into the build' a survey of all operational buildings containing operational electrical were surveyed.   A plan is being worked through to repair building roofs in a number of types / age of buildings its been decided to remove to old roofing and renew it with a modern system.

   
it may not be an electrified siding in which case no need for third rail sleepers


Network Rail (NR) was required by DfT and ORR to reduce costs by the use of Framework Contractors, each Route tendered out the Framework.  These contracts were multi discipline the Framework contractor then employing sub Framework contractors / suppliers.
These Framework and subs are in the main from large National companies.

Is it cheaper, more efficient etc ............... who knows!

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

I am very skeptical about cost savings from frameworks contracts as they currently operate.  They certainly reduce the clients management costs, but in many cases the levels of sub-contracts can be significant.  So you have the tier 1 contractor subcontracting to a tier 2 to a tier 3 etc.. Each contractor takes a cut and communication gets lost so I have seen requirements in the original contract watered down or lost by the 3rd tier as the price has been committed by the main contractor and each tier needs to pay for its cut! 

Perhaps it is because the contracts are trying to be too much of a good thing. 

In these systems smaller contractors only get a bite of the cake by working for their larger rivals. This leads to a situation similar to the supermarkets and farmers where the smaller contractors are screwed down on price (and do sometimes therefore do a bad job) to pay for the margins of those in between. 

Well, the concrete castings are - they have the fixing holes for chairs - but there are none with chairs fitted. I'd have thought that these days they'd have to be factory fitted - you can't just clip them down using those holes can you? I can't make out any maker's name, but they do have a number - 5894 - on one end. Oddly, they have all been laid with that number on the same (east) side but the chair fixing holes are a random mixture of that side and the other. I can't imagine how they get manufactured that way.

But if it's not to be electric, it does remove the only obvious use for a siding. Based on pre-Covid plans, of course, SWR should be moving up to 4 tph all day, so if there's a hold-up on the Reading side they can rapidly end up with too many trains in one place. If a driver is missing (out of hours, for example) or the capacity for returning trains towards Waterloo is a limitation, a parking place would be a good idea.

But if it's not SWR's trains, it's hard to see why it needed lengthening - unless the track was now so rough it had been declared unfit for DMU habitation and longer is better. Unless it is foreseen that there will be multiple failures of 769s, even of just one engine, so they have to be pulled out of service ...

All the moulds on the production line will all be orientated in the same direction, if i remember correctly there are 10 sleepers per mould.  Sleepers tend to come pre clipped, for third rail there will be 4 holes on each side to anchor the pot, these holes are onl6 12mm dia and may be plugged to prevent unused ones filling with water and potential freeze cracking the sleeper end

I saw these joists had been fitted by Sunday, and did wonder if they were for a roof or floor. You can't really see how deep they are, and in any case a roof probably has to be strong enough for a couple of dozen teenagers to climb on it and jump up and down.

While it would seem odd for the new recontrolled signals to need a lot of heavy kit, the junction will need several point motors and it takes more than a supply of digits to make them dance. So there may be a need for more space somewhere, unless the whole removal/replacement is done in one operation.

I found that the latest (June 2019 - presumably also the last) Wessex Route Strategic Plan has dates for major disruptive works for all CP6, i.e. out to 2023/24. This lists two 9-day blockades for Wokingham Feltham Re-signalling Commissioning and Wokingham S&C - both for the Winter Half-term (eh?).

Geoffrey Osborne were given a framework contract for "One-team Wessex", a multi-functionak framework for infrastructure projects, running from 2014-1018. But that wasn't as an independent prime contractor; they set up a design and project management office jointly with NR at Waterloo. I never saw anyone labelled as "Osborne", so it may be that the subcontracting process was kept with NR.

What I did see, at the end of 2018, was a huddle of small vans (too small for a PW crew plus tools) by our level crossing, with a bigger Network Rail (NR) one. There was a bunch of figures in shiny new HiVis on the track near the junction, looking at it. The vans were liveried Cleshar, SERC, and Ganymede - all contractors who do work in the track, though not on the same scale.

The only reason I could think of for all three to be there was some kind of on-site bidders' conference; the modern style is that any answer to one has to be copied to all so they might as well all look and ask together. No secrets! But what work was planned? This was after the last bent points got straightened, and during 2019 I saw Cleshar vehicles only a couple of times, and yes for work on that junction.

Osborne were given a new framework contract in December 2018, announced together with Murphy & Sons and BAM Nuttall (for Anglia and South Eastern). These are for CP6, and the announcement was for Southern region, though how Anglia fits into that is a mystery. Presumably the work planned within the routes will stay that way and to start with only top management will change.

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

That was how Infrastructure Projects was structured prior to the Putting Passengers First reorg. IP was structured into their own regions in 2012, supposedly it was more efficient! but had no accountability to the Routes who funded the projects

IP is now called Capital Delivery who are now part of the NR Regions and are part of the Region Managing Director structure so better accountability.

Most building maintenance work is carried out by Works Delivery which tend to carryout smaller cost projects such as heavy maintenance where as CD carry out the multi million ? projects.  Works Delivery do such projects as sidings renewals as well 

Here's a full resolution clip from that photo, so you can see what I mean.

