Talk:Reading railway station

Services table
I have edited the services table to make it consistent with edits that I have conducted on stations on the Berks and Hants line. If you have any concerns with the edits please discuss on talk page for Newbury railway station.Grizzlyqi 09:22, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the recent updates, is it right that services can give Twyford as the preceding station and Reading West as the following station when there is no actual service that stops at both destinations? Services to Twyford either terminate at Reading or continue to Didcot/Oxford. All services that call at Reading West on the current timetable terminate at Reading (including Basingstoke and Newbury/Bedwyn services). Other services on the Berks/Hants only call at either Paddington or Slough and continue direct to Theale, Newbury, Pewsey or Westbury. Whilst displaying this information would be over-complicating, I think the services through Reading West should be shown to terminate at Reading.Grizzlyqi (talk) 21:18, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

There doesn't appear any frequent services from Reading West that go any further than Reading on its live departure board. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anywikiuser (talk • contribs)


 * There is certainly one morning weekday service that calls at Reading West and Reading, then runs non-stop to London Paddington. The train starts from Devizes and is targetted at commuters to London from the B+H line stations; formerly operated by a pair of Adelantes, I believe it has now switched to an HST. Similar services have operated since BR days, but it has been the subject of some local press controversy. The last but one (two?) timetable change dropped the stop at Reading West, but it was reinstated after political pressure from local residents and the local MP. The suspicion is that FGW would like to drop it again, but couldn't take the political fallout. -- Chris j wood (talk) 20:02, 1 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I take it by Devizes you mean Pewsey railway station? However, you are right there is a morning service to London from Bedwyn although I can't see if there is an evening return service which is interesting.Grizzlyqi (talk) 10:19, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Number of platforms
There IS 11 platforms at the station. User:Fila3466757 Fila3466757 7:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fila3466757 (talk • contribs)


 * No, there ARE 12 platforms, and their numbers are listed in the article. Signalhead (talk) 08:40, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Future expansion
Any chance we can expand the section on station expansion a bit more as in my mind this is the most interesting part........There have been plans to build more platforms for years and years, but its funny how none have come to anything yet. From my own experience it seems a little unnecessary. as the station never has all platforms in use, maybe just rearranging platform use..... having commuted for years, one argument that was cited was you had HSTs stacking up between Twyford and Reading waiting for a platform, but it usually ignored the real cause of the problem, they were not leaving London Paddington at their correct time in the first case, e.g. there used to be several leaving Paddington at around 18:00 to 18:15, but they never never never left on time, it was always a guessing game to try and jump on the one that would leave first. All three of them ended up leaving within minutes of each other, instead of the timetabled 5 minute or so gap between them, so suprise surprise the all arrive at Reading at the same time and stacked up! jrhilton (talk) 21:10, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Reading is an acknowledged Bottleneck and often causes delays to services calling there, not because trains leave paddington late but because there is a lack of platforms available for trains to use.86.136.40.185 (talk) 22:44, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Removal of line
I'm removing the line: the largest town in England as it is misleading and implies that Reading is the largest settlement in England. 86.128.117.187 (talk) 20:42, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Split proposal
This article appears to cover both the GWR and SER stations... in many other cases where a town had more than one station, there is one article for each, even where one has been closed. Examples include: I propose that a new article be created, named Reading Southern as per the redlink in Reading Lines, and that the new article should contain all the SER and LSWR information which is presently in this article. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:21, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Aylesbury and Aylesbury High Street
 * Banbury and Banbury Merton Street
 * Oxford and Oxford Rewley Road
 * Swindon and Swindon Town
 * Agreed. There's been interesting recent discussion of Reading South on bygone lines. Lamberhurst (talk) 22:55, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I assume that bygone lines is a website/forum/discussion group? I'm not familiar with it, what is the URL? --Redrose64 (talk) 09:54, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I don't see much reason at all why this article should cover Reading South with the exception of noting that the lines that served Reading South now form platforms 4a and 4b at Reading. Grizzlyqi (talk) 09:46, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Bygone lines:. Off topic, but if the principle is accepted that stations in the same town on different lines merit separate articles, Marlborough would seem to be another candidate for splitting. Lamberhurst (talk) 11:19, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that consensus is obvious... someone who knows a bit go do it. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:31, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know if this really sets up much of a precedent or not. There are many cases like this ranging from large towns like Reading (or cities like Leeds) to very small villages that happened to be served by two lines or where there was a branchline. I think consideration should be given as to whether there is enough material on each station, the geographical separation between the stations and the length of time that they were used. Otherwise separate articles could be created for many stations that lasted for little more than a few years as underused halts and such articles really wouldn't warrant an entire article.Grizzlyqi (talk) 15:06, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * There seems to be different policy in different parts of the country. Cornwall and Devon, for example, group closed stations on a given line onto a single article for that line; Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire have individual articles for every station, no matter how small the places served. I carefully chose my four examples as being towns no larger than Reading itself, and where a similar situation applies (two former main stations, one present-day main station).
 * "enough material on each station" - most of the article as it stands concerns the GWR station, so we need to beef up the SER station. Let's see now; shall we try Nock (1961) The South Eastern and Chatham Railway; Dendy-Marshall & Kidner (1963) [1937] History of the Southern Railway; Nock (1965) The London & South Western Railway; Williams (1968) The London & South Western Railway, vol. 1; Williams (1973) The London & South Western Railway, vol. 2; Kidner (1974) The Reading to Tonbridge Line; Bradley (1985) [1963] The Locomotive History of the South Eastern Railway; Faulkner & Williams (1988) The LSWR in the Twentieth Century; Matthews (2006) Lost Railways of Berkshire. Then we have the item in Railway Magazine, June 1965, p. 357 Reading General to take Southern's trains.
 * "the geographical separation between the stations" - a matter of yards; admittedly closer together than the stations at Banbury and Oxford.
 * the length of time that they were used - Reading (SER) was open for some 110 years, if the present article text is correct. Reading GWR - 169 years and counting. I think that the SER station at Reading was used for a period of time much longer than many stations which have been given articles. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ No negative comments in over two weeks. Please see Reading Southern railway station and place further comment at Talk:Reading Southern railway station. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:28, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

