Comments on: Reading Station Rebuild

By: Natalie

Natalie — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 09:24:43 +0000

Coming through Reading Station late at night last December, I was appalled by the lack of awareness that PEOPLE use the station – in fact millions of them over the year. The new platforms are draughty, waiting rooms scarce, lavatories too far away and too few, the new vast crossing ridiculously anti-social, dangerously steep, impersonal, lack of information and poorly thought-through for platform changes….I could go on and on.
Plus the hideousness of it all. Nearly 1 billion sterling!!

By: Michael Orton

Michael Orton — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:53:15 +0000

My limited experience of USA rail travel has been on the West coast. It seems very odd to board trains as though they are aircraft. I suppose if you only have two departures a day in each direction you can do that, but I do think the station staff would benefit from an exchange visit with our system. Perhaps Clapham Junction would be OTT, but Paddington ought to do!

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:19:16 +0000

Penn Station is just SAD. It’s a monstrosity of ugliness. Grand Central at least looks pretty in the main hall, ditto with 30th Street Station in Philadelphia.

The DC station is really nice, too.

By: Serdar Yegulalp

Serdar Yegulalp — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 18:34:30 +0000

Worst part is, it didn’t used to be that way. There’s now talk of relocating the current Penn Station and making it something marginally less noxious than the current low-ceilinged underground rabbit warren it is now, but that’s years if not decades off. The whole history of the station is one of the classic examples of people not knowing when they had it good.

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 18:29:34 +0000

Penn Station is to New York what Birmingham New Street is to Britain, so I hear.

By: Serdar Yegulalp

Serdar Yegulalp — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 18:25:38 +0000

Nice! BTW, whatever you do, if you come to the U.S., don’t ever go to Penn Station. ESPECIALLY don’t compare what it is now to what it used to be in the Fifties. You’ll break down and cry.