Reading Station improvements

[whole diary]

[lbraine]

Over the weekend all the remaining old main track from Scours Lane to Reading West has been lifted.

Trying to get a view of the order of the works for the new viaduct is pretty difficult.
The old sidings by the old depot have some pretty large earth works - with a large Yellow Box construction doing something.

At this point in time it looks like the viaduct will be built first - for the new mains - and then the dive unders will appear later. If not then the current displaced mains are going to have to be moved again - and I think they are sited precisely where the dive unders start/end.

[paul7575]

The intended sequence is in the Planning Staement within the documentation at 11/01885/FUL on RBC^‡(resolve)'s planning website.

Main Line & Festival Line
It is envisaged that the Main Line viaduct works will be divided into three sections, with a west to east flow of works:
West section ^ Wigmore Lane to Reading West Curve;
Central section ^ Reading West Curve to East Chord ^Box^ (this includes the Festival Line viaduct and approach ramp);
East section ^ East Chord ^Box^ to end of East Ramp.
The Wigmore Lane to East Chord ^Box^ sections of the works can commence once the existing Main and Relief lines have been slewed to the north. The remainder (East Chord ^Box^ to end of East Ramp) requires the existing depot to be decommissioned. The staging programme expects the track works to overlap the viaduct works.
Works at the Reading West Curve will need to be coordinated with slewing of the West Curve tracks, which may necessitate advance/early construction of parts of the West Curve ^Box^. Additional possessions for works close to the West Curve will be required.
A linear progression of the works is anticipated; the proposed form of construction permits construction to progress at and from several ^fronts^, although this will be subject to access constraints, e.g. Loverock Road, for which significant highway traffic management will be required.

East Chord
The new East Chord is currently envisaged being in 3 stages:
Stage 1 ^ Oxford Road Junction to the existing depot site, which is across the west side of the ^Upper Triangle^, the North Slope and the west end of the ^pond^;
Stage 2 ^ The depot site to the viaduct;
Stage 3 ^ The tie in with the viaduct (i.e. works to the north of the Main Line).
The current Time/Chainage Programme indicates Stages 1 and 2 commencing once the depot area is decommissioned. But stage 1 and works adjacent and across the west end of the ^pond^ are able to commence earlier as long as east/west access for the depot adjacent to the north of the ^pond^ is maintained. Earlier construction of this stage of the East Chord has benefits for the settlement related design aspects of the embankment.

Previous discussions I've had at the various public displays by NR^» (Network Rail - home page) have always indicated that the up and down mains will effectively only be moved again once, onto the new viaduct.  The east curve (freight to reliefs) is the last to be completed in NR's latest CP4^▸ (Control Period 4 - the five year period between 2009 and 2014) enhancement milestones, which show the viaduct and everything at Reading West complete Dec 2014, and the eastern 'freight' curve by April 2015.

This section mentions the physical position of the new route over the viaduct, implying that the viaduct is further south than the old main lines:

From the western tie-in the route also slews to a new alignment along and over the side slopes of the south side of the current embankment and up to the railway boundary. When the route reaches the ^triangle^ area the slew is up to 10m (including the slew of temporary Main Line lines to the north), which allows much of the structure to be constructed with minimal requirements for abnormal possessions (the closure of the railway). Possessions will be required at tie-ins and when building across the RWC junction.

Although often termed 'diveunders' in discussion, they aren't really - the West and East Curves pass through concrete boxes which when built allow the tracks to remain broadly at present ground level, and from what I can see from the drawings the west box will be built in the triangular site between Reading West Curve and the temporary main lines, with the West Curve tracks being moved into it later.

The equivalent east end box is not currently part of a rail route so its impact on existing tracks during build should be much less.

Paul

[stuving]

Looking out to the West from the station, there's the first part of some points leading off to the left from the track from platform 12, before it joins with platform 13. It's not for the feeder line - that's already there further out. It's on the Easter 2013 plan (page 55), in grey and leading nowhere. but not on any plan of the final layout I have seen.

Where will it go? The only possibility seems to be a crossover to platform 11, presumably before that splits or joins any other track. I can see that's a low-conflict way of "borrowing" a spare relief platform when there's a queue on the up main, and Voyagers turning in 10 and 8. In fact, wouldn't it have been useful to have that from Easter?

[SandTEngineer]

Over the weekend all the remaining old main track from Scours Lane to Reading West has been lifted.

Yes you can see that (or rather can't see that ) on Camera 4, Tab 1.

[SandTEngineer]

Looking out to the West from the station, there's the first part of some points leading off to the left from the track from platform 12, before it joins with platform 13. It's not for the feeder line - that's already there further out. It's on the Easter 2013 plan (page 55), in grey and leading nowhere. but not on any plan of the final layout I have seen.

Where will it go? The only possibility seems to be a crossover to platform 11, presumably before that splits or joins any other track. I can see that's a low-conflict way of "borrowing" a spare relief platform when there's a queue on the up main, and Voyagers turning in 10 and 8. In fact, wouldn't it have been useful to have that from Easter?

That connection will be to the bi-directional 'Up Reading Feeder Main' which will link Oxford Road Junction to Platforms 10, 11 and 12 via under the new Mains Flyover.