I thought on the latest third rail sleepers the holes actually contained threaded inserts?  Will have to look at some more closely...

Paul

Concrete screws are used now, they do not require and insert, a steel bolt that screw that threads direct into concrete driven in with an impact wrench set to the right torque.



If the pots were factory fitted they would not survive the delivery and placement process, also modern plastic pots are in 2 bits, the top half sits inside the lower half, there is are stepped adjustments in the mouldings so shimming is no (mostly) longer required

You have rail! It was delivered quietly, with no possession, early on Sunday morning. I didn't even hear all those fishplate joints being done up! Next step, presumably, is a visit from a tiny tamper - one is due on 13th. So maybe it is a Christmas present after all.

But no progress on the new shed roof.

There has been some progress on the siding, done overnight with no big possessions needed. First we had ballast tipped on top and conductor rail left at the side, then a tamp, and finally the insulators and third rail were fitted. You'll see that it's still isolated - very safely indeed (I can't even see the bit of rail for that gap).

Up at The Signallers' Shed, even more progress - it's finished.

Most activity since mid-December has been between the shed and the siding. I thought this would be preparation for the resignalling (and recontrol of the points), but there's no sign of any new grey or yellow boxes (just some less hidden by the undergrowth). But now it's becoming clearer what they have been building: it's a Yellow Brick Road plastic walking route to the siding. I guess that's what the rules say these days.

Good to see the 3rd rail extend all the way to the end - plenty of room for a 10-car unit.

Work on and around the siding has continued for the last two months. For one week there was a team of twenty working, but mostly it's been about five. And all that work has, as far as its visible outcome, been on the yellow walking route and what it leads to. I've always expected some preparation for resignalling to be included, but if so it's not visible.

Part of the route is laid on a concrete base (as in the previous photos), but further on it spans an existing cable duct and presumably keeps that accessible. It's not all yellow, and not finished yet, but it will have lights. And, at the end, you can see that there will be two mini-platforms. No doubt they will have steps at the end ... and those yellow railings at the back?  Taller lights? And ... a name? Perhaps not.

From the limited evidence in the picture, it looks like a longer platform nearby and a shorter one down at the end. That would give access to the cabs at both ends of a single unit, and the far cab of a second unit coupled to it, but not to the other cab of that unit. There's no sign of a third platform for that, though.

You only really need a platform in the middle as the two cabs at each end of a 2x5 car train can be reached by walking through the train, so I'm not sure why the far platform is being constructed?  Not that there's too many 5-car sets being constructed as part of the Class 701 build anyway, so the majority of trains will be formed of the 10-car sets where a driver wouldn't need to leave the train to change ends.

Network Rail now have a web page about the Feltham and Wokingham resignalling (https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/our-routes/wessex/feltham-and-wokingham-re-signalling-programme/). This gives the following commissioning schedule:

So Wokingham - where the points are mechanical, though the signals aren't - is to be done last. The first date I saw for its completion (implying the closure of the signal box) was 2017, though the whole programme had already been delayed before that was set. Still, that's quite quick compared to some bits of work ...

More, slow, progress, with this siding but still many bits to complete. And you do wonder if this new super-high build standard is really called for.

Those platforms are indeed one long and one short. I presume the requirement is to park a train and leave it to be recrewed later, so the requirement is to walk through and check the whole train (unless it arrived ECS). However, I'm still not sure how that matches what they've built.

The latest new bits are all those lights. Most of the path is done, assuming those black and yellow covers are for underground ducts only and gravel is OK for the rest. And no doubt, this being The Railway, that colour choice means something. Quite a bit has been done to tidy up the earth slope beyond the path, with boarding which I guess is a permanent retaining wall. Surprisingly, the raised cable ducting has been kept at the same height but moved from in front to behind the supports!

And you can just see that the third rail has been fitted with guard boards. That does seem a bit of an odd thing to do if it is for safety of the crews of trains using the siding. But is there another reason? Like not allowing a shorting bar to be used in the siding? Or perhaps because the running lines right next door don't form part of a third-rail railway at all?

Its an ORR requirement for guard boarding to be fitted in stabling sidings.  The platforms are to reduce the slips trips and falls for the train crew to access and egress the train, there will be a walkway and I suspect there will be lighting as well

Today (Wednesday 19th) the siding finally opened to receive guests - a few days after other hospitality venues. I've got some pictures, which will have to wait until tomorrow. They show what crew access to a siding looks like now, under the latest agreement with ASLEF.

The visitor was a pair of 707s, running as 5Z41 from Waterloo and then, after lunch, as 5Y68 to Wimbledon Park Depot Sidings. It ran as if for training, calling like a passenger service (until reversing at Twickenham), which does seem odd for 707s. It came out of the siding at walking pace, which might be standard practice or it might be because it was the first test use.

From now on there is a late afternoon Q path in the WTT, from Staines Up Loop to Reading, for reasons that are hardly clear. But no operational use has yet been timetabled. Both Traksy and OTT showed the siding before his, but neither has a berth in it even now - the departing train just appeared from nowhere in Wokingham P2.

Good to see it open, it's a 15mph siding, so probably just taking it cautiously.

Regarding a proper berth for it, you may well see one when the area is resignalled (2024?) but not before.

