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Thursday 9 Feb 2023

Temporary traffic lights planned for main road into Reading - until May - as Network Rail begins work improving 1917 railway bridge

Region & Route:

Southern

| Southern: Wessex

A railway bridge over one of the main routes into Reading is about to get a new lease of life thanks to Network Rail engineers, who will be bringing it back to life with a new paint job.

The 106-year-old bridge over London Road in Wokingham Borough, and on the very edge of Reading Borough, carries the line between Wokingham and Reading on its way into the town. The paint has faded and worn and needs completely replacing to stop the structure from rusting.

Work will begin on Monday, 13 February, and continue right through until Tuesday, 9 May. Works will take place between 7am and 6pm each day. Off peak working is not possible in this instance due to scaffolding requiring supports on the carriageway itself. This means traffic lanes cannot be reopened at peak times.

Network Rail Southern region’s spokesman Chris Denham said: “We’re going to shotblast the steel back to bare metal, treat any corrosion and then give it a coat of green paint, which won’t just keep the bridge looking good, but will keep the structure in good condition to carry trains well into its second century.

“Clearly London Road is an important route into Reading so we’re going to paint half the bridge at a time, keeping one lane of the road open at all times, with temporary traffic lights.

“It’s not ideal as we know this will cause some disruption, but the nature of the work and the need to keep our people safe while doing it, means we need to take this step. We’ll also make sure there’s a safe pedestrian route too.

“I’m very grateful to our neighbours in the town, who’ll be hearing and seeing us work between 7am and 6pm for the next three months, but we will get a much nicer looking bridge out of the job at the end of it.”

The temporary traffic lights will swap sides of the road roughly halfway through the project, to allow painting to cover both sides of the structure. The nature of the work means the structure will be hidden by scaffolding and a sheeted covering, to stop paint and debris from escaping the worksite.