They were assembling the tops of seats at the west end of P10/11 today. I didn't see the support pillars being fixed, but it you look at the other seats they are fixed through the block paving. You'll have to guess how - I'd say drill into the concrete underneath, and fix a stud with resin or cement. The blocks presumably need to be cut, or maybe core drilled, not percussion drilled.

If you look, there are several sets of white marks where seats will go at the west end of P8/9, and some (but not enough) at the east end of P8/9.

From the Bracknell News Midweek:

21: Trowbridge

Currently, 1,2,3 (almost) 11. But really, that's the wrong tense, as most of the others will need lengthening for 10-car IEPs^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) anyway (260 m  vs 276). I'm not sure when that's scheduled to happen, though.
 

Did that date (the end of this week) apply to all platforms, or just P10? Well, there are certainly a lot of very busy little Bobs all over the station every night now. Can't you just feel the hot breath of that dead lion on the back of their necks?

The canopy on P7 sits, as you can see, with its weight on the main support rail, and the smaller rail by the Three Guineas just holding its edge still. And the delivery is via a (not very big) Ainscough crane - though not, if you think about it, straight over the roof. It will have to be slewed round, and lowered into place blind.

I went along by the viaduct last week, and could see that a lot has now been built. However, you couldn't say that any part of the viaduct, or any of the boxes, is nearly finished yet. Three pictures to illustrate that - sorry about the inevitable window reflections:

• Some impressive shuttering clamped onto the beams - presumably to form the side walls and cantilevered walkways. The deck may be created at the same time, or as a previous step (as it says in the drawings).
• More limited shuttering - to from the crossheads and diaphragms that tie the ends of the beams together.
• At the western end, where the viaduct slopes right down - here the beams have not yet appeared.

Work on the P7 canopy proceeds at a fair old rate. There is now a steel rail right along the face of the Three Guineas and the Brunel Plaza. Now, will that hold the ends of the main canopy sections still, or will there be a bridging strip from those to this rail?

There's a report from over a year ago that suggests there are at least two differences of that order that can be in or out depending on which definition of "cost" is being used:
Borders railway completion date put back as cost of project soars

Yesterday the new tram-train line between Nantes and Ch^teaubriant was opened by Jean-Marc Ayrault (not only French prime minister but mayor of Nantes before that). That reminds me that I was going to comment on a few things I found/photographed/saw last year around Nantes, but never got round to it. I did mention the tram-train already in a post last summer (reply #31 above) with one picture, but only briefly.

If you just stop and think about trams, trains, and the best way to use them - and then about how to use the hybrid tram-train - you may come up with something like this:

• an old railway line can be rebuilt for trains if complete, and it's not obvious that track will necessarily be a lot cheaper for tram-trains/light rail
• that's partly because current wisdom is that out of town you should use 25 kV not 750 V, hence plain trams are not favoured
• if there are gaps, a tram-train can get round them by road
• if this is in town it adds to the usefulness of the service, elsewhere it doesn't really
• using a railway station calls for a lowered platform (even in France), though this is not always done on Nantes's other tram-train line to Clisson
• the real benefit of the tram-train is where it has to share with rail traffic out of town, and use street tracks as well for part of its route
  

So why, in that case do we find:

• neither of these routes ever uses the city tram tracks (both terminate in the main station at Nantes)
• the Clisson route does share a standard railway line with other trains
• the new Ch^teaubriant line runs beside the tram line in its off-street section (an old railway line), but never connects with it at all. It has a crossing, where it shares a 750 V supply, but separate track (see  Reply #31 above) .
  
• at Ch^teaubriant the tram-trains use the station where the railway line from Rennes terminates, but the two do not join (picture 1)
  

Is this a case of the worst of both worlds?

The other pictures show the depot, where the unelectrified freight line to Carquefou is crossed by the 750 V access to the depot (picture 2) and the grand (grandiose?) new station at Haluch^re, with two lines each for the trams and tram-trains to avoid them getting too friendly.

There's a report of the opening here.

That may be true, in terms of the cost. On the benefit side, are the services (occupied paths) on those lines so densely packed you couldn't afford any waiting? I'd be surprised if they are.

If there enough buttons and washers in the kitty to buy a few more point ends, I'd prefer to see them used to help recovery on the Main Lines. When thing get screwed up here - especially if a train dies in a Reading platform - you need to run more trains than the usual service to catch up. A train held up here delays the one right behind, and the one behind that, and ...

My candidate to help do that would be crossovers from P11 approaches to P12, and maybe from P9 to P10 (if one is missing). The idea is to borrow P12 for main line use, and allow platforming trains to shift up one platform without conflict. As it is, trains have to cross over to the Relief Lines too far out, creating conflicts on the Relief Lines (at least). The design of Reading (and everywhere else) is predicated on there always being spare paths on the Relief Lines - which may be true in general, but would stop being true in such a recovery situation.

Just to reinforce the message about the protracted nature of the commissioning process on the first new train, today I saw the same pair (451+453) sidling through Wokingham as was pictured in early December (above). I presume this is the first pair that was to do 5000 miles of commissioning.

Here's that P7 canopy beam - there's one more span still to go on the end. On the left, you can also see the steel sections attached to the side of the Brunel Plaza shell. This is supported by steel uprights along the side facing P7. (Sorry - I had a better-framed picture, but it didn't record.)

Only today was the damaged carriage removed - using two cranes on a specially-built access road. The other one was righted and brought out on the track. The weather's not been ideal - to say the least - but today's snow didn't stop them.

As noted earlier, they look very like the 450s they will replace on the Windsor service. Most passengers may not spot the difference, other than the extra length.

Paul Clifton, however, still thinks they are due to start off running to Reading. At least SWT^▸ (South West Trains) now say they (among other players) are working towards getting them to Reading by 2019.

There was report in the 6 p.m. BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) news on the reconstruction at Dawlish, and they have some more pictures on their website here.