Here is what a proper siding, and the walking route to it, looks like these days. The new fence seems to have been a bit of an afterthought, and wasn't finished when AmcoGiffen took their site office away (they are still doing some sort of landscaping to it). And a bit of work was going on today; by the look of it some of those lights needed redoing. Given how many there are, it wouldn't be a big fraction of them.

By the way, I'm not really suggesting that improving safety isn't worthwhile - just that it has a cost, and in this case it contributes only marginally to operational performance.

The fence has more to do with crime reduction than public safety, when trains are berthed in the siding there is a high risk of graffiti.  It will not have been an after though it would have been part of the formal design for the siding, it is also likely that boundary fence reinforcement has or will be carried out elsewhere   

Has anyone seen anything using this siding in anger yet?

The same question occurred to me on Tuesday when I noted to patina of rust on the rails when I passed it on the way to Guildford!

It has been used a couple of times in connection with rolling stock failures.

The only thing I can recall seeing parked there is the odd RHTT.

It is posible the siding is for perturbation, and as turnback use during engineering possessions also as a cripple siding

Since approval, work on this bridge and a little bit of linking road has proceeded with very little reporting. Apart from none of us going out much, it's probably relevant that it was hard to get there - no road access. But it did open on 24th January, as unreported in the local paper.

As built, it replaces the level crossing in Waterloo Road, which was already closed for the new junction (roundabout) to be built but that will now be permanent. However, that's not a route of any use to me going to or from home, so it'd need a special visit to get there. Another bit of de facto ring road is planned that would make it more useful, but that has not even got to the full planning application stage.

Went up over the new Waterloo Road bridge which is open, didn't go further (having just done a circuit of Bracknell). The Easthampstead Road crossing had a massive tail back, so I assume that the Waterloo Road project isn't finished.

I did question why this long access platform was built at our siding. Well, now we know! It's a working platform for the local freelance paint contractors to work from*.

You might also ponder why, having picked an out-of-depot siding that is monitored - overlooked by a signal box staffed 24/7 - they put a train there on the only day (or two) of the year when the box is closed.

* and at such very affordable rates, too.

Oh dear.  Still, it’s a testing time for graffiti artists due to price rises.  Maybe it would have been a better idea to stable some 769s there and hand out some free crayons?

I was literally just about to post at least GWR let them practise on 769s, not brand new 701s.

I noticed coming through Wokingham this morning there was a graffitied train in the siding.  Is that the same one?

Yes, it's been there all along. SWR must be really short of space. But after the first bit of painting on each side I've seen no more. So maybe the signal box really is a deterrent.

A Class 701 that SWT don't want, SE Trains have taken some but I think they are finding it cheaper to refurb 465/6's

Graffiti can be art. Perhaps it's subjective as to when it becomes art*, but unwanted spraying over windows, etc, is vandalism.

*The 'What is art?' thread can found over there >>> First post, Cave Hunter, 01/01/-9999

I think you're getting 701s and 707s mixed up, as well as SWT and SWR.  ;)

Mind you, whether SWR really want 701s now is open to debate given the time taken to introduce them and the reduction in the core SWR commuter market since they were ordered.

What were these guys up to, do you think? The pictures (during and after) aren't new - they date from two years ago, when work on the upgraded (now residing) siding began. But what's the purpose of whatever they built underground?

Drainage?

For cabling going under the tracks isn’t it?

My initial though was that those plastic cylinders look like the manifolds that sit under drain covers leading down to inspection chambers. These were big enough to provide manholes. But there's no sense in having a drain there, and that pipe sitting across the tracks must be a red herring.

It turns out they are called UTX chambers, and that running wires under the track is another area of railway infrastructure that's got bigger (and more expensive) and one hopes better too. The first of two later pictures suggests that, and, when I zoom the original image right in, that marker post even has "electric cables" written on it.

Oddly, that marker vanished in later tidying up, and it does look as if the cables had to be put in before the civils work was finished. The same is true behind the left-hand one, where the cables have to run along the nearside of the line towards Crowthorne. There was a conduit built across to join the old lineside conduit, and now a new one is being installed. All the trees and bushes have gone too.

All of this is of course for the Feltham and Wokingham resignalling project (https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/our-routes/wessex/feltham-and-wokingham-re-signalling-programme/). The Feltham part is largely done, but Wokingham's area will take until next year. There is one effect so far that passengers might notice - and I don't imagine they'll be pleased. Even as a manual box Wokingham could have had remote control of distant points, but it in the past this wasn't done for the crossovers at Bracknell and Blackwater. They remained with ground frames, and kept locked except for engineering works.

The Bracknell crossover is now controlled from the Wessex Rail Operating Centre (Basingstoke), so it can be used for routinely reversing trains. And from last December three evening trains do that, and no longer Run to Wokingham and Reading. The last two trains do still run through, but L-2 and L-6 terminate and run ECS to Staines, while L-4 runs there in service. For trains from Reading to Ascot, just one (L-2) has been lost.

Now, it was already possible to terminate and reverse trains at Wokingham - but I don't think that was ever part of the service pattern. (With no printed timetables to collect, I can't be sure.) Some complaints are starting to appear, but it's a bit odd for the Bracknell MP to be involved.

