Reading Station improvements

[whole diary]

[BBM]

I was on a HST^▸ (High Speed Train) on Monday night that had to stop at platform 8, we were told that the rear two coaches would not be opening and that anyone in those carriages who wanted to alight at Reading needed to move forwards. 

A very similar message was announced tonight on the 1706 HST from Paddington, the difference being that the train was scheduled to call at Platform 7.

[stuving]

There's no sign of any work yet on widening P7, and maybe there's no hurry. In any case I guess the first step is to take away the old track. When it comes to the foundations here, how far (literally) do you think could you get with a standard truck-mounted pump and long delivery pipe from outside? I'd have thought you could do almost all of the first part, but not the second part where the temporary P7 is now.

Did you see that the framework of the end of the canopy on P8/9 is now in place (as is that on P1/2)? I think the very end could be assembled in situ from relatively small pieces, but there's a short section before that that may have full-width spars. Did anyone notice when the bits were sneaked in, presumably one night earlier this week?

The track at P7 has ten rail joints that I can see - there were some quite short pieces used - but why would nine of them be thermite welded and the tenth still held together by fishplates and clamps?.

[Red Squirrel]

There's no sign of any work yet on widening P7, and maybe there's no hurry. In any case I guess the first step is to take away the old track. When it comes to the foundations here, how far (literally) do you think could you get with a standard truck-mounted pump and long delivery pipe from outside? I'd have thought you could do almost all of the first part, but not the second part where the temporary P7 is now.

Did you see that the framework of the end of the canopy on P8/9 is now in place (as is that on P1/2)? I think the very end could be assembled in situ from relatively small pieces, but there's a short section before that that may have full-width spars. Did anyone notice when the bits were sneaked in, presumably one night earlier this week?

The track at P7 has ten rail joints that I can see - there were some quite short pieces used - but why would nine of them be thermite welded and the tenth still held together by fishplates and clamps?.

Someone ran out of time (or thermite mix) at a guess...

[paul7575]

I'd have thought the P7 footings could probably be done with pumped concrete along the ground again, from a few places on the south side, they could easily operate from the temporary entrance at the end of P1, or from the delivery gate beside the end of P4, especially if they do it overnight.  Alternatively perhaps they could use those mini-dumper trucks, (like the one spotted by ironstone11 the other night), delivering it normally in mixers then driving small batches of concrete in through the front door!

I recall that the canopy end sections on the P12-15 islands were assembled in situ out of parts, rather than being delivered in sections, I saw them being done during the day a good while back. 

Searches for a while...  Here you are, check out webcam 1/1 on the afternoon of Monday 3rd of Sept 2012.  Amazing to think they were being put up that long ago.  It still involved a crane to lift the actual beams, but there are other ways of lifting small sections - I doubt you'd need a large mobile crane necessarily, but they were readily available anyway at that stage of thee build.

Agree that the rail welding is something that normally just progresses as time allows.  I've often seen those temporary fishplates a few days after the bulk of the work is done, I guess there's no problem waiting a few days until the next routine possession to do a few more welds.  My expectation would be that there'll be noticeable progress all round the P7 area at the weekends, it looks like P7 and P8 will be closed on Saturday and Sunday again, and the engineering works forecast was that there'd be regular closures for most of October at least...

The first of stuving's photos shows that the finishing touches have been applied along the P8 platform edge.  A member of the contractor's staff told me this morning that he thought the switch to use the London end of P8 was imminent, although he didn't know the actual intended date.  They've started on the block paving behind the tactile strips now as well, another sign of the gradual progress.

Paul

[ellendune]

I'd have thought the P7 footings could probably be done with pumped concrete along the ground again, from a few places on the south side, they could easily operate from the temporary entrance at the end of P1, or from the delivery gate beside the end of P4, especially if they do it overnight.  Alternatively perhaps they could use those mini-dumper trucks, (like the one spotted by ironstone11 the other night), delivering it normally in mixers then driving small batches of concrete in through the front door!

When they were doing the North side there were plenty of examples of pumping concrete much further than they would need to do P7 from outside the south side of the station without any bespoke pipework.

[ironstone11]

Did you see that the framework of the end of the canopy on P8/9 is now in place (as is that on P1/2)? I think the very end could be assembled in situ from relatively small pieces, but there's a short section before that that may have full-width spars. Did anyone notice when the bits were sneaked in, presumably one night earlier this week?

Some of the parts were delivered and placed on the last remaining 'long legged' trolley on 18/9/13 @ 22.45 (Cam 2/2) after which the long legged trolley was never seen again, probably dismantled like the other two. More canopy parts arrived on 19/9/13 @ 21:15 - 21:30.

[stuving]

Searches for a while...  Here you are, check out webcam 1/1 on the afternoon of Monday 3rd of Sept 2012. 

Not sure what you meant by that - camera 1/1 stopped before that. Anyway, you posted a picture on 23rd that showed the end missing.

Some of the parts were delivered and placed on the last remaining 'long legged' trolley on 18/9/13 @ 22.45 (Cam 2/2) after which the long legged trolley was never seen again, probably dismantled like the other two. More canopy parts arrived on 19/9/13 @ 21:15 - 21:30.

And the bits were put up a day or two later - and on camera (02/2, just to the left of the clock)!
 
On the 25th at crane appears at 01:00, and the canopy grows longer by a tiny amount (at this very foreshortening angle). The on the 26th bits of the end frame start to appear at about 01:00 (there's a gap in the recordings) and continue during the day, with what looks like the last bit of the outer frame at about 23:00. The filling-in with other members goes on in between, and during the day.

