Firstly I don't think that there are any services planned to run simply from Reading to Maidenhead, there is however a proposal for a two-per-hour Reading to Slough shuttle fitting in with the two-per-hour outer-suburban services running through to Paddington. Having said that, I must admit that I don't see any advantage in extending Crossrail services to Reading.

From what I have read and heard about the Crossrail trains as they are currently foreseen they will be optimised for the "metro' character of the inner London services. On page 43 of the December 2013 Modern Railways there is a quote saying "the new Class 345s will be a 'step on from the Overground'." To me this implies longitudinal seats and no toilets.

Such a design is perfectly adequate for high density services in and around a major city, but to me it does not seem in any way appropriate for journeys lasting up to an hour out into the country.

Similarly breaking the outer-suburban services at Reading to connect with the Reading to Paddington services seems a retrograde step for passengers travelling from, say, Pangbourne to Maidenhead.

Unless Crossrail adopts a similar stopping pattern between Reading and Paddington to that currently existing, rather than an 'all stations' pattern even using trains with greater acceleration and higher top speed than the 165/166s the journey time to central London will be longer than now, even with a change at Paddington for passengers to and from points west of about Slough. Unless great care in the design of Crossrail's service pattern is taken, the net effect will be a less attractive service for people living 'out in the sticks' than is currently the case.

Reflecting a little more on the reason platform canopies now slope up at the edges rather than down I think there is more to it than it simply being due to architects' vanities.

In my memory of the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) canopies at Reading (and indeed of other major GW^▸ (Great Western) stations) the edge of the canopy protruded over the edge of the platform by several inches - I have memories of heavy rain overflowing the gutters and hitting the roofs of carriages at the platforms. If one looks at old photos of GW stations I think one can see this is the case.

It is clear that to give electrical clearance from all possible static and dynamic positions of the horns of a pantograph (for example a stationary vehicle will lean in to the curve if stopped on canted track) the edge of such a canopy would either have to be cut back or the canopy bodily raised. In either case the protection offered will be reduced - in this sense overhead electrification is a step backwards in passenger comfort. The rest of the design follows from cost considerations: assuming the position of the outer edge is fixed then a design where the roof slopes down to the centre of the platform uses less material in the central supports than would be needed for a pitched roof. The form and detailing of the roof can then be styled as the architect wishes and the client accepts. One of the disadvantages of such a shape is, as you pointed out, is that it can be windy - I suspect that this is die to the 'venturi' shape of the roof underside and platform surface considered together. The easiest way to avoid this is to place buildings and/or screens along the length of the platform to break up the air flow.

Clearly an overall roof would offer more protection from rain and wind than canopies on overhead electrified railways. However overall roofs are not always the answer to a maiden's prayer - they can be very cold and unpleasant places if the wind comes from certain directions and is funnelled straight through them^

Now I am retired I use the train mainly to get to London (from Reading) and in most cases that is off-peak as the main reasons are visits to museums, concerts or family and friends. In these cases I/we use the bus and our 'wrinkly passes' to get to the station. In the evenings we get home by taxi or, if either of us has gone alone, then the returning passenger is collected by car. Other places visited are Oxford, Bristol and Weston super Mare but in total no more than half a dozen times a year. We also have family living in Germany so occasionally we fly from Birmingham to Hamburg (it being often cheaper than Heathrow to Hamburg even with the train ticket added) and get to Birmingham by train off-peak as a suitable flight is/was around 15.00. To get to and from Reading station on those occasions we use a taxi as then we have bags with us.

When I started working in the 1960s I used the train at weekends to get home until I bought a car. Even then I often used the train as getting from Chelmsford to Reading in the days before the M25 took the best part of half a working day...

After that I lived close to my work so I didn't need the train and when the work was elsewhere I drove. The only exceptions were years later when I had a three year contract in London and another long contract in Bracknell; in these cases I used the train during the week. In both cases I cycled the mile and a half between home and Reading station.

I hope that this gives you another data point!

The main reason that the platform canopies slope upwards at the platform edges is to give electrical clearance for the 25kV overhead electrification when it arrives. The architects have then tried to make the canopy visually appealing. There has to be sufficient clearance between the ends of the pantographs and anything which is earthed under worst case conditions - in days gone by canopies were often cut back so they didn't reach the edge of the platform or simply removed completely.

