No, the whole lot is coming down, praise The Lord.

It's The NCP car park behind that stays, and gets a re-cladding and a  5 a side football pitch on its roof...!!

Funny, you can read a post and just know that Taplow Green is the author, without even looking.

Something to do with his rather chippy view of the world, that everything should run like clockwork for his personal convenience, and how he refuses to accept that 'events dear boy' sometimes just happen...

My Basic Rule when there are problems is...

Up - take the first train that arrives.

Down - Chill, have a pint, and wait for the first called 125 to Reading...

For infrequent users of the Station the A and B usage must be a nightmare.

Esp. When a train is shown to depart from a Platform without any lettering. It's not obvious or intuitive that platform 9 is an amalgam of 9a and 9b.

And don't forget it wasn't so long at Reading that platform 4 was a different platform to 4a and 4b...

Hi Stuving, I didn't know they planned to put up a canopy in front of the old Station building - is there a link anywhere to the plans for this?

Regarding the drainage, I think the bottom of the steps will still be higher than the bottom end of Greyfriars Road, so presumably it will drain in that westerly direction...?

In the interminable time that RBC^▸ (Reading Borough Council, or Radio Block Centre, depending on context) spent in preparing the dug-out Station Hill area, they appeared to put a good number of chunky looking drains in...

Cheers Paul.

One strange thing though - when I looked yesterday it appeared as though the tracks on 9&10 were now at the same level - previously 10 had looked higher, to match the higher platform.

Have they added ballast to 9 recently...? Or had I been drinking..?

I'll look again tomorrow!

Apologies if this has been answered before, but does anyone know why it appears that the platform height for 10 will be built up higher than 9...?

A cash machine would be useful, either in the North Terminal booking hall or on the deck itself.

Do the retail outlets get their own bucket and mop as part of the lease...?

Is it the only one that allows off-peak Reading between 4 and 7.15?

Presumably they will be demolishing the old FGW^▸ (First Great Western) depot buildings?

There will be then lots of land freed up, even after the new underpass line has been built. Anyone know whether there are any plans for that vacant land.

Housing/flats perchance...?

Apologies if this has been answered before, but could they not have waited to do platform 7 until 8,9 and 10 had been finished and fully re-opened?

You would'nt need to worry about messing around with a temporary platform as the increased capacity elsewhere could have picked up the over-flow from 7.

Seems a much cheaper way than what they are currently doing...?

I saw that too yesterday - wondered whether it was some sort of temporary drainage...

Are there no specialised 'concrete mixers on railway wheels'...?

A couple of comments now that things are up and running on a few platforms:

1. The entrances to WH Smith on Platforms 8&9 Country End are wrongly positioned. They face the platforms, but when you are coming down the stairs/escalators it isn't very clear that there is a shop there at all. Business was dreadful and I would expect Smiths to push for a new entrance facing the escalators to be built.

2. The canopies prevent prevent you from looking down the platforms from the over bridge - a little odd...

3. There appears to be a new coffee booth opened at the Country End of Platforms 10&11, but being invisible from the Overbridge ( see above) and currently also obscured by hoardings/scaffolding I suspect that it's only customers are the station staff/workmen...

4. The hotch-potch of surfaces on Platforms 8&9 is a right mess.Does anyone know whether they are planning to create a uniform surface using the normal brick herringbone pattern?

5. As others have pointed out, it is incredibly disappointing that after the feverish activity to get the station opened at Easter, the rest of the works are essentially plodding on at snails pace...

Hi SWRural - sorry, like Paul I thought your comment about the pax^▸ (passengers) having to take a longer  route round was in response to his posting about the temporary buildings being removed outside the 3 G's...

Whereas you were responding to an earlier posting about where trains were being platformed.