Great Western Coffee Shop

As a commuter through Reading, a few things have occurred to me in this my first year of membership.

It can be difficult to know where some Reading related issues should be posted. London to Reading doesn't quite look right for an issue that really affects something impacting on services going in another direction from Reading, and any Reading Station  issue can affect travellers in a wider area.

Reading Station has over 20 million arrivals, departures and interchanges. The town has its own bus service, and other public transport related issues going on all the time (Cow Lane Bridge, Green Park Station, Reading West upgrading, the busway across Kennetmouth). We also seem a little under-represented in the forum activity.

Can I suggest a new category - say "Reading Commuters", like "Bristol Commuters"? Perhaps Gordon TBE's observation on the slippery floor problem could have come to attention earlier - or it may attract some new members from others who've had  the same experience?

Sorry I am not there at Westbury to debate this!

Suggestion noted ... and issue appreciated.    Ironically (because its an interchange station) we have had and considered the question "where do we put things about Westbury station itself" in the past ... and of course Reading is a similar but huge (by comparison) issue.

Bristol has its own commuter services and the "Bristol Commuters" board is / was designed to cover those. I worry that the addition of station boards will reduce the post levels for services below a practical level, and increase the number of places people need to look to find relevant materials to their journey.   

There may  be an exceptional case to add a "Reading station and local transit" board.  It will lead to calls for ones for Exeter, for Paddington,  perhaps for Swindon, Cardiff ... we could end up with a "stations" area and a "services" area.   Needs thinking through; I'm not averse to exceptional cases but would prefer to avoid a scatter of it working different ways at different places - perhaps even at different ends of the same journey.

Comments / thoughts welcome

I understand where eightonedee is coming from, though we do have the Reading station upgrade thread (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=6405.msg243643#msg243643) which also encompasses the Cow Lane discussions*. The flooring debate could be discussed within that as it is part of the new station.

We also have the Reading buses thread (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=14138.msg243559#msg243559) which whilst no discussion has been had, could include the poor failed attempt at the MRT (Kennetmouth)

Reading West upgrade (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=17295.msg198921) and Green Park station (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=4433.msg222268#msg222268) also have dedicated threads, just the lack of progress on these means no new posts in a while!



* We've had a letter from Network Rail saying that Cow Lane, along with all snagging works will be finished by April (presumably 2019?  ;) ) Also as has been reported locally it will be closed over the last weekend of February for re-surfacing works.

This particular topic was raised during our Coffee Shop planning meeting in Westbury today, and the suggested solution was to encourage any Reading-specific issues to be posted on the 'London to Reading' board, by expanding the description of that particular board.

I have now added such wording to the board description, as something of a 'quick fix', and I'll do a bit of moving / merging later this evening / weekend, when I get a spare moment, to tidy it up a bit more.

Hope this helps. CfN.  ;)

Thanks for listening and considering

No problem - we on the admin / moderator team are very happy to consider any such constructive suggestions.  ;)