Theale

[timatheronwood]

footbridge towers in place at Theale presumably including ligt shafts. The new ticket office has been ready for years so it will just be in time for all ticket offices to be closed!

 

[Snow1964]

A £7.5m tender for improving car park, and bus area has been issued for Theale station

At Theale Station GWR intend to deliver the following:

o A new decked car park accessed via the existing car park entrance.

o A new transport interchange facility with bus and HGV access via a new junction with Brunel Road:

o This shall incorporate a new cycle hub, motor-cycle parking and enabling works to re-locate/re-provide ticket vending machines. CCTV, CIS, PA (all to be in accordance with GWR and Network Rail design standards).

o Entry into service of existing mothballed ticket office (including provision of a safe walking route with the new Access for All (AfA) overbridge) and accessible WC facilities.

o Associated works including the construction of a link walkway between the decked car park and Station Road, the construction of a Thames Water Authority vehicle access path along the West boundary, new wayfinding signage and interface with the new AfA overbridge

II.1.5) Estimated total value​

Value excluding VAT: £7,500,000

Theale Station - Enhanced Car Park & Bus Interchange Construction: | Construction Tenders | The Construction Index

Construction Companies, News, Jobs - The Construction Index is a building industry news and construction company directory

www.theconstructionindex.co.uk

 

[Thames99]

A new transport interchange facility with bus and HGV access via a new junction with Brunel Road:

HGV interchange at Theale?

 

[swt_passenger]

A new transport interchange facility with bus and HGV access via a new junction with Brunel Road:

HGV interchange at Theale?

I wonder if they’re just explaining that street works at the junctions with the local road network will have to allow for HGVs as it’s shared with local industrial areas. Although you’d think the space required by full size buses would be similar.

 

[Tw99]

A new transport interchange facility with bus and HGV access via a new junction with Brunel Road:

HGV interchange at Theale?

Could be to do with the Thames Water access road also mentioned ?

 

[timatheronwood]

I wonder if the HGV access is both for Thames Water (Western end) and for access to the eastern end of the station where there is a lot of stuff (electrical power equipment). I have not been down there recently to find out if the new footbridge and lift access to the platforms is in place or not.

 

[timatheronwood]

More complete. I am not able to get close to the actual work to see what they have done

 

[timatheronwood]

Apparently the footbridge is now complete structurally according to Railadvent. There remains a lot of work to build a new multistorey car park. We could really have done with the lifts earlier this week when my pregnant daughter required access to the platforms carrying a suitcase....

 

[AlastairFraser]

A new transport interchange facility with bus and HGV access via a new junction with Brunel Road:

Wonder if there are plans to divert the 1 this way through Arlington Business Park?

 

[jfollows]

The Times reports today (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...to-build-than-empire-state-building-vnjtd96r3) that the footbridge at Theale has taken longer to build and cost about the same as the Empire State Building. Obviously the cost is a joke because it doesn't account for inflation, but it's not a good story.

Railway footbridge takes longer to build than Empire State Building​

Project at Theale station in Berkshire is running ten years late (and £8.25m over original budget)

Jessica Rose
Tuesday January 02 2024, 8.45am, The Times

The 102-storey Empire State Building in New York is one of the world’s most iconic buildings, attracting millions of visitors a year. A rather less spectacular feat of engineering, a footbridge at a railway station near Reading, has taken longer to build and cost about the same to construct in cash terms.

The pedestrian walkway at Theale station in west Berkshire was already ten years overdue when National Rail finally began construction in January 2023. Even so, it is not expected to be completed until spring this year, and the budget has spiralled to £9.5 million from a projected £1.25 million in 2011.

The Empire State Building, for decades the tallest tower in the world, took just one year and 45 days to complete. It cost about $41 million to construct — roughly £9 million based on the exchange rate prevailing in 1931.

The footbridge is part of a scheme to make Theale station step-free and fully accessible, under the Department for Transport’s Access for All scheme. Wheelchair users have been unable to use the station since it opened in 1847.
A new ticket office built in 2014 has yet to be used due to the delays to the walkway’s construction.

Sir Alok Sharma, the MP for Reading West, said the project underlined the “stifling bureaucracy” and “red tape” of infrastructure planning and construction in the UK.
“The redevelopment of Theale station is a classic case study in just how slowly even relatively small infrastructure projects are delivered in our country, with resultant cost increases having to be picked up by the taxpayer,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“We have to get much better at untangling the stifling bureaucracy and red tape in our system which holds back the time-efficient and cost-effective delivery of infrastructure,” he added.
A Network Rail spokesman said: “Plans to build a new footbridge with lifts … were approved in January 2013 alongside a range of improvements including a new ticket office and expanded car park. At this time, funding was only provided for the ticket office and to progress design work for the footbridge.

“A new ticket office was built by Great Western Railway. In 2021, £9.5 million funding was awarded for Network Rail to build a footbridge and lifts. The new facilities are set to open to the public in spring 2024. Great Western Railway will then begin work to expand the car park.”

EDIT The comments in the paper were primarily from outraged and overly-literal people working out the real comparison accounting for inflation and so on. Get over it, people, it’s a flippant joke!

 

[The exile]

The Times reports today (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...to-build-than-empire-state-building-vnjtd96r3) that the footbridge at Theale has taken longer to build and cost about the same as the Empire State Building. Obviously the cost is a joke because it doesn't account for inflation, but it's not a good story.

Although most of the delay is the gap between “we want to build a new bridge” and “here’s the money to build a new bridge” - whereas the Empire State figure is presumably the equivalent of “foundation stone to topping out”. Still an unfavourable comparison but not as dramatic as journos like!

 

[RailWonderer]

The Telegraph ran the same story. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/01/network-rail-pedestrian-bridge-empire-state-building/
Not quoting as much of the content is the same as in the Times. Also I imagine the Empire State building was built with no health and safety, if you think of that iconic picture of the builders eating their lunch on the plank in the sky.

 

[micgnaw]

Finished Nov 2023 (approx) - ticket office after a 2 month refurbishment to bring it back into use is now open.
Footbridge/lifts opening has been delayed until January 2025

 

[micgnaw]

Lifts finally opened 16 January 2025, lifts out of action on 7/8 February, as of today, still out of action.

 

[Tw99]

Is the "new" (several years old) ticket office actually open now ?

 

[GW4117]

Is the "new" (several years old) ticket office actually open now ?

Yes, it's been open since November, the old ticket office is now closed, but still retains the ticket machine.