Reading Station
The engineer of the Great Western Railway was Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He designed not only the route of the line, but the stations, the buildings and even the engines themselves. His engineering ideas were often ahead of their time but sometimes did not work as he intended. He laid out the line from London to Bristol with no steep hills and very slight curves and on a broad gauge so that trains could travel more quickly. The broad gauge as it was known, was about 2.1m between the rails as opposed to roughly 1.4m with the standard gauge.
Brunel also designed an unusual station plan for Reading and several other stations on the line. As Reading at that time was only to the south of the station, he decided that both trains to London and to Bristol would stop on the side nearest the town. This meant that London bound trains had to cross the path of Bristol ones twice to stop at the station, but did mean that passengers did not have to cross the line as there was only one platform.
This design almost led to disaster when a signal man made a mistake and switched a fast running express into the platform line. Surprisingly, but probably because of the stability of the broad gauge layout, the train stayed on the rails. In 1853 another accident occurred when another fast train left the rails and crashed into the pillars holding one of the station roofs up, bringing it crashing down.
Brunel also designed the station building which was first built in 1840 and rebuilt in 1865. To reach the station from Friar Street was not easy, as Queen Victoria Street was not built until 1901. The railway, on its embankment, was well above the level of the rest of the ground, with a deep dip between the town and the station. Much of this has now been filled in.
The last broad gauge train ran through Reading in 1892, with all of the remaining 170 miles of track from London to Plymouth being converted to standard gauge in just two days. Reading Station with its one platform was then rebuilt in 1896.
| 