File:Proposed Reading station layout 2015.PNG Nominated for speedy Deletion
I have fixed the copyright with this image, so this message no longer applies. Lukew151 (talk) 15:12, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Station Redevelopment
I have been making small incremental edits to the station redevelopment section as snippets of news have come out. Is anyone who works on the project interested in collaboration to improve this section of the page? In particular I have hashed-up the "new" platform plan and the track layout is worse than guess-work. Is there anyone out there who would care to help to improve this? Lukew151 (talk) 15:16, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

New platforms 17 and 18?
The article mentions them but they don't feature in the diagram or in the cited documents. Are they fictional? 83.104.249.240 (talk) 10:42, 30 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Ref to 17 & 18 was added by, which also added a link to this BBC article, looking further ahead than the current rebuilding. - David Biddulph (talk) 11:48, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

New picture
We need a new picture of Reading Station as the current one is ceasing to exist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.28.99.104 (talk) 16:35, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Eastern underpass
Is there still any intention to reinstate this to allow Wokingham services to use it? 'Airtrack Lite' would not come to Reading Station, and if access is provided to the Heathrow branch to and from the west, it would be redundant anyway.Ntmr (talk) 21:41, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Recycling of infrastructure
...a number of major components either became redundant or were no longer needed. What is the difference between something becoming redundant and its no longer being needed? If there is a difference it's a subtle one that needs explanation. If there is no difference then the sentence needs modifying. I propose the latter, like this: ...a number of major components became redundant. 83.104.249.240 (talk) 13:18, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

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Excessive precision in the lead
As a participant in the long discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways, I won't do this myself but I invite regular editors of the article to consider this: is it really appropriate for the third sentence of such an important article to say It is 35 mi measured from London Paddington? Surely a more appropriate sentence to open the article is a simple It is almost 36 mi from London Paddington and then, somewhere in the body, give the precise distance. See Bletchley for a simple 'for example' of what I mean. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:02, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Put it in the body if you like. What I do not want to see is a repeat of the events that kicked all this off with East Croydon station (and others) - somebody repeatedly removing the chains part of the distance with various reasons including "Chains? Are in the sixteenth century?"; "Chains are not a measurement anyone wants to see. What kind of obsessive thinks otherwise?"; "Chains are not a measure to be used in general articles. Just grow up"; "Removed idiotic chains. This is not a trainspotter's reference work. It's Wikipedia"; "This is not an article for trainspotters. It is an article for regular folk. Take your nerdery somewhere else". -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 17:17, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I accept that unreservedly. That challenge was discussed fully at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways and the closing statement (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways) is that chainage will be given when a WP:RS exists. (Specifically, I intend to use the Engineers' Line Reference to do this, as I have done at BLE). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:57, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposed new "Location" section
This is the new section that I propose be added (to support the briefer summary that I have proposed for the lead):


 * The station is on the northern side of central Reading, off the Inner Distribution Road. The nearest post-code is RG1 1LT. In the chainage notation traditionally used on the railway, its location on the Great Western main line is 35 mi from Paddington. 

