Don't remember a spanish solution platform at Crewkerne, the platform must have moved since the last time I caught a train from there. Then again the last train I got on there was pulled by a 50!

Industry awards are the scourge of all public transport. Companies giving themselves a pat on the back for receiving good marks from some nonsensical survey company. More effort is put into pleasing those doing the survey rather than pleasing those attempting to use the service provided. Image to those beyond the user seems to be the priority. The awards simply give the companies something to point at when they are criticised.
"We're better than the others" we could be told.
"But i'm not using the others, I'm using yours and it doesn't work"
U.S Business school rubbish like this doesn't work where public transport is concerned.

Cheers

As someone who has recently worked for Reading Transport I can clarify that it is the company not the council who dislike cross town routes, although the councils poor road planning in the town centre makes some potential cross town routes difficult. Reading Buses find it necessary to attempt to have every route pass near the rail station which just isn't possible without time consuming doubling back on cross town routes. Interchange is great to have, but since the removal of the through route across the front of the rail station and terminal area by RBC^‡(resolve), this is no longer possible and space in the town centre for terminating radial route buses is beyond it's peak. The current institution like 17 travelling westbound misses the station and if this route can be the busiest in town missing this I don't see why others can't. So other cross town routes, particularly for the more frequent roads, should still work. If there is one thing I've learnt after nearly two decades driving buses around the town it's that the vast majority of inbound passengers want to go to the town centre and not the rail station.

Anyhow, I envisage that the council will persuade Reading Transport to run some sort of route along through there, not because it's needed, simply because you can. There is the definite possibility of the contract route from Rivermead being extended, but from there to where i'm not sure. Even if there was a new Purley route via Rivermead from town I can't see it ever requiring double deck buses, the current demand simply isn't there and the Oxford Road is a large traffic generator in itself. For potential passengers travelling between north and west and vice versa any route wouldn't be that useful as it would stop short of Caversham precinct. The only way I could see a route through there working is if it was part of a large circular taking in other parts of west Reading or Tilehurst, crossing Caversham Bridge and back over Reading Bridge, again it wouldn't require double deck vehicles unless it became really popular.
However, with Cow Lane open, the routes to the west of town should become slightly quicker and more reliable with more regular traffic moving off the Oxford Road and this should be the opportunity to make the corridor free flowing with one or two stops perhaps removed, the distances between stops evened out and allowing for traffic to overtake loading buses again, which, in turn, will help other buses move along the road quicker. I am aware of council plans to change the layout at Norcot Junction with an outbound bus lane and repositioning of the stops out of the traffic flow, whether this will happen or not i'm not sure.

Cheers

I think this situation is all over with running times (except probably that big london). Bus management feed off each other with regards to money saving ideas. Reading Buses used to be different, used to still have corporation values well into the early 2000's. But when the bus branding idea came along all that changed, the multi route run cards all disappeared and if a route could just about be done in 50 minutes, it would be. The bus industry really needs to change it's approach.

The manual override on the particular buses concerned can only occur after it's turned itself off by placing your foot back on the throttle and after a couple of seconds the motor will kick back in, this would provide a quicker getaway after the doors had closed and, more importantly, the heating would come back on! The Wrightbus StreetDeck are the vehicles in question and I couldn't tell you if the stop/start feature was aftermarket or not.
Cheers

The 400MMC buses Reading have need to have the ignition switched on about two minutes before the engine has started to reset all the electronics, including the heating. A common problem was taking over one of these vehicles where the heating wasn't working because the previous driver hadn't reset the bus bus first thing in the morning. This would then require delay where you had to switch everything off including the master switch and then switch it all back on allowing time for the electronics to reset. This could cause about 4/5 minutes delay which, with the tight running times R.B have, could mean running late for the rest of your shift. Cold bus on time or warm bus late was the choice. It's worth noting that this reset always worked.
Cheers

Having recently driven brand new diesel buses with stop/start fitted for Reading Buses, I can confirm that the driver has no ability to override the feature. The stop/start would only occur with the doors open and doesn't work at the times when you want it to, a minute or two wait at a timing point for example. When it did occur it had the effect of unsettling the passengers who would come to the front to ask how long you would be waiting. You can of course still shut the engine of yourself while waiting, but the older the vehicle the less chance it may start again which may explain drivers leaving vehicles running. Reading buses also had hybrid buses as described above which didn't cut out with the exception of one vehicle, ex demonstrator 232. This vehicle, when working properly, was possibly the best bus the company had, certainly from a driving point of view. The engine would cut out often at almost every stop, sometimes before you had even come to a standstill. You could turn around at a terminus without the engine cutting in at all with careful throttle control. This was the closest thing to driving a modern trolleybus and the silence and ride quality was far superior to any diesel bus with a gearbox. It's a shame that replacing the batteries in the hybrids are so expensive.

