News

Wokingham Chamber of Commerce want the town's retailers to move to the new station
advertisement

Town's retailers wanted for Wokingham's new train station

By Laura Herbert
October 31, 2012

Business leaders are calling for the town’s retailers to move in to the new-look Wokingham station as work on the multi-million pound project starts next month.

The Chamber of Commerce and the town’s MP would like to see coffee shops and newsagents, move into the £6 million station instead of high street chains, to support the borough’s economy.

The new station, above right, will offer commuters better access and waiting areas, improved shopping and new information screens when it is finished in August next year.

Mark Walton, chairman of Wokingham Chamber of Commerce, said: “This is a huge project for Wokingham. The railway station is not the most attractive building.

“We would like to see local businesses employed to work inside the unit in coffee shops and newsagents, rather than big chains.

“We would also like to see the old footbridge kept as we see no reason why the heritage of Wokingham can’t sit right next to something new.

“The work does mean there is going to be quite a bit of disruption but we must look at the benefits.”

Wokingham MP John Redwood said: “As I understand it, the railway will insist on some kind of tender but I hope they will be sensitive to any existing local businesses.

“I’m on their side, it is just whether the railway will accommodate them as much as we would like.

“I look forward to them starting work. They have promised this before so let’s hope it is for real this time.”

The plans include a new footbridge which will link both platforms and an access road and interchange will be built to provide improved links with other public transport.

Network Rail and South West Trains will carry out the improvements, which are funded by Wokingham Borough Council, the National Station Improvement Programme and Access for All money.

Tim Shoveller, managing director of Network Rail and South West Trains Alliance, said: “The new station will make a huge difference to the thousands of passengers who use the railway in the town every day. Once complete, Wokingham will be a modern and fit-for-purpose station which will serve the town for many years to come.”

Ahead of work starting on Wednesday, November 28, a drop-in session will be held at Wokingham Town Hall, in Market Place, on Wednesday, November 7, from 2pm to 8pm.

Trains will continue to run while the work takes place and extra services are planned between Wokingham and London Waterloo from summer 2014.

The Network Rail and South West Trains Alliance is planning an additional 6.24am and 6.54am service from Reading to Waterloo via Wokingham, and an extra 6.05pm and 7.35pm from Waterloo to Reading via Wokingham.

| Submit Comments | View Comments (24)

« Previous Story | Next Story »

Most recent user comments 15 of 24

1 | 2 | Next Page Show 15 | 25 | 50 per page

And you've not convinced me it is possible or worth it.

It is comments like your first one that caused Beeching to shut over half the railway network in the sixties. "who cares about the minority as long as the majority are served better". In the 90s, the East Coast mainline was going to have "super fast" services on it at one point, meaning the "semi-fast" services would be shunted to the slow lines because they'd get in the way, and the slow services have to be cut right back because they'd get in the way of the "semi-fast" ones. But then the biggest stations on this route by far, Euston, Birmingham and Manchester would have been really well served, so what's the harm if a few minor stops lose their service entirely? It didn't happen, of course, and now we have HS2.

One other point - The "fast" service to Henley still takes 40 minutes to get to Twyford because it uses the "slow" lines as the "fast" lines are used by the express trains. The lines to Waterloo are all slow lines and SWT will not cut out 4 to 7 stations on a route just to save 8 minutes on a journey.

mavdo, Wokingham
03/11/2012 at 10:38

I’m afraid you haven’t convinced me in the slightest. Based on the example of modifying the 7:33 service, the likes of Sunningdale, Virginia Water would lose a service but they already have another Reading service running through 10 minutes earlier, hardly a major impact to those commuters. Those stations are relatively small in terms of passenger numbers when compared with the likes of Reading, Wokingham and Bracknell. Public transport should be designed to provide maximum benefit to the greatest number of people. Reading, Wokingham and Bracknell passengers are the ones who suffer most from the great number of stops made on that line, they have longer commute times than the likes of people in Virginia Water whether they are going to Staines, Richmond or all the way to Waterloo. I don’t think one fast service a day around peak hour is impossible to schedule nor is is too much to ask.

Mark Savill, Wokingham
02/11/2012 at 21:37

Martins Heron and Sunningdale are not served by any other service. Virginia Water and Egham are only also served by the Weybridge service, which is a STOPPING service via Hounslow, so missing Twickenham or Richmond entirely. People at VW and Egham stations will lose their "fast" service, and people at the other two will lose their only service. Trains only join at Ascot twice a day, and this will cease in 2014. It is also in SWTs contract to maintain regular service to these stations rather than going for the more lucrative "express" services.

I used to commute to Richmond, so I have used this line to commute to somewhere other than Waterloo, but aside from reducing the journey time from 1hr7mins from WKM to WAT to 50 mins WKM to RMD or 47 mins to TWK, my point stands. If you make these services fast you remove services from other stations.

As I used to travel this route, I know full well that these extra trains are squashed between stopping services and are slowed up the closer to London they are, and there is very little room at Waterloo as they only have 19 platforms (pre Eurostar, they had more).