Yeah I thought it was for cabling.  As you say it looks more like for water or sewerage!

Made by the same companies as for drainage too. So are the "pipes" that run under the tracks, but they too have got more sophisticated, being divided into several separate channels.

The contractors working on this sort of resignalling programme are getting quite keen to publicise it (and themselves). Since they have to explain what the whole project is, often it sounds as if they are doing more that is the case. Here the civils are (they say) the work of Global Rail Construction (https://www.theglobalinfrastructuregroup.com/projects/feltham-resignalling-project-phases-3-4-advanced-civils/), and the signalling per se by Atkins (aka SNC-Lavalin) "supported" by RT Infrastructure Solutions (https://www.rt-is.co.uk/project/feltham-re-signalling/) (i.e. they provide extra labour).

So far most of what we've seen here is the civils, including that UTX. GRCL say they had to do 16 of those, and 16 under roads, in one possession. However, I wonder about that as someone is out there right now digging a trench across Barkham Road at the level crossing. After breaking up the surface, the digging is being done by a bloke with a high-pressure hose and a big s(p)oil-sucker truck - plus lots of people standing around looking into the hole.

GRCL claim 26 location case hard standings, with walkways and handrails. We have one of those too, opposite the signal box. When they started that, I did wonder why the signallers needed a patio so much it was worth doing if there was no space next to their box. I also wondered why you'd build a patio with a hypocaust. But now we know it's all about grey boxes and conduit runs. Or it will be - so far it's only been used for dumping bent barrier arms.

Well, we're all getting ready for next week's unusual work on our level crossing. Unusual in that it's Monday-Friday, closing road and railway, and not including either weekend. Apparently it's timed to coincide with half-term - you don't think they have left those weekends clear for holiday travel via Gatwick do you? 

But I'm now wondering if it is really going to happen, and where to look for definitive information. (Note that the road closure is separate from the railway one (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=27130.0), and not always included in NR's information.) The TRO was announced in the local papers (with diversion routes), and was in one.network, but it's now vanished. The closure of Star Lane crossing is still shown, but with no diversion route. And the council has no web page listing TROs - only Star Lane is on their Facebook page. I guess we'll find out later tonight.

Railway closures are publicised in several ways, and the local news media picked up on this one (so they do read TROs!). But most of us would never look unless we see one of those yellow signs by the roadside. So I was a very surprised to see this sign on 15th January: "Road closed 11.00pm Sat 28th Jan-10.00pm Fri 17th Feb". It took four days to correct that to "11.00pm-11.00pm/Fri 27th -Sun 29th Jan/11.00pm-10.00pm/Sun 12th-Fri 17th Feb". The TRO came out the same day. The sign vanished a week ago.

I also got another "Dear railway neighbour" letter to add to my large collection, and that had both the right dates in a table, and the scaremongering ones in its heading. Maybe that's what the first sign was based on. I suspect a lot of users of the crossing (most of whom are not railway neighbours) are in for a big surprise tomorrow, including some driving HGVs for which the diversion is very long. If it gets signposted, that is ...

The work two weekends ago showed what that patio was really for: high-rise tin beehives. And these were not empty cabinets to be populated out in situ; they arrived with ID labels and all their contents fitted and wired up. In the picture, the one still dangling is for the level crossing controls, and the one in front of it the crossing power supply.

Along the line to Reading, there are several new signals (I see straight posts are so out of fashion!), some with mini-patios of their own. None of the station signals has been done yet, but some posts and handrails are in place nearby. Looking towards Crowthorne, there's a cranked post on the right this side of the existing signal, but maybe not by enough to shorten the long drag up to the crossing. On the left, that's a new signal and it's a straight post!

The final signal before the crossing is down on the right, an old one, and what's that inverted triangle beyond it? It looks like the back of a warning sign, perhaps for marauding leaves. Is anything else that shape?

I wondered what the "South Western Railways replacement" bus through Reading was as I came to work this morning.

UTX (Under Track Crossing) the Track Engineer requires UTX to be typically greater that 2.5 meters below track base level (track base is from the bottom of the ballast) 

That's a warning board for the PSR of 30mph that applies through Wokingham station.  You can just about make out the AWS magnet beyond it, which of course you don't get with adhesion warning boards.  Here's one from the other side (but not that one!): https://railsimroutes.net/driversguide/images/psr_warn_2.jpg

That does make sense, even if most drivers have slowed down well before they get there. Having found out that the warning is meant to be about 1 km in advance for a 70-30 speed reduction, my initial reaction was "that sign can't be far enough away". But it can! For one thing the viewpoint on the footbridge is 220 m from the PSR change, and then a bit of zoom and foreshortening does the rest. The signal in the distance showing a green aspect is 1.7 km from the footbridge, so the warning sign is indeed 780 m away.

One bit of signalling that's already gone in at the station is new AWS magnets - pretty green ones. But today, there's a striking absence of any work being done, and no road closure over the crossing. And I have found no source of information on this.

IIRC green AWS magnets are the version used in DC third rail traction areas. I think they’re stronger than the yellow versions used elsewhere?