Yes. The Vastern Road bridge has a large sump underneath for floodwater to collect in heavy rainfall as it's below the water table (also below the river level) the water is then pumped away. The service entrance to the pumps can be seen in the middle of the roundabout to the south of the bridge. Last year at some point the pumps failed and the road way was completely impassable in both directions, so it is definitely needed. The Botley Road already appears to be below the river level as it runs under the railway now and the Osney area between the city centre and Botley is clearly marshland as the Thames runs across this land in several courses. I always thought to myself that digging down any further here would be taking it to extremes. Not so much what happens when water courses burst banks but drainage of water on marshy land.

If the road here is to be dug down further do you think it would require a sump for water collection similar to the Vastern Road bridge at Reading?

Thanks for responding. I guess nobody quite knows what happens if trains coming off the mainline into the tunnel are delayed for whatever reason on the relief lines, do they lose their place in the tunnel order? Is the turnaround of service versatile enough to correct this when it reaches a terminus? Is there only one platform available in each direction underground at London Paddington? If there is only one I can envisage trains finishing in the traditional platforms in the terminus. I don't think it's going to work and I think in a couple of years time we will see half of the Crossrail trains coming out of the tunnel heading up the line to Wycombe via South Ruislip.
Cheers

After reading this forum with interest for a couple of years I thought I would join. I'm certainly not as knowledgeable as many people on here, but since the project began I have struggled to see the point of Crossrail running to Reading or even Maidenhead. Since the branch off the Western mainline to Heathrow was built I have viewed this as the natural terminus for the project. Four trains an hour off peak along the relief lines to and from London Paddington running their same service pattern as now and interchanging with the six, eight, ten or whatever it happens to be between the Heathrow branch towards the tunnel, seems more than adequate especially as they are now eight carriage electric trains. The GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) trains stopping for interchange at Ealing Broadway only after West Drayton, provided the station was remodeled to accommodate better interchange, appears adequate to me even if I was heading back down the line to Hayes as the frequency is so high. But then again I am not familiar with how many people do a journey from West Drayton to Hayes for example. There was always going to be more trains in the tunnel section so anybody joining a train west of Hayes would stay on till the terminus and swap to Crossrail there at busy times I would assume, and then do the reverse to go back as they would be joining an empty train from London Paddington. I have seen how busy Ealing Broadway can get heading towards Reading (General) in the afternoon/evening and Crossrail calling at all stations till Hayes and GWR doing beyond would split the crowd here onto different trains, again I'm unsure of figures and journey patterns. The excitement shown of Crossrail coming as far as Reading by some parties confuses me as I'm convinced any people heading for London in the morning (many who got off other trains at Reading) will still be on the fast trains and change to Crossrail, if it is of any advantage to them, at London Paddington. Plenty of people I have spoken to about Crossrail were under the impression it was a brand new tube line all the way to Reading and were surprised when I point out that the trains already exist they currently just finish at London Paddinton. It has been sold by property companies and estate agents as a faster service to London and some adverts suggest that it's going to be the reason why you should move to one of the many daft luxury flats being built around the town (rather than just live and work there instead). Clearly all these new flat dwellers will be filing onto the GWR fast trains in the morning and evening rather than Crossrail. Also I have no idea how the Oyster^▸ (Smartcard system used by passengers on Transport for London services) card is going to work when the journey off peak is 20 quid return. Will people still buy national rail type season tickets? What's to stop me using Oyster to gain access to my station and get on a GWR fast train to London instead of a Tfl train? How will Oyster work for those travellers from the Thames branches? Will anybody heading west from an Oyster covered station have to leave the station at Reading to fetch a different ticket? I still don't see the advantages. It seems to me that people in the Thames Valley are happy with the trains they have at the moment finishing at London Paddington if punctuality was better and more train capacity was available for the relief line stations. Tfl running the service in an area beyond their zone 6 makes an assumption that everybody is just going to London and not doing any other journey.
Cheers