Lessons from the day ...
Felt safe - the "biggie" is the lack of decent connections ... between thin services which discourages use ...
That applies to me, with only an hourly service either way from Tilehurst. Over the decades I've already killed rather too much time hanging around at Reading Station with a "normal" timetable. Occasionally I used to take the train to start a walk some distance from home or even to get to an environmental task (in Twyford, for example), but as things are at present I would rather take the car (which is underused, anyway: on Monday I took an extended route for the Big Shop to keep the battery charged).
And there was I back in January muttering about the new timetable entailing Tilehurst trains waiting at Reading for eight or ten minutes ...