Passengers in Reading are being asked to organize themselves for 10 days of changes to coach services as their new station arrives this Easter.
Staff from Network Rail, First Great Western and Reading Borough Council are readily available from 7.30am until 6.30pm on Tuesday 19th and Wednesday 20th March to reply to questions on the £895m investment within the area along with the upgrade of the station and work to unblock the bottleneck at the railway.
From Friday 29th March to Sunday 7th April there’s planned disruption to coach services, with passengers being urged to envision before they travel. From Tuesday 2nd April commuters shall be ready to use the station’s four new platforms, two new entrances and a spectacular new link bridge for the primary time.
Bill Henry, Network Rail programe director, said: “We realise it will likely be an inconvenience to passengers to devise other ways while we undertake probably the most ambitious portion of this huge project thus far. If there has been some other way that shall we deliver the improvements we might do it. But passengers should remember that through the 10 days of disruption to coach services we plan to realize up to lets in 20 weekends of labor.
“By compressing together the work we have to can we are on track to complete the upgrades three hundred and sixty five days prior to schedule in 2015. This Easter is an historic one at Reading – because it will see the fantastic new parts of the station being opened to the general public for the primary time. It should also see the most important commissioning of recent track, signalling and infrastructure works at one time within the history of Network Rail. We have got a major task just before us, but all of it is only possible in the course of the patience of the travelling public and for that i need to thank them.”
During the 10-day period, the platforms that trains arrive into and depart from will change, and passengers are being asked to ascertain which platform their trains will depart from on arrival on the station. First Great Western may have staff reachable to assist customers while they get used to the changes.
First Great Western managing director, Mark Hopwood, said: “The works going down over Easter are the foremost extensive phase of the upgrade scheme up to now. Network Rail is doing a lovely job improving Reading station and we’re expecting unveiling the newest phase inside the redevelopment of our station to customers after Easter.
“We have sought to minimise disruption to our customers’ journeys so far as possible as Network Rail carries out these essential works, with a view to mean improved journeys for thousands of rail passengers. However, many journeys would be affected and I’d encourage anyone travelling through Reading and surrounding stations in this period to match their journeys before they travel.”
After the primary phase of the hot station opens on 2nd April, there’ll be around year of further improvement works. These will include the demolition of the old link bridge and replacing old canopies and platforms, bringing them as much as the traditional of the hot parts of the station.
By spring 2014, the complete station upgrade might be complete, with the complete project, including a brand new viaduct to unblock the bottleneck at the railway, remaining heading in the right direction to be finished in 2015 – 365 days earlier than schedule.
Passengers and the general public also are set to profit from work Reading Borough Council is doing to enhance the areas outside the station’s two new entrances.
Tony Page, Reading Borough Council’s lead councillor for regeneration, transport and planning, said: “When complete the council’s new interchanges, to the north and the south of the station, will markedly enhance our surroundings in and round the station, providing much improved facilities for pedestrians, cyclists and bus and taxi passengers.
“The opening of the newly re-furbished subway underneath the station creates a route right into the city centre for folks approaching the station from the northern side. For the tens of thousands of passengers who use Reading station daily, including to take into accounta good many Reading residents in fact, the hot station can be a massive improvement.”
The station upgrades are only one portion of the Reading improvement scheme, which also includes the development of a brand new train care depot, a viaduct to offer extra space for trains, the widening of Cow Lane, new signalling to enhance reliability and the introduction of overhead electrical lines to permit new state-of-the-art electric trains to run.
Network Rail started work to construct the brand new viaduct in January 2013.