Escalators at Reading

[crablab]

This morning I counted 6 out of ~20 escalators at Reading out of service. This is not an uncommon occurrence.

Indeed, the 'down' escalator to 10/11 (London bound) platforms has been undergoing repairs for approximately the last month causing significant congestion on the stairs.

They seem to be doing rolling refurbishments, but several of the refurbished escalators are again out of commission.

Does anyone know why Reading in particular is so blighted? Network Rail stated they have issues with the engineer being London based and travelling out to Reading.

I'm not sure that can be the totality. Such a failure rate suggests either poor quality escalators or that they are beyond their design life, or being operated outside of the intended specification.

 

[CarltonA]

I noticed the middle two out of service next to plat 7 yesterday. Often at least one of the four is out. I remember when there was an underpass, I think you can still see it's position on the side of plat 8.

 

[800301]

This morning I counted 6 out of ~20 escalators at Reading out of service. This is not an uncommon occurrence.

Indeed, the 'down' escalator to 10/11 (London bound) platforms has been undergoing repairs for approximately the last month causing significant congestion on the stairs.

They seem to be doing rolling refurbishments, but several of the refurbished escalators are again out of commission.

Does anyone know why Reading in particular blighted? Network Rail stated they have issues with the engineer being London based and travelling out to Reading.

I'm not sure that can be the totality. Such a failure rate suggests either poor quality escalators or that they are beyond their design life, or being operated outside of the intended specification.

I think they get exposed to the elements more than expected, you will note they all run at a much slower speed to try and reduce wear and tear on them but they are very susceptible failure which then seems to take a very long while to fix.

I do wonder if a FOI request was done how many days they’d manage to have every escalator operational

 

[crablab]

I do wonder if a FOI request was done how many days they’d manage to have every escalator operational

I did FoI this last year! Unfortunately it seems the data they hold isn't very good and they only measure the time taken to call out the contractor, rather than actually fix the escalators themselves.
I will likely FoI again to get another year of data

 

[800301]

I did FoI this last year! Unfortunately it seems the data they hold isn't very good and they only measure the time taken to call out the contractor, rather than actually fix the escalators themselves.
I will likely FoI again to get another year of data

It’s got to be by far one of the worst stations for reliability, a few weeks ago they were trying to avoid having trains call on P10/11 due to both escalators on the London side and the lift being out of use, they did manage to get the lift going before the escalators

 

[Thames99]

In reply to CarltonA the underpass still exists but is used for pedestrians and cyclists to get from one side of the station to the other. It is no longer physically linked to the station. At the moment the stairs to the area outside the station entrances at the south end are out of action until the building work nearby is finished. It looks as if this is very near to being completed so they can be reopened.

 

[sheff1]

Such a failure rate suggests either poor quality escalators or that they are beyond their design life, or being operated outside of the intended specification.

Problems emerged soon after they were installed. I recall reading at the time that 'indoor specification' escalators had been installed in what is an outdoor location to "save money". We have exactly the same problem at a local supermarket where the indoor travelators installed outside are out of use more often than they are working.

 

[Senex]

Problems emerged soon after they were installed. I recall reading at the time that 'indoor specification' escalators had been installed in what is an outdoor location to "save money". We have exactly the same problem at a local supermarket where the indoor travelators installed outside are out of use more often than they are working.

So who was responsible for a change of specification "to save money" that was inevitably going to lead to problems pretty quickly? Escalators for outdoor use in fairly severe conditions are scarcely a new technology.

 

[Mojo]

l seem to remember there was a thread here about the poor reliability of the escalators at New Street station in Birmingham not long after the completion of the refurbishment.

 

[stuving]

When the order for escalators at Reading went to KONE, there were comments that they were the cheapest because they had switched to Chinese production. They do now have their own escalator factory in China, but it only opened in 2013 so was probably not fully operational at the time of the Reading order. There were reports that various components were being sourced from different Chinese suppliers, and needed persuasion to fit nicely with each other, which would fit with KONE's Chinese operation not being up to speed. Certainly there were problems that needed fixing right from the start.

 

[duffield]

There seems to be a general issue with escalator repairs, I see specific escalators out of order for months and months (sometimes feels like years), and not all of them are at railway stations (one at my nearest Marks & Spencer has been out of order for months).

Is there a national shortage of escalator repair technicians or is it that they "can't get the parts", or both?

 

[CarltonA]

In reply to CarltonA the underpass still exists but is used for pedestrians and cyclists to get from one side of the station to the other. It is no longer physically linked to the station. At the moment the stairs to the area outside the station entrances at the south end are out of action until the building work nearby is finished. It looks as if this is very near to being completed so they can be reopened.

Thanks, I'll take a look down there at some point.

 

[Harpo]

Network Rail stated they have issues with the engineer being London based and travelling out to Reading.

So the engineers are an hour or so away? I’m struggling to understand why that should be an issue.

 

[irish_rail]

Using the escalator down from the main footbridge a week or so ago , down onto platform 7, I noticed how juddery the ride was. It almost bordered on feeling unsafe. I'm glad I was holding the handrail. Felt very much like it was worn out and knackered.

