Reading Green Park

[whole diary]

[stuving]

Quite! There are a fair few people who are under the impression that crossrail is a brand new fast line to london fully underground all the way into the Thames Valley. Many estate agents appear to be selling it as such, and as a result housing prices reflect this.

Berkeley and their copywriting weasels have taken care to not say that - not quite:

    A vibrant new destination for Reading
    Uber-stylish waterfront apartments
    Concierge, co-working studio, residents' gym and cinema room
    Extensive landscaped gardens and parkland
    New train station to Reading and Crossrail in 6 minutes
    Reading to London Paddington in 26 minutes

I find their weasels' prose rather funny - I mean, what style to you associate with Uber? Would you like to live in (rather than just near) a "vibrant destination"? Some of the internal descriptions are even better ... I guess it is just possible I'm not in their target demographic.

[Reading General]

I'm quite surprised that it being in Reading is even mentioned. Some developments just point out the journey time on the earliest train to london and that's it! It's as if there are no trains going anywhere else from here. Why wouldn't you let people know how long it takes to other places of potential work or leisure, Oxford, Basingstoke, Bath, the south coast, direct trains to three airports etc. Why not broaden the range of people your attempting to sell to? Or are london workers the only ones willing to pay that much to live in Reading? What a daft world.

Anyhow I'm still quite excited that a new station is opening in my town and the possibility of getting the train to watch the biccy men avoid relegation in the future.

[onthecushions]

Estate agents once told me that they advertise "living at Reading" rather than "living in Reading"!

A Deo et Regina,

OTC

[TonyK]

Estate agents once told me that they advertise "living at Reading" rather than "living in Reading"!

A Deo et Regina,

OTC

Sic Transit Gloria Swanson.

[bradbrka]

I took a slight detour when walking around Green Park yesterday to look at the site of the Green Park station from the Kirtons Farm Road bridge to see if there has been any developments.

The answer is yes and no.

Yes, the ground work for the access road, parking, drop-off point etc. coming along.
No, nothing that will enable trains to stop.

I took some pictures and will try to share them tomorrow

The pictures I took didn't come out to well so I went back this weekend to have another try.

The 3 views from Kirtons Farm Lane bridge are below, all looking north towards Reading.

[eightonedee]

Hmm - not much work on the station itself yet..........

[Adelante_CCT]

Now pushed back to summer 2020, allegedly

https://www.reading.co.uk/green-park-railway-station-application-submitted/

[Reading General]

I do find the name Reading Green Park a little strange as it's not as if you could quickly get to the town centre. Reading West is valid but it's not Reading Tilehurst or Reading Earley. If it was a parkway type station like Bristol Parkway then perhaps the name would be valid. I only learnt recently that Parkway is the name of the M32 into Bristol and I guess that the term meaning car parking was simply adopted for other locations.

[eightonedee]

I have previously suggested "Mad Stad"........

[stuving]

I do find the name Reading Green Park a little strange as it's not as if you could quickly get to the town centre. Reading West is valid but it's not Reading Tilehurst or Reading Earley. If it was a parkway type station like Bristol Parkway then perhaps the name would be valid. I only learnt recently that Parkway is the name of the M32 into Bristol and I guess that the term meaning car parking was simply adopted for other locations.

It would be even stranger if it was just "Green Park". No, not that one - nor the other one either. It's the one near ... well, Reading, as there it isn't really near to a place with a name other than that. And it's not that close to the stadium.

[Reading General]

I can't see people getting confused with which Green Park it is, and after all is the name of the place, albeit a made up one. I think it would be potentially more misleading if people left the train here expecting to change to another train or find the town centre. Perhaps if Reading (general) station had a second name it might be more appropriate to prefix with the town's name. Perhaps it's time to revive General.
 
There is the traditional railway method of adding the county name in brackets similar to Bramley (Hants) two stops down, or use the arrangement like the Southern oddity of London Road (Guildford).

I have certainly seen people leave trains at Reading West expecting to change trains but at least the town centre is in sight for those who alighted there to reach the town centre.

[CyclingSid]

There have already been incorrect links from Reading Green Park to the Green Park in London. I don't know how the development came to be called Green Park. The one slightly north is Kennet Island which is vaguely understandable, not an island but within sight of the Kennet. Certainly better than the concept of Didcot on Thames.

[Reading General]

You would have to be pretty naive with maps to confuse this one with a tube station and park in london but I guess people following technology rather than common sense leads to these problems and others must just find it difficult. When I drove buses to Loddon Bridge park and ride from the town centre I encountered a handful of people expecting to go to london in the 3 years I was on it, some seemed fairly well educated types too.

There appears to be a lot of naming places for the benefit of search engines. The annoyingly vague Thames Valley Park in east Reading began the trend before the internet came along. It has been joined by Thames Valley Science Park south of the town now to add further confusion. A names such as Reading Gate, Reading Gateway, Reading No.1 and Reading International Business Park hardly inspire. Reading Borough Council seem to prefer brand new buzz type names for suburbs and areas rather than the historical reference points. Smallmead or Pingewood would be more appropriate names for this Green Park station and the development but I guess they don't inspire the global thinking types.
How about Green Park Village for the station? That's the name of the housing area next to it.

[didcotdean]

How about Green Park Village for the station? That's the name of the housing area next to it.

There is the precedent of Bicester Village

Great Western Park in Didcot/Harwell is another example of a somewhat misleading development name. Used to be widely advertised as five minutes from Didcot Parkway - well it might be on the southern flank to the station by car or bus but is more than a mile across and much more remote and difficult to walk or cycle from than this suggests. The developers wanted the main road through it to be called Great Western Way (or possibly Avenue) but this was refused as there is already a Great Western Drive in Didcot.

[Reading General]

Isn't the pub called The Station or something?

I think Green Park's name was perhaps trying to pull at environmental strings upon it's naming. Green it is in colour with plenty of trees, but it has clearly been built for the motor car. Several different bus routes have to serve separate areas of it because of layout. and some of the bus stops don't even have pavement running to them. A previous transport manager at Reading Transport in the early 2000's told me he once went to seminar that had a talk on planning for public transport in housing and work areas. They put up a map on a screen to demonstrate an example of poor planning for bus routes and, although not labelled, he immediately recognised it as Green Park, and that was in it's early days!