The Airtrack service would only call at the key stations because airport services are always targetted at "business" so are stupidly expensive (see heathrow express). It also runs on only a quiet part of the track and so has more room to speed up, and wouldn't be bound by any previously agreed contract.

Buying faster trains won't help either. Aside from pushing prices up on consumers, the line speeds are limited to 60mph (or much less near Staines and at every track that joins the route). Junipers are more than capable of this speed. Upgrading the route would cost billions and simply isn't feasible.

All of your solutions are "just do this a bit, it's easy". You don't have any real clue of the true impact of what you are saying. If your ticket price doubled to save you 10 minutes on your journey, you'd be back on here complaining again.

mavdo, Wokingham
02/11/2012 at 10:17

@mavdo, I don't agree, Reading, Wokingham and Bracknell are the busiest stations on that section of the line by far. You can see the usage stats on Wiki, after them it is Ascot. That's the reason I mention these stations and it's also the reason why these stations were chosen as stopping places for Airtrack. You mention that 4 stations will lose a service. However, 3 of those stations are served by more than just the Reading branch and already have a frequent service. Hence, the loss of a single service at these lesser used stations will not be significant.

Also, you shouldn't just consider commuting to central London. Lots of people commute to other places on the line like Richmond or Feltham. Hence a faster service would also benefit these type of commuters.

I'm not suggesting that retiming is the only solution. Investment by Network Rail in better track and signalling and faster trains would also help.

Mark Savill, Wokingham
01/11/2012 at 21:49

@PoneRana - and also at Feltham, Twickenham and Barnes. That's the point I made.

@Mark Savill - if you do that, people at Martins Heron, Sunningdale, Virginia Water and Egham LOSE one service. The retiming of the Gatwick service would cause problems for trains at Guildford and Redhill and go against a European regulation of clock face times, ie same time every hour (which I neither really understand, nor think is applied on all lines). You are thinking just from the point of view of people in Wokingham and Bracknell. Just one little change for them has knock-on effects to many other people at other stations. You making this train fast is actually a service cancellation for intermediate stations and in reality you've only saved EIGHT minutes, which isn't enough to compete with travelling from Reading or Twyford, while people at 4 stations have lost a service. This is why it hasn't been done.

Also, the 7:26 doesn't stop at Virginia Water for some reason. That would have to stop there if the 7:33 was fast.

Let's compare another line where one change has had a negative knock-on effect - there used to be a train about 7am from Twyford. It was big and mainly empty and ran to Paddington in 20 minutes. Perfect - especially as it is cheaper than travelling from Wokingham to Waterloo. The people in Henley said this wasn't fair that they had to keep changing trains as there weren't many direct services, so it was cancelled due to "lack of demand". Now we have a train from Henley at 7:26 that is only 3 carriages, mostly full and isn't a fast service. The people of Henley have therefore caused a knock-on effect to everyone else because there is only so much space on the track.

mavdo, Wokingham
01/11/2012 at 14:53

There is one major problem with the proposed solution to speed up the service. There are other services that use this line particularly in the rush hour joining the line between Ascot and Staines.

PoneRana, Wokingham
01/11/2012 at 13:12

@Mavdo, Let me give you a simple example using the existing 07:33 additional service. It arrives in Staines at 08:04. As long as it still arrives at Staines at 08:04 there is no impact down stream to Waterloo. If it is retimed to depart Reading at 07:32 and Wokingham at 7:41 then only stops at Bracknell and Ascot it won't clash with the services joining at Ascot or Virginia Water. It would be a simple change to make. If they retimed the great western service from Reading then the time saving could be even greater.

It's not just time saving which is significant here, personally I find it less tiring to travel on a train that doesn't stop at a station every 3 minutes.

Mark Savill, Wokingham
01/11/2012 at 11:53

Each extra service can only save a maximum of 12 minutes because the fast service must leave just before the next slow service (leaving a 3 minute minimum gap for signalling), and catch up to a 15 minute gap before the slow service ahead. As these services already miss out stations early on the route, it is difficult to see how it can achieve this catchup to benefit Wokingham and Bracknell residents. The only solution for the Waterloo capacity problem is to use the Eurostar platforms, something that is incredibly expensive to realign the tracks and something that SWT won't pay for because it isn't in the contract they signed!

I'm not debating that a fast service isn't desirable. I'm just debating whether it really is possible, and I really don't think it is.

Finally, when the Mayor gets control over inner London commuter services, I guarantee you that the Reading line will suffer as improvements are made to service more London stations more frequently.

mavdo, Wokingham
01/11/2012 at 10:50

@mark savill – I still don’t think it’s possible.

SWT already provide some extra "peak" services. Into London there are 3 in the morning (0733, 0936, 1007 from WKM), and 2 in the evening (1736, 1807, plus a 1906 to Ascot only). Out of London there are 2 in the morning (0807, 0837) and four in the evening (1605, 1635, 1735, 1835) plus two that go to Aldershot or Guildford via Ascot (1705, 1805). Both inbound evening peak extra service go the long route via Hounslow.