That's right. The field strength as specified is not much higher, but is sensed higher up (193 mm vs 150* mm). So two receivers, or a dual one, are needed for trains running in both DC and non-dc areas. The old ones that have just been replaced would also have been high strength ones, just not colour coded like these new Vortok ones. 

*PS: the two heights were 193 mm and 115 mm, but since 2012 both receiver types are specified at a range of heights. The traction-related fields to be ignored are not specified numerically.

There is work on the station platform, and at the junction, though it's not the major level crossing work that was "promised". And the change of plan is in the EAS, which has a change date of 2/2/23. I guess this will now have to happen later:

NR and WBC have been confusing people by the way they declare road closure times. This was the case for the second of the roadside sign9 above), and for the Star Lane crossing closure (from the WBC travel Facebook listing):

The wording is NR's, I think, where someone seems to think those mean the same thing!
But it leads to the question:

The NR page "Feltham and Wokingham re-signalling programme" (https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/our-routes/wessex/feltham-and-wokingham-re-signalling-programme/) has had a new bit dropped into it, that says:

So the end is indeed nigh for my local signallers. Elsewhere, level crossings have been switched to CCTV control from the ROC before the signals are switched over, but I haven't seen anything about that here. Nor have I seen any OD sensors (radar/IR), which I think are still part of the plan. It may be that this last one is being done at the same time as everything else.

More details of the replacement services from GWR here - https://www.gwr.com/-/media/gwr-sc-website/files/travel-information/travel-updates/planned-engineering/2023/Rail-improvement-work-on-the-North-Downs-line-Saturday-10-to-Sunday-18-February-2024.pdf (https://www.gwr.com/-/media/gwr-sc-website/files/travel-information/travel-updates/planned-engineering/2023/Rail-improvement-work-on-the-North-Downs-line-Saturday-10-to-Sunday-18-February-2024.pdf)

and presumably Reading to Guilford, if they are closing the station level crossing

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-68073195 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-68073195)

Don't understand the two level crossings at Wokingham station, or Star Lane. Not sure the second image has any direct relevance to the story headline.

The second picture is lifted from NR's web page on the Feltham and Wokingham Resignalling project (https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/our-routes/wessex/feltham-and-wokingham-re-signalling-programme/), and the area it shows was done in phase 1. So it is relevant to the reason for the closures and bustitutes.

Quite what original text was mangled so as to double the number of crossings is not at all clear. And it does not help to talk about closing a level crossing and give two different date ranges (for the station one). The road at the crossing is indeed closing this weekend, but the trains keep running for another two weeks before the railway closes as well for nine days. It's easy to get confused if those two types of closure are not distinguished clearly.

I guess they are removing the old crossing in its entirety to build a new one, within the time available between trains, so it takes a long time. But it's hard to see that's not possible within the same nine days as all the signals per se. Curing time for concrete plinths?

PS: the main thread for this resignalling (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=27108.15) is on the SWR board.

My understanding is Wokingham box controls(ed) two level crossings - one immediately by the station and one further away via CCTV. So perhaps the number reflects the numbers that are controlled by the signaling boxes being lost rather than their specific locations

Though given these are by the station and Star Lane - perhaps someone has confused the number of carriageways/track crossed to the number of level crossings.

As expected, the heavy mob turned up to start work last weekend, at midnight on Friday. Since then they've been ripping out the old crossing stuff, and digging - still more - holes to fill with concrete. There was also some work being done on the track at the junction, though there can't be a lot they could do then since it's still in use until next weekend. Most of the work has been beside the track, but fenced off.

NR were lucky enough to find a dormant building site next door, and borrowed it for storing things. Big things, such as at least five big RRVs, most of then the caterpillar ones (ORRVs?). And on a couple of nights, with no work going, a low loader has turned up to remove or deliver one of those.

There is a picture put on line by NR (https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/tonight-signalling-upgrades-and-level-crossing-closures-in-wokingham-to-result-in-diversions-for-motorists) of a crossing crossing the crossing, which is a bit of a puzzle. It's not been installed, indeed the junction replacement can't logically be done until the 9-day blockade. So where have they hidden it? Most likely on a bit of spare land at the junction, which I can't currently look at as the footbridge (Tan Hill) has been demolished.(https://cdn.prgloo.com/media/6eba4bf1c4fc44a0a1ea3627521fe12f.jpg?width=1135&height=960)

And last night a couple of big trains turned up after midnight, and something noisy ensued. Today you could see that a bit of track has been ripped up, - though it will have to be be replaced by Monday. Closer examination shows this is the entrance to the siding. This is out of use for the duration, so a new switch can be put in with no signalling system to work it.

And the signallers have announced their departure.

Which control centre now works Wokingham please?
Great pictures, thank you

One more week to go, and then after the big switch-over it all goes to Basingstoke.

The last big change was introducing the colour light signals. I'm not sure when Wokingham's were done, but it must have been roughly when the Feltham box was switched on in 1974, replacing 45 mechanical boxes. That took three years to put in, so not so different from the latest resignalling. Wokingham box was already capable of working to Reading, Ascot, and North Camp at night (because there are no junctions that need operating), and had been with with semaphore signals.

