Reading Station improvements

[whole diary]

[grahame]

In fact, if you look at that enormously long elevation drawing

Do I have to?

Slightly losing the will to live wading through the technical minutiae of this thread and the ongoing Reading development. 

No, you don't have to. I'm pretty sure (as one of the admin team) that this thread requires no moderator intervention - though I appreciate your commitment (BNM) to read the forum thoroughly in case adverts for off-topic products, copyright breaches, privacy infringements etc are posted. I can't even see any signals to the intelligence services in this thread 

That's not to put folk off though. What we have is an account of record of the changes to the second busiest station on the Greater Western network. I'm just beginning to wish it was finished.

I'm sure that the folks of certain parts of Reading, and station users there, have a similar wish.

In all seriousness, Im getting lost at certain of the detail too - but other detail is fascinating food for thought and I am learning a lot from it.  For example, I was fascinated to learn about not only gradients at flying junctions, but also the rate of change of gradients from one slope to another.   I'm sure there will be other places on the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) main line that flyovers are seriously considered in the future, and the background knowledge / reminder that we can't go from level to 1:50 (2%) without a transition is useful when considering / discussing options, responding to consultations and helping answer questions.  And long may this thread continue, just the way it is!

But the point that the less technical are drowning in content and minutiae in this thread is well made, and it's not the first time I have heard it. Perhaps an extra thread - Reading Station Changes - update information for users - would be a good idea.   Can I persuade anyone to start such a summary,  perhaps with an overview of what the project's about, what's done and what's to go, where we stand at present for users, and what we're going to see in the next six months, year, two years, and to project finish?

[grahame]

But the point that the less technical are drowning in content and minutiae in this thread is well made, and it's not the first time I have heard it. Perhaps an extra thread - Reading Station Changes - update information for users - would be a good idea.   Can I persuade anyone to start such a summary ...

I have started it at
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=13159.0
as a "hook" onto which someone who knows better than I do can post a user's update, thanks 

[ellendune]

People keep saying that the station will be finished by February 2014.  I am not sure I believe it, but they have delivered in the past.

Is there any chance that the contractors on the Reading BC scheme by the South entrance will have made any meaningful progress by then.  From the cameras it just looks as if they are playing around rather than doing anything. 

Whereas the ramp and steps were put up by Network rail's contractor at amazing speed, RBC^‡(resolve)'s contractor seems to only work about half day a week and then only to dig and fill in the same hole over and over again.

Does anyone know what is going on?

[ironstone11]

Is there any chance that the contractors on the Reading BC scheme by the South entrance will have made any meaningful progress by then.  From the cameras it just looks as if they are playing around rather than doing anything. 
Does anyone know what is going on?

From my observations they have been working on the drains. That seems to have been an unplanned process which had it been thought through could have been achieved within a few days.

I suspect there is as yet no approved plan for the steps.

The taller lamp posts on the steps/ramp were installed ages ago. On Wed Nov 6 0030 the final luminaires were fitted and some wiring done. Since then, with the original lamps still in place, there is now no lighting on the ramps.  So what is going on there?

PS. Blokes there this evening - watch this space!

PPS. The originals have been removed. Perhaps the new ones are working, but the the brighness is considerably lower.

[paul7575]

Is there any chance that the contractors on the Reading BC scheme by the South entrance will have made any meaningful progress by then.  From the cameras it just looks as if they are playing around rather than doing anything. 

I also heard a couple of potential issues similar to above but know nothing 'official'.  One was that the drains they were intended to link into were found to be totally inadequate at a late stage, so something or other had to be duplicated.   Secondly, the decision not to demolish 'Thames Tower' (the block outside the station with the mesh cover over it)  meant that the eastern end of the site had to be redesigned and various planning issues became 'stalled'.

