The Anonymous Widower

Before Crossrail – Reading

A Magnificient Station In Most People’s Opinion – Rating 9/10

Reading ranks with some of the best stations in Europe and probably the wider world. There are pictures in this post entitled Is it Architecture, Engineering Or Art?, which show how spectacular the station is.

Wikipedia says this about adding Crossrail to the station.

Crossrail could also be accommodated at the new station with little work beyond electrification, as new sidings have been planned to the west of the station.

So it looks like adding Crossrail to Reading isn’t a difficult problem, if Wikipedia is correct.

Logically, I feel strongly that Crossrail should go to Reading, as Reading is a large city that has twice the population of the original terminus of Maidenhead.

Reading station also has fifteen platforms, and can probably be configured so that passengers arriving on Crossrail could walk across the platform to get their train to Wales and the West Country, with other passengers doing the reverse in the other direction.

If they do provide this sort of change at Reading, I might well go to and from the West by changing at Reading rather than Paddington, as it will be as easy to get to Reading as Paddington, if I take Crossrail from Whitechapel. But at Paddington, I’ll have to get from the Crossrail station deep under Paddington to the main line platforms.

If Reading does have a problem, about its integration into Crossrail, it’s that it’ll put the other terminals into the shade.  By any scale Shenfield looks small and outdated against the beauty, size and passenger-friendliness of Reading.

October 11, 2014 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Before Crossrail, Crossrail, Reading Station, Trains