"It is on the northern edge of the town centre, near the main retail and commercial areas and the River Thames, 36 miles (58 km) from London Paddington.
Reading is the ninth-busiest station in the UK outside London, and the second busiest interchange station outside London, with over 3.8 million passengers changing trains at the station annually.
Reading is one of 19 stations managed by Network Rail. The station is served by four train operating companies: Great Western Railway, CrossCountry, TfL Rail and South Western Railway.
Original station
The first Reading station was opened on 30 March 1840 as the temporary western terminus of the original line of the Great Western Railway (GWR). The time taken to travel from London to Reading was reduced to one hour and five minutes, less than a quarter of the time taken by the fastest stagecoach. The line was extended to its intended terminus at Bristol in 1841. As built, Reading station was a typical Brunel-designed single-sided intermediate station, with separate up and down platforms situated to the south of the through tracks and arranged so that all up trains calling at Reading had to cross the route of all down through trains.
In 1844, the Great Western Hotel was opened across the Forbury Road for people visiting the town. It is thought to be the oldest surviving railway hotel in the world. New routes soon joined the London to Bristol line, with the line from Reading to Newbury and Hungerford opening in 1847, and the line to Basingstoke in 1848.
Between 1865 and 1867, a station building, built of buff bricks from Coalbrookdale with Bath Stone dressings, and incorporating a tower and clock, was constructed for the Great Western Railway. Sources differ as to whether this was a new building, or remodelling of an earlier Brunel building. In 1898 the single sided station layout was replaced by a conventional design with 'up', 'down' and 'relief' platforms linked by a pedestrian subway.
Access to the station from Broad Street was not direct, until Queen Victoria Street was built in 1903. This provided a route through to Friar Street and Station Road.
The station was originally named Reading and became Reading General on 26 September 1949 to distinguish it from the neighbouring ex-South Eastern Railway station. The "General" suffix was dropped from British Rail timetables in 1973, but some of the station name boards still stated "Reading General" in 1974. The juxtaposition of the two stations meant that the town's buses showed the destination 'Stations'.
1965 combined station
From 6 September 1965, services from the former Reading Southern station were diverted into a newly constructed terminal platform (4A) in the General station. This was long enough for a single eight coach train, which was later found to be inadequate, and so a second terminal platform (4B) serving the same line was opened in 1975 for the commencement of the service from Reading to Gatwick Airport.
1989 redevelopment
In 1989 a brand new station concourse was opened by InterCity, including a shopping arcade named after Brunel, opened on the western end of the old Reading Southern station site, linked to the platforms of the main station by a new footbridge. At the same time a new multi-level station car park was built on the site of the former goods yard and signal works to the north of the station, and linked to the same footbridge. The station facilities in the 1860s station building were converted into The Three Guineas public house. The Queen reopened the station on 4 April 1989.
2009–2015 redevelopment
By 2007, the station had become an acknowledged bottleneck on the railway network, with passenger trains often needing to wait outside the station for a platform to become available. This was caused by limited number of through-platforms, the flat junctions immediately east and west of the station and the need for north-south trains to reverse direction in the station. The Great Western Main Line at Reading has two pairs of tracks – the Main ('fast') lines on the southern side and the Relief ('slow') lines on the northern side. Trains transferring between the Relief lines and the lines that run through Reading West (to Taunton and to Basingstoke) had to cross the Main lines. Those trains, especially slow-moving freight trains, blocked the paths of express trains.
In July 2007, in its white paper Delivering a Sustainable Railway, the government announced plans to improve traffic flow at Reading, specifically mentioned along with Birmingham New Street station as "key congestion pinch-points" which would share investment worth £600 million. On 10 September 2008 Network Rail unveiled a £400 million regeneration and reconfiguration of the station and surrounding track to reduce delays. The following changes were made:
Five new platforms: Four new through platforms on the northern side and an extra bay platform for the Wokingham lines.
A new footbridge on the western side of the station, replacing the 1989 footbridge. This also included a new entrance on the southern side, for ticket holders only.
A new street-level entrance and ticket office on the northern side of the station.
The original subway was converted into a pedestrian underpass between the two sides of the station, with no access to the platforms.
Making the Cow Lane bridge under the tracks two-way with a cycle path.
A flyover to the west of the station for trains to allow fast trains to cross over the lines to Reading West, replacing the flat junction.
A section of track beneath the flyover to provide a connection between Reading West and the relief lines.
The redevelopment was designed to provide provision for future Crossrail and Heathrow Airtrack services at Reading station.
The improvements have allowed capacity for at least 4 extra trains in each direction every hour and 6 extra freight trains a day (equivalent to 200 lorries). The local council has also planned developments of the surrounding area in association with the developments at the station.
The cost of the project rose to £897m, but it was completed a year earlier than expected. The rebuilt station was reopened by Queen Elizabeth II on 17 July 2014.
Network Rail took over management of the station from First Great Western in April 2014.