So you are right that there is some capacity for an extra service at a 15 minute interval from the current service. However, although many of these services currently miss out Earley, Winnersh and W Triangle, they all call at additional stations such as Whitton, Ashford, Putney and Vauxhall. The total journey time of the extra trains is even longer.

The reason it does this is because getting these trains onto the line is a real squeeze. It certainly leaves no room for failure. Line and platform capacity around Waterloo is more than full. So sometimes other services miss out a 30 minute slot to make way for them, and therefore they make extra calling points at seemingly minor stations. Anything you do to change that will remove these extra services from those stations, so while you are providing an extra fast service from Wokingham and Bracknell, all other stations on that line LOSE this extra service.

Now I know you've said it was just for these 2 new extra services, so you'd think that no one is losing any service, but they just might be. One of these extra services currently goes to Aldershot so is just being rerouted and people will now have to change at Ascot. But it also stops at Whitton and Ashford. These stations WILL lose service if that train becomes a fast service. Any other service that is removed to make way for these trains to get through without blocking their path will also be a service loss to someone else.

mavdo, Wokingham
01/11/2012 at 10:47

Anyway, SWT need to start working on a solution soon. The only reason London bound commuters would choose to take the direct line to Waterloo rather than go via Reading is because Paddington isn't as well connected to the main business places of the City and Canary Wharf. Come 2018 and that will all change as Paddington will have Crossrail with journey times of 10 minutes to the City and 17 minutes to Canary Wharf. Reading station is being revamped to remove the current bottleneck, the GWML is being electrified and high capacity even faster Hitachi trains have been ordered which will travel from Reading to Paddington in just 20 minutes. The Reading to Waterloo line is in danger of becoming nothing more than a metro style service to Richmond.

Mark Savill, Wokingham
31/10/2012 at 23:17

@mavdo - I think you've missed my point. I'm only talking about the extra services which SWT are already adding. These would have already been timed to fit around the other services from Staines. It's simply a matter of playing with the departure time from Reading and skipping the quieter stations. Leaving out a station saves 2 minutes on the journey time so we'd be missing out 6 stations between Bracknell and Staines which would amount to a saving of 12 minutes each way, 24 minutes a day which I don't most people would consider an insignifcant reduction in their commuting time. Also, as we are only talking about 2 services each way, the impact on the level crossings isn't the same as what was proposed for Airtrack.

Mark Savill, Wokingham
31/10/2012 at 23:02

Sorry, typing on an apple device, it always thinks it knows best. I had said the line was full from *Feltham*. I hope you can work out the rest of the typos :/

mavdo, Wokingham
31/10/2012 at 20:54

@Mark Savill - that's all well and good, and perfectly feasible, but the air track service left the line at Staines. It didn't go to waterloo and so used a less congested part of the route. Even then the level crossings were deemed to be down for too long in Wokingham fir such a service and the council forced a review. Now I said that the line is full from about. That's another stop in from Staines so my comment is valid although tI admit he line could probably cope. But when you get past Clapham, there is a train every 3 minutes on just TWO lines. So if you have an extra service every 15 mins, something else needs to give, be that a Windsor, Weybridge, Strawberry Hill, Shepperton or Hounslow loop services in both directions. You might not care about these services, but others do.

The Reading service used to run every 20 mins, but one of these ran via the Hounslow loop and took longer. I don't know if there's ever been a fast service and SWT would argue that this isn't an express line anyway, with speeds limited to 60mph with odd parts at 40mph or less. Your 'fast' service would really only save 10 minutes at most. The 'extra' peak services aren't at a 15 gap because no such gap exists, but even if it did, your 'catch up' scenario would save only 15 mins, and a chunk of that would be gained before Wokingham by missing out 3 stations. There is NO benefit to Reading travellers going to London as it simply cannot compete with the Paddington express. At best you'd save 10 mins in any scenario from Wokingham.

So many reasons why this isn't physically possible.

mavdo, Wokingham
31/10/2012 at 20:45

The journey time is the problem and not the station. It could be the world's best station, but taking over an hour to London vs 25 minutes from Reading will always be a problem. Living in Winnersh, i will always go to London via Reading. The only benefit of going via Wokingham is that you can get a seat!

Smiffy, Reading
31/10/2012 at 15:37

@Mavdo,

A Reading, Wokingham, Bracknell and fast to Staines service was proposed for Airtrack. How was it going to work? We already have a 30 minute frequency on that line so the idea is that the extra service, instead of filling the gap and making a 15 minute frequency, it becomes a dedicated fast service. It leaves Reading just a couple of minutes before the slow service. As the fast service only stops at Wokingham and Bracknell then fast to Staines, by the time it reaches Staines it is now 15 minutes ahead of the slow service and 15 minutes behind the previous slow train. The same concept is used all over the country to run slow and fast services on the same line! Admittedly, it would work better if Network Rail invested in a passing place somewhere in case there are train delays.