Paul

[ironstone11]

That crane is here again! Cam02/2 at 20:15

[4064ReadingAbbey]

Using modern building materials and methods it should be possible to devise standard designs for platform canopies and even overall roofs that are cost-effective to build and maintain at busy stations. Much of the old Southern Region and the Great Western nearer Paddington has kept the Victorian originals.

Perhaps the straw sucking, smock wearing country folk who insist on catching trains outside of Zone 6 are considered to be content to wait in the wind and the rain, like the cattle in the fields.

It is a disgrace that the new Reading General, after a spend of ^850M will still have most of its platforms wind- and rain-swept, when its trains  will largely be electrically driven.

Go to Leeds City and see how a Yorkshireman builds a new station!

OTC

The canopies at Reading are an exact match to the platform width, so every section is custom-made. I imagine that the smaller ones, that do not reach the platform edge, are made of standard parts. I expect the ones at Wokingham will be like that.

What these new designs have in common is that they slope upwards, rather than downwards, towards the trains. That lets in more light, and more rain too. And the shape also catches the wind and directs it onto the passengers. Now that does not seem terribly clever, for use in Britain.

I fear we are seeing the result of the architect's very visual sensibility  - to do with light and space, and why we have glass walls everywhere - overruling past experience. In the past we had what railwaymen and local builders had worked out over the years They were usually also countrymen used to working outside all year and knowing how to protect people - and cattle.

Reflecting a little more on the reason platform canopies now slope up at the edges rather than down I think there is more to it than it simply being due to architects' vanities.

In my memory of the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) canopies at Reading (and indeed of other major GW^▸ (Great Western) stations) the edge of the canopy protruded over the edge of the platform by several inches - I have memories of heavy rain overflowing the gutters and hitting the roofs of carriages at the platforms. If one looks at old photos of GW stations I think one can see this is the case.

It is clear that to give electrical clearance from all possible static and dynamic positions of the horns of a pantograph (for example a stationary vehicle will lean in to the curve if stopped on canted track) the edge of such a canopy would either have to be cut back or the canopy bodily raised. In either case the protection offered will be reduced - in this sense overhead electrification is a step backwards in passenger comfort. The rest of the design follows from cost considerations: assuming the position of the outer edge is fixed then a design where the roof slopes down to the centre of the platform uses less material in the central supports than would be needed for a pitched roof. The form and detailing of the roof can then be styled as the architect wishes and the client accepts. One of the disadvantages of such a shape is, as you pointed out, is that it can be windy - I suspect that this is die to the 'venturi' shape of the roof underside and platform surface considered together. The easiest way to avoid this is to place buildings and/or screens along the length of the platform to break up the air flow.

Clearly an overall roof would offer more protection from rain and wind than canopies on overhead electrified railways. However overall roofs are not always the answer to a maiden's prayer - they can be very cold and unpleasant places if the wind comes from certain directions and is funnelled straight through them^

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Reading Cow Lane closes for railway viaduct upgrades


The completed Cow Lane viaduct will see the road widened to two lanes of traffic

A busy route through Reading will close overnight to allow work to take place on a new railway viaduct. Cow Lane will close between 23:00 and 05:00 GMT each night from Sunday until Thursday. The same closures will also be in force from next Sunday.

Network Rail has warned there will be some noise and light generated by the work which forms the latest phase of track improvements around Reading. The new viaduct will help remove a bottleneck on the Great Western line. The work is separate to that which saw a second bridge on Cow Lane demolished and rebuilt over Christmas 2011.

Kevin Brown from Network Rail said: "We've got to demolish the remainder of an old bridge we started taking down earlier this year and start work on a new viaduct. The track layout to the west of Reading station is changing to take one set of track over the top of the other. That will allow more trains to use the station and make use of new platforms, as well as cutting delays as trains arrive from the west."

Trains are set to run on the new viaduct from January 2015. During the work, Cow Lane will be closed to traffic between Cardiff Road and Portman Road roundabout.

[stuving]

That crane is here again! Cam02/2 at 20:15

And you can also see a canopy in flight - a greater blue-breasted one, by the look of it - at 02:00 on camera 02/2.

