My apologies if my 'cheating' caused offence
Prior to Grahame's tip I had looked at stations on Google Earth all over the areas served by Turbos. Unfortunately I had neglected the North Downs Line (as had FallenAngel in her summary of possible lines!)
Which is WHAT embarasses FallenAngel so much!
I can accept not getting the Crowthorne - I dash in and our of there once a day (sometimes twice) so I ca accept not getting the station!
BUT
To forget the line existed at all - that is just not on!
Have to admit before now I only ever went to Waterloo or Egham on that line - going to Gatwick would never occur to me by train and I've never worked i Guildford - so I associate THAT part of Reading station with
SWT▸ !
Yeah nothing overly special about Crowthorne except that it covers a fairly big residential area.
So why does it have such a piss poor stopping pattern
Look at my morning commute in from worcester (yeah I know I'm insane) - its quicker to get off at wokingham than wait for the next train that stops at crowthorne. If its such a big residential area.......... why not more stoppers.
And dont tell me driving is quicker - we moved from wokingham to shropshire in 2002 because of the traffic - the taxis I've had in the last week (due to the stourport bridge being closed and clogging up the worcester road meaning I've been late almost every day with no time to get the bike out of the truck) means I've seen the traffic in wokingham, bracknell and the A329/M - its no better than in 2002!
Getting to wokingham for a waterloo connection or farnborough for a reading connection (the only one I think gets every train stopping) would e a nightmare in rush hour!
Because the area it covers has the options of using Wokingham, Crowthorne or Sandhurst or maybe even Martins Heron by driving down the Nine Mile Ride. And although a big area have the option of Crowthorne, they would still have to drive to it due to no buses serving the station.
Then the issue is that the car park at Crowthorne is small which makes Wokingham the better option both in terms of parking and frequency of service.
But wokingham traffic is awful with the level crossing jamming up the roads every five minutes! Thats one of the reasons we decided to leave. Bracknell is equally awful and farborough is a nightmare.
Hate to say this BUT - Wokingham is i a town, you cant expand it much unless you put up a multi story - doubt that would go down well but somewhere that side of reading needs a park way! Winnersh triangle? but you'd have to stop the gatwicks - Crowthore being so close to the line split and being not a major destination screams use me! Albeit waterloo users would have to change.
The worst thing they did was build the sainsbury at winnersh - that is what screwed up the traffic! I get hives thinking about when I lived there - ok I have to get up in five hours to get a train to work but at the moment I see, sheep cows, and pheasants under a clear half moon night and no noise other than nature! And I dont need much sleep!