When this box was built in 1933, it followed a lot of complaints from local councillors etc. about the length of crossing gate closures. They had been operated by the station's only porter who also collected tickets, and the new "mechanised" gates would have a capstan in the signal box. There was something indicated as "SB" on the maps before this, but perhaps it was only a cabin hidng a ground frame.

The track was all in place and ready for this morning's first ECS at 5 am, in fact well before that. The points are clipped, so the bits of missing rail are not an issue. The gap in the third rail is rather odd, though. The curves on that siding entrance have been eased a little, by shifting the points towards the station.

If you mean the gaps by the switches (points) there are 2 reasons I can think of, first they look like HW point machines the drive rods protrude out and there is a risk of contact with the conrail forming a high impedance fault path also no conrail makes it easier to maintain the point ends and heater

With the siding now electrified, does that count as the first step towards infill electrification to Aldershot South Junction? ;)

As expected, Team Orange got really stuck in last night, tearing up the track. First to go was the point rodding, or at least part of it (photo 1). Next we see the junction being taken out and dug up, one piece at a time so as to allow trains and the rail crane to be used. In the background, track panels are being unloaded from the tilting transporter wagons.

To get a better view I had to find another vantage point to replace the demolished footbridge: on top of the car park, through a fine steel mesh. From there you can see Colas's Kirow crane, and a whole IKEA kit of track panels (I hope someone's got the instruction leaflet!). Tilting transporters can manage panels 3.7 m wide, but those in the foreground are a lot wider than that; how did they get here? Finally (photo 4), a little later, it's time to put in the new ballast and fit the first panel.

There's a lot of bits of rail to be joined there. If it's all done by thermit welding, those living on the houses by the line will enjoy a big firework display (though its timing may be a bit antisocial).

By late afternoon, a section of new track has been put in, with two new motorised switches. But perhaps that should be called plain line, since the left-hand rail is continuous through places there should be a rail crossing. Less than twenty minutes later (photo 2), a slab of that new track has been hoicked out and now plain line is being laid round to the left, towards Bracknell, via a new track crossing on the other track.

Looking at how much track is still stacked up waiting to be used, it does seem that much of the track so far laid is temporary. So it seems the current method is to bring in an engineering train on one track, and rip out the rest, and replace the ballast with fresh. The final track panels are laid where possible, i.e. where remaining the old track is not in the way. In the gaps, temporary track panels are put down. to allow the remaining old track to be removed with a train alongside. Once all the new ballast is in place, even full-width track panels can be swapped in or out by crane from either end.

Close examination of the two big track panels in the foreground shows that the wider one, on top, fits just after the farther incomplete switch, and the one underneath comes after that. So there is a lot of temporary plain line where those panels will eventually be. The view from the footbridge at the station is of course highly foreshortened, disguising how long those panels are.

Normal practice on twin track is to use an adjacent one for engineering train(s) for scrap / waste and new ballast etc 

When those large panels go in place it be done with Kirow rail cranes

Over Sunday/Monday night that remaining track (the Up Main) has been torn up and replaced by new ballast (and the last rodding has gone too). By yesterday morning, that Kirow crane was back and already a lot of the temporary track has been taken out (p1). By the time I got back it was well after dark, but in the fuzzy pictures I got did suggest all the new track was in place. So I missed all the fun! Though this gang of RRVS having a rest may have found it more like hard work (p2).

By midday today most of the debris had been cleared up (p3), and by late afternoon it was all remarkably clean (p4). The junction is in obvious need of a visit from the tamper, and not just because the view exaggerates the wiggliness. The wiggles in the vertical direction are exactly what tampers are meant for, but is there enough spring force in the rails to straighten them in the horizontal plane as well, when lifted and shaken?

There may be some work left to be done with RRV's to dress and line up the rails.   The new track will not have been stressed and finally welded yet this will allow the Tamper to iron out wiggles; once stressed and welded there will be at least one  Tamper run booked in a few weeks after the line is reopened

It's hard to see how true the track is now, there are so many people working on it, but it certainly looks better. A tamper did turn up late last night - or something bigger; I could only see a part of it sitting on the level crossing. My guess is it was an on-track finishing machine; that can straighten rails laterally (lining) too.

Exactly what all these small machines are doing I can't work out, but I'd expect cutting ends to leave the right gap, drilling holes for various reasons, and eventually stressing for when the final welds go in. After that comes grinding and other finishing, but no doubt there's more to it than I can think of. Track clips were being undone within the station this afternoon, which presumably relates to re-stressing. However, I'd expect that unclipping to be done after stress is applied.

On the other hand, the old junction was protected from rail stress by adjustment switches on all six tracks. I can't make out if the same is true now - partly because of all the bodies in the way. I did wonder if the insulated joints close to the level crossing would be replaced or removed now, as the down-side one at least is worn (i.e. loud ker-thump noises as a train runs in). With axle counters being used, IRJs are not needed, unless perhaps a few track circuits are retained for static detection.

Still a lot of work going on today, though most of the big bits are done. I was surprised to see signals being erected only now; it must be about time to start testing the new kit. A bloke who was labelled Atkins told me that the level crossing will not have object detection. I wonder whether the reliability of CCTV alone has been reassessed as better than it was before.