[stuving]

After platform 6 was closed, there was a period when many trains had to wait for a free platform, and the platform displays were often left behind. With SWT^▸ (South West Trains)'s leaf-fall timetable that's less common, but if anything the displays are wrong more often. This evening's example is hard to fathom - the 17:22 Waterloo was sitting at P5, when the displays changed to say the next at P5 was the 17:53, and a platform change to P4 was announced (by the recorded voice). The TM^‡(resolve) immediately started telling people to ignore it, and announced over the PA^▸ (Public Address) that this was still the 17:22. But what triggered it?

[ironstone11]

I've been puzzled by last week's activity on camera 06/2: what is all that scaffolding for?
... Surely none of that needs full two-level scaffolding?

If anyone questions the need for scaffolding, take a look at Cam 06/2 Nov 14 2013, 12:45.

[stuving]

The taller lamp posts on the steps/ramp were installed ages ago. On Wed Nov 6 0030 the final luminaires were fitted and some wiring done. Since then, with the original lamps still in place, there is now no lighting on the ramps.  So what is going on there?

PS. Blokes there this evening - watch this space!

PPS. The originals have been removed. Perhaps the new ones are working, but the the brighness is considerably lower.

The new lights do all work, but they are pretty dim. LEDs can't compete with the old sodium vapour lamps on lumen output, though they can be brighter if they are more directional. These ones, however, have been made to spread their light around which reduces that effect. They are actually dimmer (in lux) than the big sodium lamps over the road (like the one in front of camera 02/1) anywhere at ground level.

As LEDs are tiny point-like sources, in theory they could give a very sharp beam cut-off in vertical angle below horizontal. That's always been the ideal for luminaire designs. In these ones the LEDS are arranged in four flat blocks tilted at different angles, which puts the lowest LEDs below the edge of the shroud and so prevents that sharp cut-off. That's why you can see some of the LEDs shining from that camera, i.e. from above horizontal, which I find disappointing. It means any potential for reducing "star-theft", however slight that might be, has been thrown away.

[ellendune]

The new lights do all work, but they are pretty dim. LEDs can't compete with the old sodium vapour lamps on lumen output, though they can be brighter if they are more directional. These ones, however, have been made to spread their light around which reduces that effect. They are actually dimmer (in lux) than the big sodium lamps over the road (like the one in front of camera 02/1) anywhere at ground level.

As LEDs are tiny point-like sources, in theory they could give a very sharp beam cut-off in vertical angle below horizontal. That's always been the ideal for luminaire designs. In these ones the LEDS are arranged in four flat blocks tilted at different angles, which puts the lowest LEDs below the edge of the shroud and so prevents that sharp cut-off. That's why you can see some of the LEDs shining from that camera, i.e. from above horizontal, which I find disappointing. It means any potential for reducing "star-theft", however slight that might be, has been thrown away.

It seems to me that the amount of light is perfectly adequate. If you compare the images for the 5th and 6th November what you will see is a much more even light with less glare.  Whether it is more or less Lux I don't care.  If it does the job that is all that is necessary. If you can see a little bit of direct light - presumably to get an even spread of light from only two lanterns, then I do not regard this as significant when you compare it to the dramatic reduction in reflected glare from the walls.  The overall effect is less light pollution and less energy used, without any difficulty in safety or security. Surely in this everybody wins.

[stuving]

Now showing on camera 06/2 ... a long-boom concrete pump has just arrived on site, to fill the first part of the "box" shuttering that's in its field of view. (The bit to the left was done on Friday.)

[stuving]

This gantry arrangement has appeared to the East of Reading - close to the Southern underpass. Is it OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE")? No-one expects that to be pretty, but this is decidedly clunky.

PS: Would that signal glimpsed at the left side of the image be "Mickey Mouse" (as noted elsewhere on this forum today), by any chance?