From the getreading article:


They've made a slightly silly mistake there (although understandable in there are a few Waterloo-Reading trains that run semi-fast via. the Hounslow loop).

Unless it's just put in to annoy pedants like me.

Whilst I suspect the size of the islands was motivated by practical means, the sizes make sense imo. Passengers using 10/11 shouldn't be waiting on it long before jumping on the train. OTOH^▸ ('on the other hand'), A passenger on platform 8/9 may be waiting some time for their specific train.

I was waiting for a train on platform 8/9 today, and your explanation sounds likely. When I arrived, after 1856, a train was in platform 8, and the Weston train was just outside the station. Once it left (country-bound), the Weston train arrived quite soon after. Thus, I expect the mystery train I saw was the 1853 from Penzance.

Might you have been on the 0955 from Maidenhead, arriving Reading 1015:
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P01329/2013/07/11/advanced

As deduced above, the train went from platform 7 to the old depot. The timetable also shows that from Monday, it will instead be scheduled to arrive at platform 13, before going to the new depot.

If they are taking advantage of a roundabout permitted route for some ticket, then being generous we might assume that this benefit is just lack of hassle, and the ticket getting noticed less, so a longer time before the routing guide is modified. We might also assume that, wisely, the figure has been rounded, and isn't in fact exactly ^10.

I'm not aware of any loopholes myself, but I do know people have managed to get comparable mileage on other lines for similar prices, so it seems entirely possible.

Hmm. Not convinced on the Reading-Newport non-stop. but I suppose compromises have to be made somewhere, and this is just an indicative plan. In particular, if you turn up at a random time at Cardiff, for 50 minutes in the hour, the amount of time before you get to London hasn't really changed. Which doesn't seem like a huge improvement.

I guess it depends so much on the rest of the new GW^» (Great Western - used as an abbreviation for the area / lines under the Great Western franchise, as opposed to FGW which includes "First", the company operating them too. For tickets - about) timetable. Cardiff-Bristol Parkway is useful for onwards travel to north of Bristol by car, and CrossCountry connections to the North. A service from (say) Cardiff to meet the xx18 fast BPW^» (Bristol Parkway - next trains)-PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) would give Cardiff and Newport something nearer to an effective half-hourly fast service both to Bristol Parkway, and to London. But maybe it would be better to improve the Cardiff-Birmingham via. Gloucester route instead (in frequency and/or reliability).

So I note that link says "Other stations on the map below will be converted to the new format over the following week". The text also makes reference to changes the screens at the entrance. Assuming this done for all London-bound trains, it makes sense.

Arriving at Clapham Junction Grant Road entrance. Something like:


Would make a lot of sense, and allow an informed choice about whether to walk across the station or not.

Another way of looking at it is the platform might as well be built the maximum length possible that doesn't prevent any reasonable future modifications of the trackwork? If it provides flexibility for the future at not much extra cost, then doing the job right once sounds like a good plan.

I think it's a little bit more subtle. Paper reservations are better than the current implementation of electronic reservations, but there's no reason that should be the case. The main problem is the need to determine quickly if a seat is reserved. The sea of paper tickets is effective in this aim. My memory is a little rusty, but I think virgin West Coast have static one-word descriptions to get around this.

If designing new, I'd suggest each display has an LED adjacent to it, coloured (e.g.) Green (or maybe unlit) if the seat is Unreserved, Yellow if it is reserved later in the journey, and Red if it's reserved from this, or a previous, stop. In doing so, we've replicated, and improved on, the main functionality of paper tickets. The displays should be of sufficient size to display information without scrolling.

Of course, I've entered fantasy land. However, under the constraints of the current displays, it's clear a lot more thought could be put in to it. If you have scrolling text, every letter counts. I'd suggest carefully thinking about the exact phrasing, abbreviation station names as appropriate (reservations until Bristol Parkway and/or Bristol TM^▸ (Train Manager, or possibly Ticket Machine, depending on context) might be better displayed as just Bristol, for example). And the apparent switch to just displaying "Reserved Later" is demonstrably silly.

Oh, wow, that is a bit rubbish. Sorry about the confusion. Given the length of XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) routes, I agree it's important that seats say "Reserved from X". My last few XC journeys have been at quiet times, so I hadn't noticed the changes.

I guess you're talking about the text message reservation system. Such seats have got a weasel-worded "This seat may be reserved" on the electronic display. There are only a few such seats on each train.

The system seems fine. If you're worried about having to move, I guess you should treat it as any other reserved seat. If you're only traveling only a few stops, you might choose to sit in it over a seat marked 'reserved', as there is less chance of it being occupied (well, maybe, would be interesting to know the no-show rate on reserved seats, vs. text message seat occupation).

To extend your analogy, the restaurant has a table labeled "Maybe Reserved", and it is explained that someone might reserve the table by text message for use in 20 minutes times, you would be welcome to use it and have a cup of tea, but if you wanted to stay all night, he would recommend you reserved it by text message yourself, or use a properly unreserved table instead.

ellendune, I guess there has been quite a bit of boring tidying up to do and minor jobs that us outsiders won't notice since the big blockade. As observed above, at the front of the station the portacabins have been removed, presumably so the demolition/remodelling of Station Hill will have more activity soon.

I'd guess the work on Platform 11 is constrained by being surrounded by a functioning railway, so is very much a slowly-but-surely job, rather than something that manpower can be used to fix.

I believe the Platform 1/2 canopy is planned to fit into normal engineering time. Either way, it makes most sense to worry about this once Platform 7 is done (and if it does require, say, a weekend possession of platform 1/2, this could wait until all of platforms 7-11 are open, at which point you could probably close 1/2 on the weekend without much harm).

But I am also curious what is/will be happening soon, hopefully someone else will have some deeper insight.

The path at the southern entrance from the station towards town has today been included in the work site (as in, now the only way to access the transfer bridge entrance, and subway, from town is by the path in front of the three guineas).

Yes, I should have just provided the link. They have webcams documenting the changes. There are 4 URLs, each url has between 1-4 tabs for different cameras:

http://www.lobstervision.tv/nrreading01
http://www.lobstervision.tv/nrreading02
http://www.lobstervision.tv/nrreading03
http://www.lobstervision.tv/nrreading04

I passed through Reading the other day, Platform 10 does currently seem awfully narrow at the moment, hopefully things will be better when it closes and platform 11 opens?

I see paul7755 has already mentioned it as a PPS, but the portakabins at the front of the station have now been cleared. One can see them being removed on lobstervision nrreading02, camera 2. It looks as if they've now opened up the direct route from the new station to the Three Guineas pub as a result.

(I should introduce myself - longtime lurker, I've been travelling through Reading about once a week for the last year, shortly to come to an end)