The track has, I think, been welded and stressed through the junction, along the straight direction - all I can see. For one thing, I can't now see any adjustment switches on the station side. There was one on the left, alongside the crossover switch on the right. And the insulated joints are still in place, but bypassed by bonding.

By yesterday (Friday) the orange crowds had mostly dispersed, apart from at the level crossing and some signalling work. The testing of the new signalling is not a very visible process.

During the week, as well as the track replacement at the junction, the level crossing was also removed and new equipment put in. This involved taking out the old concrete bases and pouring new ones in plywood boxes in very nearly the same place. Some more, slightly smaller, precast cubic bases were dropped in to hold the posts for new wigwags (p2).

A lot of new fencing has gone in all round the barrier machines, along the road and beside the track too. There it will close the side of the trespass guards (arris rails) - those were not removed until yesterday, which seems a bit odd. They have been put to one side, so presumably will be put back not renewed. And on that yellow-railed cabinet patio there is now a name board for the crossing. For some reason.

Today's main job was painting the crossing; more complicated than it sounds. That didn't finish until after the daylight had gone, so I'll show it when I've got a decent picture.

If someone is reporting an incident at the crossing then you want them to use the right name.  It may be obvious in this case, but consistency is important.   

Here’s the NR press release. Can anyone explain the relevance of the first photo to a resignalling project?

https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/network-rail-completes-final-phase-of-gbp-375m-investment-to-install-state-of-the-art-signalling-system-which-will-improve-the-reliability-of-the-line-between-feltham-and-wokingham

Paul

Signalmaps, for one, has been updated to show nice colour lights, routes set and platform occupation already:

https://signalmaps.co.uk/#feltham:2074

As has Open Trains

https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/staines#T_WOKNGHM (https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/staines#T_WOKNGHM)

We already had new-fangled electric light signals! There must be some detailed changes to the signals layout, though I've not spotted any to check for in updated maps. Signalmaps does not show signal numbers, but it has changed the crossing from MCB to MCB-CCTV, following its up (or down, or sideways) -grade.

OTT does have the new BEFnnnn numbers - correctly, for the couple I know.

Yes, but the feed from the previous Train Describer was not able to show their status.

“Can anyone explain the relevance of the first photo to a resignalling project?”

The pic of what looks like bank stabilization works does seem irrelevant; probably another example of Network Rail’s Media Contractors’ Reputation Management efforts or should it be mismanagement efforts ?!

Perhaps a slight shame that the l-o-n-g sections through Sandhurst and Crowthorne didn't get an extra signal section added to reduce headways?  Though at least the signal numbering allows them to be inserted at a later date.

Along with the third rail? :)

Cancellations to services at Wokingham
Due to a fault with barriers at a level crossing at Wokingham trains have to run at reduced speed on all lines.
Train services running through this station may be cancelled or delayed. Disruption is expected until 15:00 21/02.
Customer Advice
We are sorry for the delay to your journey today.


Can you tell me more about the incident?
There is a fault with lowering barriers at a road crossing at Wokingham. Network Rail staff are on site and looking to resolve the issue. Whilst this takes place trains will continue to run but at a reduced speed in the area.

SWR were showing the delay as at "a level crossing near Wokingham", and there are only two, both rebuilt last week. There were several orange minders at the station one when I was going for a train to Reading at 1 pm, so it was probably that one. Fortunately by that time trains had just started coming through again, in a bunch of those that had been waiting. I got one not visible on the CIS, since it had been told to run non-stop to Reading, though it did call.

And it had all been going so well .... for two days, anyway.

Problems yesterday, although not down to the infrastructure, after the guard on a Reading bound train was assaulted at Wokingham station and the offender then fled across the tracks. 

My posts on Monday 19th's reopening got held up; here's the catchup (in parts). The reopening was left until after a final proving train had run - which I heard go past - a turbo to Guildford and back between 1 and 3 am. (This was also able to rescue a dead Turbo, stuck in Guldford P6/7 since before the blockade.) There was also a swap of the SWR train stuck in Reading for a new one, proving the other line.

So here's the junction after all the clearing up, and the crossing which currently has barriers that meet exactly in a straight line (for how long?). We now have the yodel alarms instead of bells, but they are surprisingly quiet. Direct phones to the signallers are no longer fitted; I guess it now makes little difference. The phone number to call is on the small signs, but the standard NR signboard for the track access point also gives it - and one for the ECR too.

The point about the the big signs facing the track is just that - it's an odd place to put them. But there is an issue with names: is it reasonable to expect the public to use "railway names", which are often different to what anyone else would say, historical, or just wrong. Here, a lot of locals would call this the station crossing because they know there is at least one other crossing in Wokingham. And while you need to see one of the small signs to get the number to call the signallers, and that has the official name, a lot of calls come in via other routes (e.g. 999).

I don't think this crossing was, in fact, ever likely to become am object detection one. The guide (Level crossings: a guide for managers, designers and operators) says of CB-ODs:

The station crossing was never going to meet that description; even the Star Lane one, which might, has gone to MCB (CCTV) as well.

