Great Western Coffee Shop

If you near to reading station, are you allowed to do trainspotting as part of the daily excersise?

I would suggest not.

GWR has asked its station volunteers not to carry out their normal duties at stations and although Reading is operated by Network Rail the situation is no different.

Government guidance says no unessential journeys.  So unless your trip actually takes you onto station premises as a key worker to make a journey or some other essential trip - I'd suggest you shouldn't go there.  Even if you are making an essential trip I believe you should be on the station for the minimum amount of time and not go out of your way to take photos or note down numbers.

That is my personal view and why I haven't been on a train since 4th November last year and a station since early December.  Not making a virtue of that - I'd dearly love to be making a journey.

Thanks for the advice, I'll stick to trainspotting on my walks.

Agreeing very much with BobM, and with a similar recent history of not being on trains. 

Exercise and walking / cycling to local businesses which are open / essential has taken me across the road bridge up the line from Melksham Station a couple of times, on one occasion with a train calling, and a chance to stop for a couple of minutes to take my breath, take a photo or two, and observe passenger numbers and guess as to what their journeys might have been.   Come warmer weather if we're still in the same rules, I may take exercise into the countryside and time it to see trains but well away from the station or indeed railway.

I have a single, essential, return trip to make to a branch of my "local" bank (as they sell themselves) who have closed their Melksham Branch - pre-lockdown it had already become meetings in Chippenham and Trowbridge; most but not 100% can now be done online.   For that trip, I will try to choose a quiet time (but with limited hours and infrequent service, I may have a choice of just one time in a day), arrive at the stations in good time but not excessive, not loiter ... but I will no doubt take a few pictures and my eyes will be open to observe.

I'd suggest that while walking on a route which crosses or parallels a railway line constitutes exercise, standing on a platform does not. Furthermore, none of us should really on station premises unless we're actually making a justified journey or working there.

I live about ten minutes' walk from one of the stations on the Beach line and as that station is in a park, I often walk past it. Surprisingly often, I see trains there (but I couldn't tell you numbers cos I'm not a spotter). But I haven't been on the platform or approached the building since... I can't remember when. Probably March last year.

I admit to slinking on to Thatcham Station the other day to pinch get a copy of Metro  On and off in 50 seconds, only one other person there. I wouldn't have done it if there'd been a number of people.

The traditional long lines of cars were either side of the level-crossing gates waiting for them to open, and I suspect that a lot of people were breaking the rules far more than me.

The problems caused by the level crossing are a major part of the argument against the proposed 2,300 house development on open countryside NE of the town.