Because of effects like these, I sometimes wonder why overhead electrification of railways is seen to be so wonderful...

Sorry for the out of sequence post. I was replying to one post earlier - I hadn't realised that another post had arrived in the time before I pressed 'Send'.

Not directly! The comment was made as a response to the post by ChrisB but somehow I got it out of sequence. Nevertheless, I think we are in grave danger of agreeing! The point I was trying to make was that improving the capacity and number of alternative routes for the GW^▸ (Great Western) has to be a 'good thing' in that it improves the networks resilience to disruption. A similar project currently underway is the re-doubling of the Swindon to Kemble stretch. Because of the arrangement of the GW network the number of useable alternative routes decrease the closer one is to London, trains from the South West can use Waterloo (at a pinch) but other routes are less well served. If possible avoiding tipping the passengers out of their train, whether into a bus or another train, has to be welcomed and avoidance of unnecessary miles and reversals (which cost time) also improves the 'customer experience'.

I realise that there most maintenance work can be done without closing the route between Didcot and London but one should be looking further ahead than the next ten or fifteen years. Who is to say that a grade separated junction for the Windsor line at Slough for an additional Crossrail service may not occur or that a stone train won't tip several hundred tonnes of ballast over the line at Airport Junction?

The more alternative routes there are, the better!

I can't help feeling that there is something not quite right about the top speeds of the new-build suburban sets, regardless of who builds them.

It is often stated that one of the critical factors in line capacity on the Mains is the speed difference between the 125 mph HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) and Class 180s on the one hand and the 90 mph Turbos on the other. Assuming a 110/115 mph top speed these new build emus will narrow the gap but the Hitachi SETs^▸ (Super Express Train (now IET)) (aka IEPs^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.)) are specified for a future top speed of 140 mph.

So the speed gap will open up again and we will be back to where we are now - only just a bit faster! Could it be that, for reasons of track capacity, the effective top speed of the trains between Paddington and Reading and Didcot will remain at 125 mph?

Why do you think that? During, for example, the Reading blockade some trains from South Wales and Bristol were diverted via Banbury so that the passengers did not have to be bustituted and could be carried through to Paddington in the same vehicle albeit at the price of extended journey times.

Forcing the passengers to change trains is not 'user friendly' and goes against the stated policy of both Network Rail and the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) to try to reduce the maximum inconvenience caused - because of the need to change vehicles it is only slightly better than 'bustitution'.

The other reasons I see against transhipping passengers are that the layout at Oxford is not conducive for train to train transfers in the eastbound direction at least; as far as I know the bay platforms to be used by the Chiltern trains will, in the first instance at least, be limited to 4 or 5 coach long trains so getting an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) trainload of passengers into will be cosy at best and the trains will terminate at Marylebone rather than Paddington. At least the reversal at Banbury meant that the trains started from and reached the terminus expected by the passengers.

However, because the Water Eaton to Bicester section will not be open until 2015 it is unlikely to be used as a diversion in the short term. However it will be available after then and could be helpful for the latter stages of the GW^▸ (Great Western) electrification and certainly afterwards if serious maintenance or repair is needed on any of the assets between Didcot and London. Bridges will still need to be replaced and track replaced even after electrification.

Thank you for the photographs, it's good to see that progress is being made at last.

I notice that some changes to the arrangement of the connection at the other end of the Bicester to Oxford line have been announced. Essentially the idea of re-using the LNWR^▸ (London North Western Railway) route to Oxford has been dropped in favour of keeping the connection off the GW^▸ (Great Western) line near Wolvercote and making the easternmost line on the GW formation (the 'Jericho' line) reversible for the Chiltern trains.

I have seen no mention of it, but this change will make it easier and quicker to divert GW trains via Oxford when engineering work closes the line between Didcot and Paddington. As it will no longer be necessary to divert trains as far as Banbury and then reverse them, there should be a considerable time saving.

I feel a bit reticent in butting in to this conversation, but I understood that this debate had essentially been answered by SandTengineer's posts No. 2065 in August last year. He wrote:


(I hope that I have done the quoting correctly!)

