Green park station/south Reading station

[Green]

Anyone know the latest on this? Totally dead in the water or is there life in the old dog yet

[Alexander Litvinenko]

As I understand it, it'll only come when the housing development at Green Park is revived - they're inextricably linked, financially.

[bobby1413]

As I understand it, it'll only come when the housing development at Green Park is revived - they're inextricably linked, financially.

Good use of "inextricably".

I'm going to try to use that word in a sentence at work today, to make me sound brainy

[SPARTA]

The football club haven't spoken to the council about it and don't plan to until the new expansion plans are in place - AZ to JF, Part 2.

[Green]

The expansion plans are now in place, does this mean the station is gonna be a goer

[bobby1413]

I hope so. I can't stand any more bus queues and traffic jams trying to get to ground

[Alexander Litvinenko]

The expansion plans are now in place, does this mean the station is gonna be a goer

Nope, it's completely unrelated to any stadium expansion plans. The station is dependent upon the resumption of the Green Park housing development.

No-one should get particular excited about the station when/if it ever happens. There'll be no special or additional trains provided for football or no way a train can wait for a game to end - it's just another stop on the existing line and that's all.

It's a station to serve houses at Green Park - the fact it happens to be close(ish) to a football ground is pure coincidence.

[M Brook]

The expansion plans are now in place, does this mean the station is gonna be a goer

The expansion plans have been in place since 2007. They were renewed in 2010 and the club now wish to proceed with just a small part of those plans - the upgrading of the Outside Broadcast Unit area. In so doing, they will have started to implement the planning permission and should not, therefore, have to renew it again. But, there is no intention of implementing that part of the plans that involve increasing the capacity for the time being and probably not until the club has established itself in the Prem.

[Green]

No-one should get particular excited about the station when/if it ever happens.

Too late

[Green]

Actually in all seriousness, given Svlad's post (which is a fair point), will the station be able to cope with capacity?

Certainly on midweek games, there'll probably only be one train every half hour or something, and no doubt it'll just be a three coach thames turbo style. Given the huge numbers that want to get back into town after the match it could be totally unviable, which would mean making the trains not even stop there on match days.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Actually in all seriousness, given Svlad's post (which is a fair point), will the station be able to cope with capacity?

Certainly on midweek games, there'll probably only be one train every half hour or something, and no doubt it'll just be a three coach thames turbo style. Given the huge numbers that want to get back into town after the match it could be totally unviable, which would mean making the trains not even stop there on match days.

No, absolutely not. Catering for football isn't part of the design spec.

[Silver Fox]

No-one should get particular excited about the station when/if it ever happens.

Not even focher and Herring?

[Alexander Litvinenko]

No-one should get particular excited about the station when/if it ever happens.

Not even focher and Herring?

Nope. It'll just be DMUs of various shapes and sizes. No traction worth getting excited over.

[Elm Park]

I don't know why they don't take a spur off the Basingstoke line and put a loop around Green Park using trams, this would then service the offices and they could run more trams when there is football / rugby. This would then deliver the fans closer to the stadium and avoid having them walking through Green Park.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

I don't know why they don't take a spur off the Basingstoke line and put a loop around Green Park using trams, this would then service the offices and they could run more trams when there is football / rugby. This would then deliver the fans closer to the stadium and avoid having them walking through Green Park.

I know why. It'd be way too uneconomical, costing far too much compared with the usage it'd get.

[Cureton's Volley]

Even if it is not a rail solution, the demand for something better on matchday is clearly there. On Tuesday night 5 mins before kickoff there were at least 6 football buses all stuck in the traffic on the A33, and lots of other traffic would have been for the ground and surrounding car parks. As a result we were late for KO and had no time for a £4 pint of piss.

I got tickets for a couple of non-regulars on Tues night. One came on the bus with me (at £7 return) which took over an hour and ended up being over 30 mins late. The other drove from J11 and after crawling up towards Imperial Way found car parks full and/or stupidly priced. For the outlay and the hassle it was clear afterwards they won't make a habit of spending £50+ and 5hrs a time to turn up regularly...

[Alexander Litvinenko]

And how many matchdays are there every year? Is it worth making a multi-million pound investment in transport infrastructure to meet a demand that exists less than once every two weeks? To make any kind of return on investment they'd have to charge such phenomenal prices that most people wouldn't use it anyway.

[Barry the bird boggler]

Even less when the difficulties do tend to be around the few evening games rather than those at weekends.

[Nameless]

I don't know why they don't take a spur off the Basingstoke line and put a loop around Green Park using trams, this would then service the offices and they could run more trams when there is football / rugby. This would then deliver the fans closer to the stadium and avoid having them walking through Green Park.

In terms of catering for the football it would probably be more cost effective to arrange taxis for everyone who needed to get to the ground....

[Westwood52]

I don't know why they don't take a spur off the Basingstoke line and put a loop around Green Park using trams, this would then service the offices and they could run more trams when there is football / rugby. This would then deliver the fans closer to the stadium and avoid having them walking through Green Park.

In terms of catering for the football it would probably be more cost effective to arrange taxis for everyone who needed to get to the ground....

Unfortunately Green Park has been something of a "white elephant" since it has been built-at peak office occupancy I read somewhere it could hold 40000 employees-which would be a staggering boost to Reading's economy. At that sort of level;using the by pass/M4 for transport would not be workable and a branch/tram line from Reading West would be the only workable solution both for employees and the football. Given that the economy is picking up and that Green Park could achieve full occupancy over a reasonably short period of time; how long would it take to put such a branch line and new station in ? At least a couple of years if not longer ?
As usual the Planners at Reading Council have not thought this through-think of the pathetic access at Mitford Fields and the planning permission granted to Tesco for their new depot (anybody else see all the pantechnicon's parked up on Wednesday night after the game ?). The new roundabout (which cost millions) has achieved very little and I will be interested to see what the planners come up with at junction 12 once IKEA is open-probably just another big round about at Savacentre and no separate link road from the M4.No doubt the Council/Highway Agency would say that they simply do not have the funds to develop such suitable infrastructures-well the answer is get the developer/Tesco & IKEA to pay for it, or refuse planning permission.