So many destination faces going to so many places

[venta]

Anyone who travels round south-east England on the train is probably aware that Reading's undergoing major changes. Having been away over Easter, then driving to work last week, I was lightly surprised on Monday morning to pull into platform 13A.

Last time I was there, Reading didn't have a 13A. In fact, while the station was shut over Easter weekend, it changed so dramatically that I actually couldn't orientate myself and had to read the signs to work out the way to the exit.

It's huuuuge, the new station. The old, rickety footbridge and the leaky roof have gone, replaced by a strangely spacious area that looks like an airport. The station still isn't finished, and some bits are closed off and it's slightly hard to find your way around. It is well-signed, though, and much more accessible (all platforms have escalators, and there are more lifts).

I did note last night, though, that in heavy rain they still have to put buckets out to catch the water that pours through the new roof.

Comments

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

I had been under the impression that making a rain-proof roof was in fact a solved problem, engineering wise; clearly I was wrong and the vast number of houses, shops, warehouses, etc, that don't leak are all amazing flukes. (Either that, or when Brunel first built a railway station in Reading one of the country's last witches cursed it so that the roof would always leak.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Witches every time, I'd say. Brunel really pissed off the magic-using community.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

I know a song about him. :-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

He's not a lot of men, certainly.

[zotz]

They aren't giving it a platform zero, though, are they? All the really cool stations are getting them.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Not as far as I know, which is disappointing.

One of the roads I might walk along to the railway station in Ealing has obviously had an extra house squeezed on the end at some point, so it's possible to live at Zero Eaton Rise.

Which I'd kind of like to do, if it wasn't such a staggeringly ugly house.

[erming.livejournal.com]

Wow with both a Stewed shop and a bigger railway station I can see Reading being the place to be!