Reading railway station

A hasty snap, as the Weston-super-Mare High Speed Train no. 43139 rolls into Reading Station.

The lady in the wheelchair appeared to be travelling on her own. It is good that this is becoming increasingly possible.Trains of this design are branded Voyagers.

The masts and gantries are going up for the electrification of the routes through Reading to Bristol and South Wales, but the wiring is many months off.

An older photo showing the new footbridge or high-level concourse, from the south side of the station.

I was waiting to snap the Voyager but the waiting passengers were in fact more interesting than the train. A columnist in 'Rail' magazine asked, recently, why the position of each coach can't be announced by the station PA system, so if you have a reservation for seat 23 in coach B you would know roughly where to stand. This would probably lead to more reserved seats actually being used by the relevant ticket-holder. A lot of people, it is suspected, drop into the first suitable vacant seat rather than go up and down the train looking for the seat that has been reserved for them. Other passengers, without reservations can be left searching for un-reserved seats, despite there being empty reserved seats whose reservers have plonked themselves elsewhere.

A view from the top of the escalators on Reading railway station, on the line between London and Bristol.

I am not sure about the location, but it could be Didcot Power Station in the distance, but I don't know whether there was a gas holder near there. I lost the info. when transferring from the other place - but I am fairly sure that someone confirmed that this is on the approach to Didcot.

Blackwater is station on the Reading to Guildford railway line.