Reading Remodelling

Network Rail is working closely with Reading Borough Council on this Government funded programme to tackle the bottle neck at Reading, one of the most critical rail hubs in Britain. Reading’s current track layout and signalling severely limits the number of services that can travel through the station. The project has funding of £425m to deliver a 37% improvement in train service performance reliability in the Reading area by 2015.

Reading will benefit from this project as will the many destinations that Reading serves, including London Paddington, Bristol, South Wales, Cornwall and Oxford, along with London Waterloo, Gatwick Airport and the south coast.

The scheme will optimise capacity and provide flexibility in timetabling along and across the Great Western Mainline routes.   The scheme’s benefits include:

• Five additional 10-car platforms will be introduced to increase passenger and freight capacity on routes from London to the South West and Wales
• An increase in the number of through platforms of 75% to allow faster and more reliable services
• A new underpass at the West End of the station for the Main Lines will further increase capacity and prevent delays to both passenger and freight trains crossing the main lines
• A new northern entrance for passengers from the Caversham area, supporting regeneration to this side of Reading

The Government has pledged £425m to the project, while Network Rail and Reading Borough Council have invested considerable sums to start the planning of the scheme. A further £35m has been earmarked by Network Rail to continue the development of these plans. Once the local community has been consulted thoroughly, and detailed designs have been developed and approved, work to upgrade the route will begin.

Preliminary works are expected to start in late 2009 with the main programme of work beginning in spring 2010. Work will continue at Reading until 2015.

Consultation

A public exhibition was carried out by Network Rail during September 2008 – consultation regarding those exhibitions is now closed.

Network Rail would like to thank everyone who attended the exhibits and spoke to our staff and all the help we received from Reading Borough Council and First Great Western to conduct the exhibits.

In all over 1000 Reading residents or rail users (or often both) came to see our exhibition and most of you were very positive about what you saw. Many of you had more questions and were interested in more detail, which we plan to make available through this website and in another exhibition in Autumn 2009.

The consultation period ended on October 20th and a summary of the findings is now available for download here.

A full report will be available in the coming week.

However, the exhibit information is still available. So, if you would like to find out more, please click here to;

• View our plans in advance of a Transport and Works Act Order being submitted to the Secretary of State for Transport
  OR
• Ask questions of the Network Rail team

 Application for the Transport and Works Order

On November 6th, Network Rail has submitted a Transport and Works Order. This is an application for the powers we need to acquire land and rights to land in order to complete the Reading Remodeling project.

The process includes the following stages:

• Application
• 6-week objection period (from November 6th)
• Ministers consider all representations and initiate (where appropriate):
  1. Public Local Inquiry,
  2. Hearing(s), or
  3. Written correspondence
• Ministers make or refuse the Order

For more information on the Transport and Works process, please review the documents available for download below.

 Read more at the Department for Transport at: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/twa/

Procurement

Reading Remodelling is one of the UK’s most significant railway projects, £425m during Control Period 4 puts Reading in the UK’s top three largest railway investment programmes.

The project will include re-signalling, track enhancements, construction of an elevated railway, widening and replacement of several bridges and enhancements to Reading Station including new pedestrian overpass and northern entrance.

The project will comprise around 25 individual major work packages for the delivery of the Reading Remodelling project. Successful tenders will pass though pre-qualification, shortlisting and a final qualification round.

Linkup is your most valuable tool for winning contracts with Network Rail. Make sure your details are well-presented, relevant and up to date as we will use information from this service to pre-select potential contractors.

Download the list of work packages, tender dates and details here.