Tilehurst station - facilities, incidents and improvements

[whole diary]

[ChrisB]

Weren't they paying any rent?...ohhh, naughty

[Marlburian]

https://nextdoor.co.uk/p/N3rd_Zh3J_b6?view=detail&init_source=search&query=wolsey

[ChrisB]

Rather stupidly, requires a free account logged in to read. can't be a*sed.

[Marlburian]

Sorry. This is the initial post of about ten days ago :

"Heard this morning that the Wolsey[sic] Coffee van at Tilehurst station was broken into, for the 3rd time

[grahame]

Sorry. This is the initial post of about ten days ago :

"Heard this morning that the Wolsey[sic] Coffee van at Tilehurst station was broken into, for the 3rd time

I would think it unlikely that your previous comment triggered anything - after all, it was reporting on something that had happened multiple times previously and was clearly known about. 

[bobm]

https://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/24078960.owner-reading-coffee-van-thank-customers-closure/

A ‘beloved’ Reading coffee van selling fresh pastries and cakes has been forced to closed following four devastating break-ins.

Located at Tilehurst Train Station, Wolesley Street Bakery coffee van was a popular stop for people heading to the station.

Following the break-in at the beginning of January, the owners decided to close the van on January 9, 2024.

The latest theft was the ‘most damaging one yet’ which involved thieves using an angle grinder to go through the lock and hinges of the van where they stole the coffee machine and grinder.

[Marlburian]

This morning I collected a friend from Tilehurst Station and noticed that the Wolseley Street Bakery was back with a pop-up gazebo, one side of which was filled by the back of a small van with its rear doors open so coffee etc could be dispensed from it.

[Marlburian]

At Tilehurst Station the lockable cycle-storage cabinets on the station forecourt have been removed, presumably to facilitate the installation of the lifts. I wonder if they were used much? A few years ago I peered through the mesh and all were empty. A sign promises that the installation will be completed by the year's end. (Yesterday four guys in hi-vis were conferring close to the stairs on platform 1.)

Being a Friday it didn't surprise me that the car-park was only half full.

[Marlburian]

Nowadays I only visit Tilehurst Station occasionally, but today I picked up and later dropped off a friend there. Lots of scaffolding for the lifts, the framework of at least one was in place. No short-term parking spaces on the forecourt, except one for passegers with disabilities. The rest were cordoned off. Must be chaotic during the rush hour.

(On a previous visit there was an ailing bird on the platform in front of us. For some reason a rail worker shooed it into a very brief flight that ended between the rails of the down relief.A few minutes later, a very long freight train rumbled over it, followed by a passenger train that stopped over it. Poor bird.)

[Chris from Nailsea]

Thank you for posting that latest update, Marlburian. 

I noted that, over the years, we have built up a fair few informative posts on the subject of Tilehurst station (mostly by Marlburian, also by IndustryInsider - to both of them, and other contributors, many thanks!) 

Purely in the interests of continuity and clarity (given the acknowledged limitations of the Coffee Shop forum's search facility), I've now taken the opportunity to move and merge quite a few posts here, to offer a definitive reference topic for Tilehurst.

As ever, I hope this helps! 

[Marlburian]

Tilehurst man hit by a train at station identified by fingerprints

Rodway Road is just a couple of hundred yards from the station.

[Marlburian]

Work on station lifts progresses. I don't visit Tilehurst Station as much as I used to, but this afternoon at 1330 there was a rare instance of an ambulance parked in its bay, ready to respond to local calls. A little later, the Reading Chronicle reported "chaos"at the Royal Berks A & E with a photo of a queue of ambulances, though the hospital said it was no busier than usual for a Monday. (I suspect that a disgruntled  patient or their relative may have rung the Chronicle to complain.)

[Marlburian]

This morning I had a leaflet through my letter box from my local branch of a political party announcing that there have been delays to completing the lifts which were "due to open last winter, but an upgrade to the local electricity supply is required before they can become operational".

I expect a leaflet from another political party also claiming credit for initiating the project. The one I had this morning was a modest four small pages, one devoted to contact information, another helpfully giving a timetable for local road re-surfacing between March 20 and 31. Today is the 28th and all but two of the 17 roads listed have already been treated. My cul de sac serving nine houses had its first re-surfacing since it was built 49 years ago. It was "micro-surfaced", giving a somewhat rough effect.

[Marlburian]

I don't visit Tilehurst Station as much as I used to, but it's my impression that work on installing the lifts finished more than a month ago. But they aren't yet in use. They could have been useful on Saturday when a friend visited me from Poland. She'd had (another) delayed flight, arriving at her accommodation near Bishop's Stortford after midnight. The next morning she made her way to Paddington with a heavy suitcase that she'd meant to deposit with Left Luggage, but there was a long queue, so she lugged it all the way to Tilehurst and up and down the stairs. I collected her in the car and a few hours later returned her to the station, for the process to be repeated.