However, that guide has been withdrawn by ORR, and "replaced" by Principles for managing level crossing safety (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi65amOn9SEAxWa5gIHHVCSC4cQFnoECA8QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.orr.gov.uk%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2F2021-06%2Fprinciples-for-managing-level-crossing-safety-june-2021_0.pdf&usg=AOvVaw07pOzRcJtvHAD_2fJJg2Lo&opi=89978449), which is guidance for doing risk assessments. I don't see that as a replacement, and I'm not convinced it's helpful (a topic to return to, probably.)

Here's how to paint, or rather repaint, a level crossing - not exactly a modern automated process.

First you mark out the lines with a chalky string (p1). I didn't see any careful measuring, so I think they had a plan or image of the crossing, with the pattern drawn onto it. They did some of the white lines and the yellow lines at the ends with hot gloop while I was away. I was told by one of the main contractor's guys that the yellow gloop does not stick to the Strail plastic panels in the centre, but not why the white stuff does.

Putting gloop down obviously involves a degree of skill, using what I gather is called a drawbox (p2). Those Strail panels were done with roll-on paint, following masking with sticky tape (p3). Supposedly that does adhere - but in the final view, from Monday, it's already wearing off (p4).

On Sunday, they were installing new trespass guards after all; they are some kind of rigid plastic and are screwed down. And I was told, about that fencing, that they now had to make all the 1.4s into 1.6s. I take it that means the standard they work to now says six-foot high fencing is needed all round it.

Yellow and white line painting seems to wear very quickly. Is that because of economy and they put down the thinnest layer. I know ones in London which have survived for ages, but I can also feel them when I go over them on the bike.

The main factor is, I'm sure, that there are three main ways of applying these markings (that I've seen used here - and many more I've not). Paint is obviously likely to wear off, and most notably so on plastic surfaces like the level crossing boards (have you tried painting drainpipes?).

Then there's the gloop - officially it's a thermoplastic resin - which forms a thick solid layer. This will eventually break up like the road itself, but does seem more durable.  I see cold gloop is now available, and lasts even better.

When the Wokingham crossing and junction were rearranged in 2015, some of the white lines at the junction were applied as sticky shapes. The process involved preheating the road with as gas torch, then rolling them down. It did not work, and they got lifted up, and stuck down on other markings - which looked really bad, and pretty confusing.

When I went to have a look on Monday (19th) afternoon, there was a guy with a video camera on a tripod. He turned out to be one of the Basingstoke signallers who does the level crossings! He was promising shorter barrier-down times, suggesting there was a new block, or least a distant signal, on the approach from Crowthorne (though I'm not convinced of that).

I would expect the ROC to be quicker than a local signaller, resetting the route for the next train using the lever frame before crossing the box to press the button, especially with ARS. Crossings now have their own signaller, and I was surprised to see that they use a box with lights and switches per crossing, not a patch of a screen.

I didn't gather whether this video was for familiarisation and briefing purposes, or whether he was being a railway enthusiast (which he obviously was). I've now found the video on YouTube, where he calls himself M-Train. So if you like watching level crossings operating, he has more like this ...
https://youtu.be/7sCDrGmJ5Yw (https://youtu.be/7sCDrGmJ5Yw)

He said the emergency number goes to the relevant signaller, and they get a lot of non-emergency stuff: complaints and insults mainly. I'm surprised there isn't an operator to screen calls in this sort of urban area.

We both thought one of the zigzags (the far one in the video) was rather low - perhaps to improve the sighting for drivers? Well, a driver's eye view doesn't support that, what it really shows is how dense the thicket of signs and posts is there.

True, if that is slope stabilisation work, it does not seem to fit even the track replacement work in the project. But then apart from the two staff recorded at Wokingham Station, the other scenes in the video are not related to the recent work. The level crossing being renewed is Mays crossing in Datchet, and the overhead view is of Wood Lane crossing at Isleworth - done ages ago.

For a resignalling project, it did seem a bit odd for 1 km of track replacement to be included. But replacing Wokingham Junction did make sense as resignalling, not just using the blockade for another job. It would not make sense to replace it and to do the motorisation as separate steps.

And while it's not obvious how to measure the single track length of a junction, that one is likely to come out as is over 800m. Then there are the two crossovers worked by ground frames, at Bracknell and Blackwater, which have been motorised - and may have been replaced in the process.

When are they going to complete the new bridge? Or is that the purpose of the latest planned closure?

It'll now be late summer!

Explanation on the bridge/foot crossing thread (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=14245.msg346724#msg346724) with previous pictures etc.

Wokingham had the only mechanical signal box for miles around, which is now disused. And if you were wondering what was planned for it, this is the answer (https://planning.wokingham.gov.uk/fastwebpl/fulldetail.asp?AltRef=250136) (text from the letter of notification):


They do not actually say why they need to remove it. I presume it's just that any disused building incurs maintenance and security charges, as well as a risk of liability for injury to intruders, so they routinely plan for removal. If someone comes up with a compelling reason for retention, then maybe ...

Incidentally, since when were OS grid coordinates called X and Y?

My excellent geography teacher, Mr Stoyle at Plymstock School over 50 years ago, would have a fit if he could see that!  :o

CfN.  ::)

Presumably when the GIS user reads what is on their screen. Thankfully it is not Lat and Long to six digit accuracy. I assume they reference the centre (centroid) of the structures.