I take your point. The only way it could be paid for is if Sandleford was scrapped and houses were built at Siege Cross, with significant development contribution going to the bridge. But if we're looking at £20m, then it's never going to happen in a month of Sunday's.

The whole point in this is that the two Tory candidates (at the time) promised people on the door step that they would fix it if they got it. They slagged off the Lib Dems for not sorting it, and the end result of them getting elected will not change things. What should happen is that the two councillors should admit they had not researched the idea of a bridge, and now they have it's unfeasible. Spending £12,000 (half the cost of the Victoria Park fencing or a third of the cost of replacing the Thatcham skate park) is like Xjay said:

"What's the point of doing a survey if they won't do anything? It'd be better to throw the £12000 out of the window of a train while it's in Thatcham station."

As a cheaper solution to help ease the congestion, perhaps someone could review the timings of the barriers. Last week I was stuck for 20 minutes and watched three trains go by. There was more than enough time for the barriers to rise and let some cars through between each train passing. I think that the barriers come down far too early before the train reaches the station.

Oh No! Here we go again!!
Please don't make these comments unless you fully understand how a railway works.

I agree, I was held up for ages recently, with nothing happening. When it did go past there were about 10 people on board!

So you think the railway purposely holds up traffic at the crossing just for the fun of it?
Or possibly is it done for everyone's safety, - passengers, road users and pedestrians?

I didn't think they were timed, I thought they were manned, which in a way probably makes it worse. I can understand erring on the side of caution, but sometimes you can be sat for ten minutes plus which does seem ridiculous.

Biker, I don't think anyone is questioning the safety purpose of barriers; no-ones disputing them. They are questioning the amount of time barriers are down for.

Sometimes, I've been at the front of the queue and in less than 2 or 3 minutes, a train has come past, barriers go up and we're on the way. Othertimes I have been waiting 10 minutes for a single train.

Now, what is the purpose of a huge delay, over say, 210 seconds (so about 3 and a half minutes) between barriers going down and train passing? How much time do you need to realise *shoot, I'm stuck on a railway* and get out of your car and dial 999?

Talking of "how railways work" unless you're incredibly dull, most likely with a tweed hat and a beard, and read "train monthly" then you wouldn't know how the sensors are activated. I don't! Are there sensors at fixed distances either side of the station which trip the barriers or is it done on an "time to station" basis? After all, sensors 2 miles either side of a station would mean that a Intercity Train traveling at, say 90mph, would take 1 minute 30 seconds (I think?) to cover the distance, where as a commuter train doing 50mph, plus the constant reduction in speed to come to a stop, could take over 5 minutes!!

To be fair if you got caught between the barriers anyway you'd be a bit of a plank. Probably would deserve it.

Well XJ even the railway company admit that the crossing sensors were cheap and take no account of the speed, or breaking distance of the train. So, simply to cope with the odd few very fast trains, hundreds of people are inconvenienced whilst the clapped out old junk running the local services limp along the line.

NB - not really surprised that FGW don't want to slow these things down; it takes them so long to get any speed up at all.

PLEASE.... Can I suggest you give the earlier link a read if you want to know the reasoning behind the barriers being down.... To dredge it all up again would just be wrist-slashingly bad....... From reading the thread I would suggest that Biker1 is a font of knowledge on all things train related so I bow to his superior knowledge....

Because, I suspect, depending on the survey methodology there is a whole range of information that can be gleaned. Saying that, I hope one of the more 'intelligence-gathering' methods is used and not just tapes across the road. Origin, Purpose and Destination being one such......

RG. When New Greenham Park was created, the Trust agreed a £1m developer contribution with WBC. This was never used, and eventually they used it for the bus subsidy. All gone now!

So there was a time, but they were throwing money at the Shaw House project at the time, so no political will.


All this does remind me though that those two Lib Dem councillors played a part in causing the pollution by Burger King by pursuing the pointless lorry ban on Crookham Hill.

Think of the Lib Dems next time you're choking on exhaust fumes!

In one thread Richard is moaning about the lack of consultation or studies before a decision was made.

In this he's moaning that a consultation or study is taking place perhaps as a precursor to a decision about improvements being carried out.

I wish he'd be a bit more consistent.

You might think so, but others don't. Perhaps if some lorry drivers did so with more consideration for other road users, it wouldn't have been felt to be necessary.

Not getting into that one again OTE!
You have your opinion - live with it!
P.S. The trains, although being in a poor state in your opinion, don't usually break.
They do often brake though!

Network Rail control the crossing - not FGW.
It is manually controlled from the signal box at Colthrop.
The raising of the barriers IS automatic and happens AS SOON AS the line is clear.

You can have the argument about crossing times 'till you are blue in the face.
The crossing has become busier due to an increase in traffic mainly trying to get to the Basingstoke road without going through Newbury because the by-pass was built on the wrong side of the town.
Rail traffic can only get busier if anything especially with electrification.
(When that comes OTE you will be getting even older trains! See "Future Plans" in this link Class 319)
The ONLY solution is a bridge and I don't need £12,000 to tell you that!

Surely a formal study would be the first step in any process that involved building a bridge?

But a bit pointless until you have the cash to build it? The way the council are giving cash away at the moment it will be some time before we have the cash to build a bridge and as stated by you on another thread the data collected will be useless by the time we do have the cash! I suppose it would be out of order to ask SLI to donate a bridge seeing as we will be in hock to them for years to come?

I don't think it is a waste of money if the study is a good one. It might be able to suggest ideas that mitigate all this last century public transport system.

For £12k, they should be providing exactly that, but I won't hold my breathe. I may ask David Betts to let me know when it's taking place so I can monitor what methods they use and report back. This survey will not provide ay outcomes though, which is why I would rather they had used the money to cost a bridge. I'm sure one of our local architects would have costed it up at a discount, based on the amount of work they get from Mr Carter!!!

Soon to be transferred to the Didcot Control Centre, which will result in slightly longer durations of the barriers being down as it will be automatic.