The principle running lines to the West of the station will be (North to South):
Up Reading Passenger Loop
Up Relief #
Down Relief #
Down Reading Feeder Relief
Up Reading Feeder Main
Up Main #
Down Main
Down Reading Festival Line

All lines bi-directional except those marked #

[Jeff]

I'm very impressed by the ambition and scale of what's to be done West of the station, and actually the scale of that has only just struck me with a re-read of the Planning appn and its component plans and elevations. Long-standing and/or technically-qualified posters on here may be very familiar with what's proposed/underway, but for those of you who aren't (like me) I've just posted on the Flickr Reading re-modelling thread the Planning document which shows a plan view of all of the upcoming viaducts, bridges, dive-unders etc, which includes abstracts showing fairly crudely-rendered perspective views of all of them. [Apologies: I can't post the link here because, for some reason, my browser has recently decided to stop letting me copy links].

Again, you may have already had this discussion here (and apologies if so), but recent new-joiners may be interested to know that:

• There is to be a main viaduct 1.8km long, and 9m high at its highest (over Cow Lane)...
• ...and also a viaduct on the new Festival line which, I think, goes under the main viaduct

Spectacular stuff.

I'm sure that if I haven't got this right someone will put me straight.

[Jonty]

Sorry if this sounds dumb, but what is the new 'festival' line and why is it named so?

[SandTEngineer]

Sorry if this sounds dumb, but what is the new 'festival' line and why is it named so?

Not a dumb question at all.......

The line concerned will start at the West End of Reading station Platform 7 pass along the south side of the new Down Main line, pass over the Reading Connecting Lines to Oxford Road Junction and then pass under the Up and Down Main line viaduct and connect with the Relief lines opposite the new Reading Depot.  It gets its name from the Reading Festival which is held every (?) year in the field just north of there (see Lobstervision Camera 4, Tab 4 for a view: http://www.lobstervision.tv/nrreading04# )

Its main purpose will be to get XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) services from the relief side at the Didcot end to Platform 3, 7 or 8 and then to the Basingstoke lines and vice-versa without a flat crossing conflict with the Up and Down Main lines (shame about the flat crossing conflict at Southcote Junction though).

[Jonty]

Thanks S&T^▸ (Signalling and Telegraph), makes sense now...

But would it not be possible for southbound XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) trains to stay on the reliefs, use platforms 12-15, and then access the Southampton line via the new underpass under the mainline viaduct, and vice versa?

[Electric train]

Its main purpose will be to get XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) services from the relief side at the Didcot end to Platform 3, 7 or 8 and then to the Basingstoke lines and vice-versa without a flat crossing conflict with the Up and Down Main lines (shame about the flat crossing conflict at Southcote Junction though).

Can only fix 100 problems at once, the hundred and first gets a bit more challenging 

[SandTEngineer]

Its main purpose will be to get XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) services from the relief side at the Didcot end to Platform 3, 7 or 8 and then to the Basingstoke lines and vice-versa without a flat crossing conflict with the Up and Down Main lines (shame about the flat crossing conflict at Southcote Junction though).

Can only fix 100 problems at once, the hundred and first gets a bit more challenging 

.......102 because I forgot the flat crossing at Oxford Road Junction as well

[SandTEngineer]

Thanks S&T^▸ (Signalling and Telegraph), makes sense now...

But would it not be possible for southbound XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) trains to stay on the reliefs, use platforms 12-15, and then access the Southampton line via the new underpass under the mainline viaduct, and vice versa?

Yes.  Using the Down Reading Feeder Relief I mentioned above.  However, I believe that most XC through trains will use Platform 3 or 7.

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

Thanks S&T^▸ (Signalling and Telegraph), makes sense now...

But would it not be possible for southbound XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) trains to stay on the reliefs, use platforms 12-15, and then access the Southampton line via the new underpass under the mainline viaduct, and vice versa?

Yes.  Using the Down Reading Feeder Relief I mentioned above.  However, I believe that most XC through trains will use Platform 3 or 7.

We discussed a while back the merits or otherwise of XC's using the ML's rather than RL's between Reading and Didoct East Junction.  Whilst using ML's creates a conflict at Didcot East as Louise pointed out a while back (flat junction, problem 103), it should be remembered that XC's are 125 mph and putting them on the RL's would take up paths that may be needed for stoppers and freights.  The number of paths on the RL's would be significantly reduced if they had to accommodate 2 X 125mph paths (or whatever the line speed is to be raised to) each way every hour.

So I think that is why the XC's will mostly use P3 and P7 as S&TE says.

edited for spelling error
 

[paul7575]

The future layout allows for almost maximum flexibility for XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)).  From what I was able to work out last time this was discussed, the only platform XC cannot easily use for through services in the final layout is P9.  So in the event of any perturbations to the normal timetable they can go just about anywhere.

However I was also told a couple of weeks back (by someone I met at Reading involved in timetable planning) that the XC terminating trains may well stick with P13/14 in the final layout.

Talking of XC, their upcoming summer timetable has a footnote explaining that through services are calling at Reading West vice Reading on all Saturdays between 14th Sept and 19th October, and on Sundays between 15th September to 1st December.  IIRC^▸ (if I recall/remember/read correctly) from the EAS the dates correspond to 'remodelling Westbury Line Jn'.  Presumably much of that is also to do with removing all that redundant S&C^▸ (Settle and Carlisle ) just west of P7 and P8?

Paul

[SandTEngineer]

However I was also told a couple of weeks back (by someone I met at Reading involved in timetable planning) that the XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) terminating trains may well stick with P13/14 in the final layout.

If that becomes the reality then that's a very huge waste of the capacity built into the new layout