Reading Station improvements

[whole diary]

[paul7575]

3 to 4 months.

Do people have so little initiative that they can't spot the obvious connecting routes and wait over on Platform 6?

Paul

[MVR S&T]

We are British, a few spots of rain is not going to put us off from our quest to get a seat...

[stuving]

A few bits of work going on at the moment:

• [Deleted - nonsense due to misread notes.]
• There are stacks of short (1 m or so) sheet piles on P10, which must be for the retaining wall. They have small holes at one end, and the piles have holes at the top, so presumably they will be tied together only by a wire strung through them.
• The tracks from P1/2/7 to the Down Westbury have been taken out, for replacement presumably with the points UN and crossover UM-ZG as listed for stages 3-5 on the plan above. No sign of the track out of P3 over bridge 2 going in, but then P3 is out of use for some time yet (this track was not originally scheduled for replacement at all). I guess that was why there was one of Ainscough's cranes down beside Caversham Road. 
• I reckon there is very little of the structure under the "old" (Brunel Arcade) roof left to nibble away. The plans show this roof is all to be kept, with new canopies around it for P4-7 and some kind of skirts around it to fill in the gaps. Hence they will need to keep all the internal "scaffolding tubes", and something to support this framework. That might be new, but it looks as if taking out the escalator casings and bridge will leave just the concrete pillars. A new (glazed?) end wall is needed above canopy level.

Access to and from P4-7 is very congested, and it would help a lot if the space under that 1980s roof could be used. Part is being used for concrete/mortar mixing, though that isn't the whole space, and even a small widening of the passageway would help. But somehow I don't expect this to be a priority.

[paul7575]

...There are stacks of short (1 m or so) sheet piles on P10, which must be for the retaining wall. They have small holes at one end, and the piles have holes at the top, so presumably they will be tied together only by a wire strung through them.

The sheet material fits along its length as shown below:

A number of the piles have been removed, possibly out of position, and another apparent 'own goal' is that the attachments for the blue safety fence currently prevent about 50% of the sheeting being positioned...

Paul

[Jason]

Also around the site I noticed that country end of P7 has been removed over the weekend.

[paul7575]

Also around the site I noticed that country end of P7 has been removed over the weekend.

I guess they'll have to completely remove an initial section coming east ward form the end, but only until such length where the new foundation strip will be entirely outside the existing platform footprint.  40-50 metres maybe?  After that they'll perhaps just cut down the existing wall and bury it behind the new work?

That's basically what's happening so far at the east end of P10, (picture in above post) the old wall and coping slabs are still there under all that infill material.

Paul

[Jason]

I guess they'll have to completely remove an initial section coming east ward form the end

They've been steadily munching through it overnight. The rubble has been accumulating around p1/2/7, presumably as infill for the new wall when complete.

[paul7575]

There are also yellow and blue lines painted along the ballast towards the transfer deck which presumably define the general position of the foundation strip and the wall.

Paul

[stuving]

Today, it was onward and ... onward, mostly. But there was a gap in the new foundation trench under the deck, presumably to keep well away from the dangerous yellow mushroom that lurks there. They also seem to have been so scared of it they have abandoned a length of track.

I do wonder about digging under the track like that. Is the concrete going to fill under there? If not, and it is shuttered, doesn't it all have to be concreted, left to set solid enough, then get backfilled and consolidated before running train on it at 7 a.m Monday?

Expect concrete deliveries sometime soon - but where? At the front door?
PS: Perhaps not - there's a big crane popped up over on the North side, visible in camera 02/2 (camera 01 is asleep, of course).

[stuving]

Out across Caversham Bridge, the next jigsaw piece has gone in - using the DIY crossover kit left next to the track in two heaps two weeks ago. There were at least six pieces to be joined up, so that's lots of welds to do.

[stuving]

Expect concrete deliveries sometime soon - but where? At the front door?
PS: Perhaps not - there's a big crane popped up over on the North side, visible in camera 02/2 (camera 01 is asleep, of course).

Well, that crane had done its waving around and gone by dawn. Nothing obvious being hoisted, but it must have been small at that extension. Less than a hopper of concrete, anyway.

A Hanson mixer truck just (10:30) turned up in the forecourt corral and is offloading into some container(s) on the back of a small flatbed with hoist. Presumably that drives onto platform 7 and uses a chute - that hoist looks too small to move concrete in bulk.

PS: looking closer, that's a pump on the truck and there is a pipe running into the main entrance, covered by boards on the pavement.   

[paul7575]

Doesn't the 1030 webcam view show the Hanson lorry backed up next to a concrete pump mounted on another lorry? 

There seems to be length of barrier and a raised pedestrian ramp outside the main southern gateline, (being installed from around 0330 onwards) with passengers limited to using the left hand doors so far this morning.

(I must have written that while you were editing...)

Paul

[paul7575]

I took a few photos yesterday that I won't bother uploading because stuving took a very similar set, but I'll add one below to show some recent progress on the new P10.  About 50% of the new platform wall has its 'oversail blocks' in place, the last level before the coping slabs.  The height difference between P9 and P10 is starting to become quite obvious.

Another area to report on is the 'missing corner' of P10, at the country end beyond the coffee shop and waiting room.  In this area the foundation strip shuttering and re-bar is in place to make a start on extending it out to the full width to match the length of P11.  The track at that end leading to the up main has been repositioned to make room, definitely looks now as though it has really only been left there for road-rail machine access.

Paul

[paul7575]

Well, that crane had done its waving around and gone by dawn. Nothing obvious being hoisted, but it must have been small at that extension..

Platform 10 remaining canopy legs and longitudinal beams (the latter are still lying on the ground - some are stacked behind that red barrier)?

[paul7575]

... But there was a gap in the new foundation trench under the deck, presumably to keep well away from the dangerous yellow mushroom that lurks there.

I had a think about that today, and I reckon the gap aligns almost exactly with the subway. 

Now someone had mentioned (quite a while back and possibly in a different forum) that they were going to have to re-waterproof a section of subway roof 'once it became accessible'.  So I wonder if that could be the problem area?  Although it might need a different type of foundation reinforcement anyway, the corresponding section above the subway alongside the new P10 was done differently, albeit only a few days after the sections either side.

Paul