Great Western Coffee Shop

There isnt one!

Got there, went to buy tickets - could not for the life of me remember whether which of the Wembleys was Chiltern............ran around like a woman possessed looking for a network map for the SE and London - there was not one to be seen!

Had to deal with humans in the ticket office!

Is there any logic for there not being one?

Ah! Posters! Very interesting!

It probably looks quite random. But every poster board is identified (look for the board number on a label on the frame) and every poster board is allocated to either a TOC or "general purpose", such as network maps. Some are single, some double size, such as the NE SouthEast map.

EVERY poster board has a designated poster to be displayed in it. Its controlled through a system called Hercules, which lists every poster board and the poster that should be displayed in it. Its a way of ensuring that all TOCs get their fair share, and regulated posters, such as the charter, welcome, security, A-Zs, and network posters all have their place.

Reading has over 400 poster boards! You would do very well to find wall space for any more!

No issue with that BUT...................in the area near the TVM's where people may reasonably want to look up which station they need a ticket to, surely surely it makes sense to have a poster that I believe is at many other stations, including those which are not as integral to the SE rail network as Reading!  and its not just knowing WHICH Station but for those who have zonal card, they may need to check if a rarely travelled to station is in the correct zone and if they need to buy a new ticket - after all if they got to the barrier and tried to use an invalid card, you know what the revenue zealots would say........There are SO many posters there that are useless (I'm thinking one of the BTP guy on platform 4 near upper crust saying the BTP are there to help - do we really need that!

I was actually quite shocked there was not one (almost as shocked as that there was no posters or announcements at WOS about the line closure this summer when Reading were being inundated every five minutes with them!).

At Reading: Too Many Posters - Few Of Them Useful

From experience of getting bored hanging around on Platform 5 I know there is a Network South East Post near the waiting room.

Yup - one on 4 as well somewhere - or there used to be - there is also one on 8.......

The point was - there ISNT one where it may be most useful in the ticket buying area!

I can't think of anywhere that could be useful on the concourse at Reading, unless they get a smaller scale version and put it where the timetable posters are, but that still isn't close to the ticket machines.

I can - but I suspect it wont be allowable....

You know where the cross country reliability posters are - between the entrance and the upper crust - which no one ever reads anyway.......but I suspect they HAVE to show them in a VERY prominent place (otherwise shove them behind M&S - they'd get about as many people looking at them as they do now)

To be honest - yesterday - I didnt even need it to be NEAR the TVM's - just one on the side where you need to get a ticket (note - my season was left in scouseland on saturday and is being specialed down so I couldn't even use it to go railside and look at the ones there - but you average punter could not do that anyway)!  Surely this is not the first time someone has wanted one!

Perhaps an option to view a map of the railway (and tube) network on the display of the ticket machines would be a good idea? You could touch the station you want on the map and buy a ticket that way. If iPhone apps can do it, then surely the ticket machines can?

I was only thinking that yesterday - but I thought it was too much like common sense for the rail industry to ever embrace