Reading Station improvements

[whole diary]

[Lee]

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

Reading rail station bridge lifted into place

A new 1,000-tonne railway bridge has been lifted into place at Reading station.

The bridge is part of a ^850m overhaul which will include five more platforms, two new entrances and a viaduct.

Engineers used specialist equipment to slide the bridge into place over Caversham Road during the early hours and work was completed to plan.

Network Rail said it was "confident" services would be back to normal on Tuesday following recent disruptions.

A bank holiday service has been scheduled over the weekend and on Monday.
 
Improvement works, which will remove a major bottleneck in the rail network, saw the station and the Caversham Road closed over the Christmas period.

The bridge will eventually carry rail track to new platforms.

Work to reorganise traffic flows and road layouts around Reading town centre ahead of the project began in June.

David Wilson, from Network Rail, said passengers would feel the benefit when the project was completed in 2016.

He said: "The main benefits from it will come later in that it will transport the new track which will serve the new platforms. Passengers won't see much difference but behind the scenes a massive amount has changed."

[willc]

Pictures of some of the diverted HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) at Banbury and on the South Western main line here, http://www.hondawanderer.com/Recent_Additions.htm

[JayMac]

Thanks for the link to those pics, willc.

Best of the bunch, IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion), is:

http://www.hondawanderer.com/43197_Banbury_2011.htm

[mjones]

Everything seems to have gone very smoothly- all on time for my Didcot to Wokingham journey this morning. Clearly a well planned and implemented job by all involved, and the weather didn't mess things up.

The new bridge seems to have filled all the spaces that used to be between the old bridges, so that is a lot more track space, in addition to the widening northwards that others have commented on here.

[Boppy]

Pictures of bridge being put into place...

http://www.reading-forum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=105&t=5766

I'm impressed by that bridge transporter vehicle!

[IndustryInsider]

Here's an article together with the time-lapse video of the whole process.  It makes fascinating viewing (seriously!) - you can even see the progress made before and after the New Year's Eve re-opening as the trains whizz past on the mains, before stopping again as the main structure slides into place.

http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2084877_caversham_road_opens_ahead_of_schedule

[Boppy]

That's fantastic.

When the new bridge suddenly comes into view half way through I LOL^▸ (laughing out loud)'d.  It's size!

[devon_metro]

Here's an article together with the time-lapse video of the whole process.  It makes fascinating viewing (seriously!) - you can even see the progress made before and after the New Year's Eve re-opening as the trains whizz past on the mains, before stopping again as the main structure slides into place.

http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2084877_caversham_road_opens_ahead_of_schedule

Agreed, marvelous. Didn't quite realise it was such a large structure!

[paul7575]

The new bridge seems to have filled all the spaces that used to be between the old bridges, so that is a lot more track space, in addition to the widening northwards that others have commented on here.

Yes - as we were predicting a few months back, and now that I've seen it, I'd expect the eventual up fast pair of tracks and maybe even the platform 9 down track will all use the new bridge.  I walked under it this morning and although not too surprising, it covers the entire width from the new abutments to the bridge that had been left. 

A massive lump of prefabricated work, and 'very well done' to all those who did the job.

Paul

[willc]

Some more diverted HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) on the Chiltern line towards the bottom of the page here http://geoff-plumb.fotopic.net/c900316.html along with pictures of Chiltern's Class 67+Mk3 workings.

[Adrian the Rock]

A short video of some of the diversions at Banbury on Dec 30th:

http://www.roscalen.com/signals/Banbury/South.htm#Videos

[IndustryInsider]

I haven't got any footage, but there were also a couple of HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s/Turbos turned round at Aynho Junction when things got a bit congested at Banbury.

[Brucey]

This video provides an excellent summary of the diverted Waterloo - Westbury journey: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFGrkGST3Ss

I was quite surprised at the number of passengers waiting at Basingstoke.  Presumably all from Waterloo on an earlier SWT^▸ (South West Trains) service.

Poor person filming must have been frozen on arrival at Westbury!

[mjones]

I've noticed over the last few days that they seem to be digging up part of the newly laid embankment that has been built where the new Vastern Road bridge will join the Waterloo lines. Is anyone aware of a significant problem there?

[eightf48544]

Went to presentatation to the Institute of Civil Engineers at Reading Town Hall on Tuesday. OVer 150 people.

Very good saw, timelapse video, fascinating.

One question I forgot to ask, is whether the East tunnel (old goods link) will have enough clearance for OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") and where the change over to third rail will be?

The problem is that it used to realtively easy, take Farringdon for instance trains raise and lower pans in teh station many time a day. However, the new arangements at Highbury and Islington whereby teh old power suppy has to be switched off and then the new switch on, seems to be unnecessarily complicated and not conjucive to a regular service.

Although they regularly swith the O/H in Aachen station from DC^▸ (Direct Current) to AC on a regular basis depending on whether a DB^» (Deutsche Bahn - German State Railway - about) or NS train but the train stays native.

O/H to Redhill? with dual through to Wokingham and Ash to Shalford Jn.