Electrification of the Great Western main line through Reading station was completed in time for electric trains to commence service between Paddington and Didcot Parkway on 2 January 2018.
Motive power depot
The GWR built a small engine shed in the junction of the lines to Didcot and those to Basingstoke in 1841. This was enlarged and rebuilt in 1876 and again in 1930. It was closed by British Railways in 1965 and replaced by a purpose-built Traction Maintenance Depot. This was subsequently relocated by Network Rail, during the redevelopment works in the early 2010s, to the northern side of the tracks to the west of the station.
Accidents and incidents
Extreme weather was the cause of an early casualty in the station's history. On 24 March 1840, whilst the station was nearing completion, 24-year-old Henry West was working on the station roof when a freak wind (described at the time as a tornado) lifted that section of the roof, carrying it and West around 200 feet (61 m) away; West was killed. On the wall of the main station building there is a brass plaque, commemorating the event.
On 12 September 1855, a light engine was dispatched on the wrong line. It was in a head-in collision with a passenger train. Four people were killed and many were injured.
An accident occurred at Reading on 17 June 1914, and was witnessed by the railway historian O. S. Nock, then a schoolboy. The driver of a train to Ascot moved off even though the signal was at 'danger', and into the path of an oncoming train bound for London Paddington; the only fatality was the driver of the Paddington train.
T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) lost the 250,000-word first draft of his Seven Pillars of Wisdom at the station when he left his briefcase while changing trains in 1919. Working from memory, as he had destroyed his notes after completion of the first draft, he then completed a 400,000-word second draft in three months.
German aircraft tried to bomb the lines into the station during the beginning of World War II.
On 1 August 1990, Class 119 diesel multiple unit L576 collided with a passenger train comprising 4VEP electric multiple units 3508 & 3504, and 4CIG unit 1304 due to overrunning signals. Forty people were injured.
On 23 October 1993, an IRA bomb exploded at a signal post near the station, some hours after 5 lb (2 kg) of Semtex was found in the toilets of the station. The resulting closure of the railway line and evacuation of the station caused travel chaos for several hours, but no-one was injured.
Current station
Services
The station plays a key role in serving the Great Western Main Line, the line which runs west from London Paddington station to Reading. To the west of Reading station, the line splits into two branches, allowing it to serve a variety of communities in the West and South West of England and onward into South Wales. The main branch proceeds to Bristol Temple Meads, via Bath Spa, Chippenham and Swindon. The South Wales Main Line diverges from the main branch at Swindon with trains running via Bristol Parkway, Newport, Cardiff Central, Bridgend, Port Talbot Parkway, and Neath to and from Swansea. Some services on the Great Western Main Line terminate at Bristol, while others continue on the Bristol to Exeter Line towards the West Country. The other branch to the west of Reading station is the Reading to Taunton line (the "Berks and Hants" line), which serves communities in Berkshire and Wiltshire. High speed services on this line do not normally call at all stations along the route (except sometimes Newbury), and some express services from the South West operate non-stop between Paddington and Taunton. The Reading to Taunton branch joins services travelling south from Bristol on the Bristol to Exeter line at Cogload Junction, to the north of Taunton. The line proceeds to serve the stations of Taunton, Exeter St Davids, Plymouth and onward to stations in Cornwall such as Par where the branch to Newquay diverges where some trains terminate whilst most terminate at the terminus of Penzance. Both high-speed intercity services and local services are operated by Great Western Railway. Nearly all services are timetabled to stop at Reading.
Other main lines connect Reading with Birmingham New Street, Birmingham International, northern England and Scotland, and with Basingstoke, Winchester, Southampton Central and Bournemouth to the south. Through services from north to south on these lines are operated by CrossCountry, and all services stop in Reading, which requires the trains to reverse. The main routes offered by CrossCountry are to Newcastle and Manchester Piccadilly to the north and Southampton Central and Bournemouth in the south. There are extensions to Edinburgh Waverley and Guildford once daily in each direction.
The secondary North Downs Line connects Reading with Guildford, Reigate and Gatwick Airport. Services on this line, together with local stopping services to Basingstoke, Newbury, Bedwyn, Oxford and London Paddington, are also operated by Great Western Railway. An electric suburban line operated by South Western Railway links Reading to Wokingham, Bracknell, Ascot, Staines, Richmond, Clapham Junction and London Waterloo. Pending the construction of the direct rail route to Heathrow Airport, an express bus service, RailAir, links Reading with London Heathrow Airport. Alternatively one may proceed by train to Hayes & Harlington, changing there to a TfL Rail train to London Heathrow Airport.
Rail and sea corridor to Ireland
At either Cardiff Central or Swansea connections with the Transport for Wales boat train to/from Fishguard Harbour railway station are available. This in turn connects with the Stena Line ferry to Rosslare Europort in Ireland. An integrated timetable and through ticketing is offered between Reading and Rosslare on this international rail-sea route with a daily morning and evening service in both directions. This route has been in existence since 1906, enabling connections to Dublin Connolly."
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