[stuving]

Agree that the rail welding is something that normally just progresses as time allows.  I've often seen those temporary fishplates a few days after the bulk of the work is done, I guess there's no problem waiting a few days until the next routine possession to do a few more welds. 

True, though it's not a reassuring thing for passengers to be seeing. I thought it odd because it's been like that since Monday, and at least five of those welds were done after Saturday. There was still Monday night to do the last one - unless they genuinely had burned their way through all the locally-held stock of pyrotechnics.

[paul7575]

Not sure what you meant by that - camera 1/1 stopped before that. Anyway, you posted a picture on 23rd that showed the end missing.

Try reading it again carefully - I was explaining how P12/13 and 14/15 were done in 2012...

Paul

[stuving]

Not sure what you meant by that - camera 1/1 stopped before that. Anyway, you posted a picture on 23rd that showed the end missing.

Try reading it again carefully - I was explaining how P12/13 and 14/15 were done in 2012...
Paul

OK - that explains my incomprehension, anyway.

The corner structures on P8/9 look quite a bit smaller than those on P12/13 (though the angles make it hard to judge by how much). With two support rails the cantilever spans are a lot shorter, the steel members are both shorter and lighter, and maybe they could be raised by a hoist instead of a crane. When the end of P10/11 is done, that will presumably need a crane - it looks to be one of the wide single-rail canopies (like P12/13 both ends and P14/15 West end, but wider than P10/11 West end). 

[SandTEngineer]

I noted yesterday (28 September 2013) from the window of a passing diverted West Country HST^▸ (High Speed Train) that the foundations of the East box of the new flyover has the Reading Relief Feeder and Reading Main Feeder lines now installed at the stepped lower levels under the new flyover position (as described in earlier posts).  Unfortunately didn't have my camera with me

[stuving]

I was a bit surprised yesterday to see the track to the west of P8 being renewed now. The phasing plans said this would be left until the new mains over the viaduct are ready. It's also aligned rather oddly, assuming it has reached its final location (there is a rail-mounted crane there, just visible at this resolution if you look carefully). Note that trains can still get from P8 to the Westbury lines at the moment, via the link to P9.

What was planned to happen next was the turns from p7 and P3 to join P1/2 (aka the Down Westbury) being moved eastwards and made less abrupt. The second of the two plans posted two pages ago shows this.

(Edited to move misplaced reference to posted plan.)

[paul7575]

I was a bit surprised yesterday to see the track to the west of P8 being renewed now.

It's possibly just a question of getting an early start (or even tidying up work already started) by removing the back to back redundant sets of points, which were clipped out of use a few months back. (First pic in post #2204, behind the signal head.)  It may be that come Monday morning the overall 'shape' of the track hasn't changed at all, but they are running over plain-lined track rather than the two unnecessary points and crossings.

Paul

[stuving]

It's possibly just a question of getting an early start (or even tidying up work already started) by removing the back to back redundant sets of points, which were clipped out of use a few months back. (First pic in post #2204, behind the signal head.)  It may be that come Monday morning the overall 'shape' of the track hasn't changed at all, but they are running over plain-lined track rather than the two unnecessary points and crossings.
Paul

Maybe ... but the logic of that poster was that P7 had to be (expensively) kept in use to give direct access to the Down Westbury. The old P8 track goes only to the Up Westbury, but there is another way to reach it, so that link could be removed. The final configuration here has three points in close succession (to Down Main, from P7, to Festival line) before becoming the old "Up" Westbury, no longer used as primarily an Up track. This cannot go in until the "knee" of the old Westubury junction on P7 is taken out.

So anything put in now has to be temporary, and if that was an option why not connect to the Down Westbury and close P7 to blitz it? OK, we have seen elsewhere that piecemeal work out of hours has been preferred, for whatever reason. Also, the diagram on that poster is misleading - it suggests that shorter-distance trains via the Westbury Line now use P8 and P9 in both directions, rather than P7 and P11.

[paul7575]

Maybe ... but the logic of that poster was that P7 had to be (expensively) kept in use to give direct access to the Down Westbury. The old P8 track goes only to the Up Westbury, but there is another way to reach it, so that link could be removed. The final configuration here has three points in close succession (to Down Main, from P7, to Festival line) before becoming the old "Up" Westbury, no longer used as primarily an Up track. This cannot go in until the "knee" of the old Westubury junction on P7 is taken out.

So anything put in now has to be temporary, and if that was an option why not connect to the Down Westbury and close P7 to blitz it? OK, we have seen elsewhere that piecemeal work out of hours has been preferred, for whatever reason. Also, the diagram on that poster is misleading - it suggests that shorter-distance trains via the Westbury Line now use P8 and P9 in both directions, rather than P7 and P11.

I think they need all that flexibility to deal with the XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) reversals.  In the normal timetable I regularly experience down Westburys and up XCs passing on the east curve, if you only had P8 and P9 in use that would probably force XC into P9 or P11 - perhaps they just want more options, because it isn't unusual to have more than one XC 'reversal' happening at the same time.

But going back to the point that anything put in has to be temporary, doesn't the final layout have the replacement for the P8 to P9 crossover on the west side of Caversham Rd bridge, so the section you have pictured being replaced to the east of that bridge is possibly permanent - even though the points at the end of P8 will still need plain lining in due course?

Paul