 

[317362]

There is a very odd atmospheric effect in that area to plat 7, in the right conditions and not with rain, despite being undercover, every surface is covered in moisture. I would imagine that the innards of plat 7 ones are really struggling. All of them are struggling it seems but I'm sure that main footbridge access on platform 7 is suffering from more unintended consequences

 

[Jimini]

Progress on the one up from P8B at least today.

(Apols, mods, on phone so can’t make the image any smaller just yet.)

 

[crablab]

I've had another response from Network Rail (from someone different):

We can only apologise for the inconvenience this is creating for our passengers. It is not currently known the exact reason why we are experiencing such a number of faults with our escalators however our centralised team is working closely with the specialist contractors daily to ensure faults are resolved as quickly as possible. Often parts are needed to allow for repairwork to be carried out and in those times, we are subject to manufacturing and supplier timescales. This means our assets are sometimes out of service for longer than we would hope for.



Network Rail have put in place a proactive review of all assets by the original equipment installers. This work will continue into the new year to help reduce failures and mean repairwork can happen more quickly.



Where possible there are alternative access routes provided for passengers. We appreciate your patience as these alternatives may take longer than usual.

 

[crablab]

I FOI'd Network Rail for availability data again this year, and got a slightly better response this time around.

The more interesting document is the 'Periodic Business Review' which contains screenshots (sigh) of some business intelligence software. This covers the entire NR Western Route and I think it's particularly notable that (excluding the Paddington escalator, which is apparently a data issue - this is the one that was being refurbished and they intended to exclude it) all the Reading escalators are at the top of the unreliability list. The only one which met the availability KPI was the one at the North Entrance (which is not open to the weather).


The next slide has a breakdown of the wear vs 'external factors' data.
Most interesting to me is the paragraph at the bottom, which indicates that NR are well aware of the issues at Reading and are taking action to try and get on top of it. The 'resident engineer' is notable, as I've previously been told by NR that they have considered having an engineer based at Reading but it was cost-prohibitive.


There's also the maintenance log as CSV attached. Rather annoyingly, the "Work Completed Date" column doesn't necessarily mean that, so it's a little hard to work out actual downtime from that data (I wonder what they are using for the above BI).
If you scroll through you'll see that most of the issues are categorised as wear, with things like auxiliary brakes, corrosion, water ingress causing things to slip etc.

I would say it's pretty clear the escalators aren't fit for purpose (as has been suggested by others on here) and should be replaced by proper outdoor escalators, that are resilient to the environment.
I wonder how much NR spends on additional maintenance and callouts vs the capital expenditure of replacing the escalators entirely?

 

[Mag_seven]

The up escalator at the London end of platforms 10 and 11 was out of order yesterday meaning that if you were disembarking from the front of a London bound IET you had to walk the entire length of the platform and use the country end escalator. I wouldn't be surprised if people missed tight connections as a result.

 

[crablab]

The up escalator at the London end of platforms 10 and 11 was out of order yesterday

Yup, I had to do that walk too (lots of people cramming into the lifts).

You'll be pleased to hear that's the escalator that was behind hoardings and out of order for over a month whilst they carried out very extensive repairs...

 

[800301]

I’ve been told the maintenance contract has now been passed to Stannah, how true that is I don’t know but multiple escalators out of service last night

 

[Jim the Jim]

Reading and Birmingham New Street both strike me as stations designed with an overreliance on escalators. And the more passengers use the escalators the more often they will break down.

 

[WAO]

IIRC, the Hong Kong MTR escalator maintenance contract specified a maximum out-of service time of 30 minutes.

WAO

 

[MCR247]

Reading and Birmingham New Street both strike me as stations designed with an overreliance on escalators. And the more passengers use the escalators the more often they will break down.

To be fair, lots of shopping centres etc heavily rely on escalators and it’s relatively unusual to see them out of action - it seems to be a more UK national rail escalator problem for some reason

 

[BlueLeanie]

IIRC, the Hong Kong MTR escalator maintenance contract specified a maximum out-of service time of 30 minutes.

WAO

You can specify all you like, but if the person with the skills lives in Bexleyheath, and the escalator is Reading there's no magic way to get man and work van round there quickly.

Whilst it's definitely not ideal, its still a world of difference from old Reading station.

 

[father_jack]

I’ve been told the maintenance contract has now been passed to Stannah, how true that is I don’t know but multiple escalators out of service last night

Just taken Stannah 3 months to repair the main lift from the concourse to the overbridge at Bristol Parkway. The bill for agency staff for bag carrying and for standby accessible taxis is apparently astronomical.

 

[MasterPhillips]

I’ve been told the maintenance contract has now been passed to Stannah, how true that is I don’t know but multiple escalators out of service last night

That is correct. The up on Pl10/11 A is broken again for those keeping track

 

[WAO]

You can specify all you like, but if the person with the skills lives in Bexleyheath, and the escalator is Reading there's no magic way to get man and work van round there quickly.

Whilst it's definitely not ideal, its still a world of difference from old Reading station.

Then don't award the contract in the first place or payout after poor service.

WAO

 

[Mikey C]

Reading and Birmingham New Street both strike me as stations designed with an overreliance on escalators. And the more passengers use the escalators the more often they will break down.

London Bridge too.

 

[Mordac]

To be fair, lots of shopping centres etc heavily rely on escalators and it’s relatively unusual to see them out of action - it seems to be a more UK national rail escalator problem for some reason

Tell that to the Bullring managers!