Would this version that uses the 'Reading Central' location map be more appropriate? Other comments. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:48, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
 * As there have been no further comments, I shall make this change. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:44, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Chainage via other routes
If anyone is interested, there is scope to develop the new Location section to include the figures for the other lines to RDG. I started to do the Waterloo–Reading line, but couldn't find anything at Engineer's Line Reference that would support the figures given at Template:Waterloo–Reading Line. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:24, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
 * You need to be careful where a route uses the lines of more than one pre-group company. See
 * On the line from Waterloo (which is surveyed via Twickenham) on the former London & South Western Railway, Wokingham Junction is 36 miles 35 chains - so far so good. But then the mileage then switches to that of the former South Eastern Railway, measured from Charing Cross via Redhill, and Wokingham Junction is 61 miles 72 chains. The SER mileage of Reading (platforms 4, 5) is 68 miles 68 chains. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 13:29, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Way above my pay grade ;-). I think you have just volunteered! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:57, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * On the line from Waterloo (which is surveyed via Twickenham) on the former London & South Western Railway, Wokingham Junction is 36 miles 35 chains - so far so good. But then the mileage then switches to that of the former South Eastern Railway, measured from Charing Cross via Redhill, and Wokingham Junction is 61 miles 72 chains. The SER mileage of Reading (platforms 4, 5) is 68 miles 68 chains. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 13:29, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Way above my pay grade ;-). I think you have just volunteered! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:57, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Infobox template
This article uses (and has for some time) Infobox London station, rather than the more appropriate Infobox station. Is there a reason for this? Infobox London station's documentation states it is intended "for any operating railway station in Greater London and those stations outside the boundary that operate Transport for London zonal pricing and/or Oyster card pay-as-you-go" (my links), none of which apply to Reading station. Bazza (talk) 10:59, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Would the use by the Elizabeth Line qualify it as a London Station? If not then replacing it with the infobox station would seem the correct thing to do. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 11:02, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Murgatroyd49 I don't think so: it's not owned or managed by TfL, who are just one of the service providers to the station. I'll wait a week or so then replace the template if there's no serious objections.
 * The same argument applies to Twyford, Maidenhead, and Slough, none of which are in Greater London or are covered by the aforementioned pricing regimes. (Taplow, Burnham, Langley, and Iver also do not qualify on the same grounds, but as they are managed by TfL and are exclusively served by the EL, they might be best left alone for now.) Bazza (talk) 12:40, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Works for me Murgatroyd49 (talk) 13:06, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Is this change still planned? I wanted to replace the existing map box with mapframe (which provides more flexible and user-responsive mapping) but Infobox London station can't handle it. I don't see how the owner or operator makes any difference. Obviously London is the centre of the universe and has special needs (and tube stations  really are different), but it is not obvious to me at least that the remit needs to extend to all stations that happen to have a service where TFL is the TOC. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:30, 6 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, I am anti the use of map-frames for UK articles as the majority use the same series of maps providing a uniformity of experience. Anyone wanting a different experience (sic) can click on the coordinates and get a plethora of choices of map type and scale. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 13:06, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Many use the original fixed selection map because that is all that was available many years ago when they were first set up, and I observe that replacement is gradually happening without fuss. The area encompassed by the fixed map format is invariant, no matter how or where it is used. To create a new map or even to refresh an existing map is a right royal pain in the donkey: conversely mapframes are trivially easy to set up and the scale can be article-specific. Access to alternative mapping services remains available, so that argument is irrelevant.  --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:33, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
 * But this discussion is by-the-by for the moment. As soon as the infobox is swapped over (and I believe that there is already a consensus for that), then we can have a separate discussion on which is the most appropriate mapping to use. So let's pause it for the moment. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:27, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Fair enough Murgatroyd49 (talk) 14:44, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
 * @John Maynard Friedman Apologies for forgetting all about this! I have converted the infobox to use Infobox station. I've inserted usage figures to the best of my ability, but someone more used to this may wish to double-check and correct where necessary. Bazza (talk) 18:28, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
 * @John Maynard Friedman: Twyford similarly updated. Bazza (talk) 09:47, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
 * @John Maynard Friedman: Maidenhead and Slough updated. Bazza (talk) 19:38, 11 May 2023 (UTC)