There was some subsequent discussion about these figures, but my take on it is that they are probably approximately correct - given the passage of time since they were originally drawn up - but it is unlikely that the gradients have changed as much as is suggested.

If this is the case then there would not seem to any great difficulty in re-starting a 40 wagon train on the gradient up to the Relief lines as some 14 wagons will be on the (approx.) 1 in 100 up grade and the rest on the train will be on the 1 in 90 falling grade giving a shove! There may well be other arguments for not stopping such long trains near the station, but being unable to re-start is probably not one of them.

The roof at Cannon Street station was damaged beyond repair in the Second World War. The original glass roof had been removed before the war in an attempt to save it but the site where it was stored was also bombed and the roof destroyed. The remains of the roof and the station were patched up to stop any more bits falling off in the immediate post-war years and, IIRC^▸ (if I recall/remember/read correctly), it was built over, at least partially, in the 60s when BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) badly needed the money from the air rights. Connected with this is the unedifying story of the architect paying bribes to one of the BR surveyors - both parties were tried for corruption in the mid-1970s.

The building which is now there is the second iteration of the office block and was built in the 1980s.

And why stop at Cheltenham? I would suggest that the trains should originate and terminate at Cardiff. At the moment the huge, vaguely triangular swath of country with its apex at Bristol out to the North Sea coast between Norfolk and Lincolnshire (i.e., between the South Wales to London and South Wales to Birmingham lines) is not easily accessible by rail for people living in Bristol and points west.

I'm sure a convincing business case can be constructed, the population in this triangle is not insignificant...

Your proposal to grade separate Wootton Bassett Junction has, I would suggest, merit. As generally the number of trains per hour per line has been steadily increasing year for year over the last two or three decades the incidence of delays caused by conflicting movements has increased - and on this route especially the traffic density will increase again with the introduction of the Super Express Trains (aka IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.)) on the Bristol route. Grade separations are especially valuable where long freights can block junctions for extended periods compared to shorter and more rapidly accelerating passenger trains.

You correctly point out that Network Rail is spending money on several grade separation schemes at the moment in various parts of the country, there are three on the Western alone - Acton Yard, additional bridges and tracks at Airport Junction and those at Reading. I would hope that these, and the others that you mention, would be the start of a rolling programme. In the first instance I would suggest that potential sites on the Western would be where the train density is highest, for example Didcot, Westerleigh Junction, Bristol Parkway to separate the Bristol and South Wales flows and Southcote Junction in Reading where the Newbury and Southampton routes part company. This later sees, roundly, a Freightliner train per hour in each direction on the Southampton route and if these could be kept separate as far as possible from the increasing number of trains on the Newbury route (possibly by a third track as far as Oxford Road Junction) then the Reading area would cease to be a major source of delays.

Grade separated junctions are seen to be expensive, but I am not sure this is necessarily the case on a whole-life basis. Once they have been built the infrastructure is practically permanent - bridges last for 100 years and more. On the plus side trackwork can be simplified and the on-going maintenance is eased as the track-to-track alignment is no longer so critical. I have read somewhere that the cost of a Signalling Equivalent Unit (a point end or a signal, etc.)  is in the region of ^300k quite apart from the Civils' costs. So taking out a couple of turnouts (sorreee!) and some of the associated signals would save something like ^1million.

I would expect such a programme to exist in its own right - but it should be that such issues are considered whenever a large civils or re-signalling scheme is being considered.

Hello! This is my first post in the Coffee Shop, so I hope I do it correctly!

The speed limits during the latter years of the age of steam, and for the first years of the diesel era, were 75mph on the Down Main through (old) Platform 4 and 80mph on the Up Main. Speed over the turnouts for the Up Main Platform Loop (old Platform 5) was limited to 25mph.

At some point in, IIRC^▸ (if I recall/remember/read correctly), the 80s as more and more trains stopped at Reading, the cant on the Down Main was reduced limiting the speed to 50mph; at the same the limit on the Up Main was reduced. I am not sure when this took place as I was living abroad at the time, but I'm sure somebody will know.