Escalators at Reading

[Cymroglan]

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

I’m a frequent visitor to West Quay shopping centre in Southampton and at least one of their escalators is usually broken, same goes for those inside the shops including John Lewis, M&S and Next. I assume that modern(ish) escalators are simply not up to the job, but I know nothing at all about them!

 

[duffield]

I’m a frequent visitor to West Quay shopping centre in Southampton and at least one of their escalators is usually broken, same goes for those inside the shops including John Lewis, M&S and Next. I assume that modern(ish) escalators are simply not up to the job, but I know nothing at all about them!

Same here. There seems to be a national escalator repair crisis, not just one affecting the railway (although obviously there seems to be a special issue at Reading due to "inside" escalators being used "outside").

 

[Cowley]

I believe @crablab may have an update…

 

[crablab]

Over the past year I have FoI'd various documents from Network Rail (Wales & Western Region) to better understand the issues at Reading.

I've attached the source material for you to read at your leisure (as a management pack, it covers much more than escalators).

However, I think an extract of 'top 5 faults' or 'main issues' with escalators in 2025 (across the Wales & Western region, and invariably at Reading, gives a good flavor:

January

• Reading E8– issue with brake solenoid brake set up and technical faults
• Reading E2 – Invertor issue and faulty A2 Card
• Reading E14 – handrail and aux issues
• Reading E3 – Step wood entry issues and step to skirting issues – ran over from P9
• Reading E17 – Handrail replacement

February

• Section missing from deck

March

• Section missing from deck

April

• Reading E10 - Complete Step chain replacement
• Reading E5 - Step damage

May

• Reading E10: Pile up caused by heel of shoe new steps, combs and alignment
• Reading E7: Handrail drive chain issue and resolve
• Reading E15: Missing brush replaced
• Reading E14: Missing step sensor issue
• Reading E3: Brake sensor issue

June

• I failed to FoI this one

July

• Reading E11: Replacement of the step guide and fishplate
• Reading E10: Foreign object in combs
• Reading E7: Replaced blown inverter
• Reading E18: Drive chain adjustments
• Reading E15: Handrail tension

August

• Reading E9: Controller processor replacement
• Reading E19: Inverter replaced and power issues
• Reading E15: Main drive chain adjusted
• London Paddington E5: Water in escalator pit (the first non-Reading!)
• Reading E5: minor issues with e stop being pressed(data issue)

September

• Reading E9: Controller processor replacement
• Reading E19: Inverter replaced and electrical / power issues
• Reading E5: Handrail rollers and escalator carriage
• Reading E15: Inverter inputs pulg replaced
• London Paddington 1 (up): Pit cover switch and bracket replaced

October

• Reading E15: The installation of a new gearbox
• Reading E10: Brake arm and switch replaced
• Reading E12: Replaced damaged access cover
• London Paddington 1 (up): Replaced safety brake solenoid
• Reading E5: Processor replaced and chain tensioned

---

Unfortunately I don't have an overall availability percentage for just the escalators at Reading. However you can see that in the decks, month by month. I think it's safe to say the performance is poor - most of the Reading escalators are "red", at the top of the "poor availability" list and are far below others appearing in the data.

I don't have other points of comparison and I don't know how many other escalators are across the Wales and Western region. That said, the faults above sound fairly expensive and the repeated failures (taking escalators our for weeks at a time) occurring at Reading indicate a systematic issue with the escalators installed there.

I'd be interested to know for how long Network Rail intend to continue paying to fix these, and when replacement becomes the economically sensible option.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Dec 2025 ==

Just to show some examples of the availability data. Picking the start of the year (January):


And the end of the data I have (October):


You can see there has been about 45% decrease in downtime overall (which has been noticeable over the summer), but there's still escalators out for half the month and multi-day failures are common.

 

[station_road]

I don't have other points of comparison and I don't know how many other escalators are across the Wales and Western region. That said, the faults above sound fairly expensive and the repeated failures (taking escalators our for weeks at a time) occurring at Reading indicate a systematic issue with the escalators installed there.

Reading probably makes up two thirds of the escalators on Wales and Western, with Paddington accounting for the rest - the only other NR managed station is Bristol TM, which I don't think has any escalators.

 

[E B]

Birmingham New Street both strike me as stations designed with an overreliance on escalators

New Street has two sets of escalators and two sets of stairs to each platform

 

[yorksrob]

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?

Indeed. The one outside my Sainsbury's was out of action for a very long time recently.

I presume NR doesn't have its on specialist team of crack escalator engineers ? (If not, maybe it should !).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Dec 2025 ==

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.

The problem is, the loading gauge for modern railway structures is so high. When the rebuilt Wakefield Westgate a few years back (without escalators) the steps are around two stories high.

Perhaps they should go back to installing subways instead.

 

[RichardAsh1981]

What surprises me is the number of electrical failures (inverters and cards) which with solid state electronics should be very long lasting and reliable. These are not decades old installations.
The mechanical issues, a number of them related to passenger use, are more understandable, but it would be very interesting to know whether delays are linked to workforce (getting someone to work on it) or parts. A crack team won't help a lot if the have no replacement parts to fit!

 

[Merle Haggard]

New Street has two sets of escalators and two sets of stairs to each platform

But, due to the design of the station, only the footbridge at the North end enables direct transfer between many platforms. Changing at New Street may well involve changing from a train on the Euston route to a Cross-Country or suburban service and, if you use the South exit it's a circuitous path from, say the exit barriers to 1-5 to the entry ones for 8 or 11.
So effectively there's only one escalator for transit passengers. The proportion of New Street escalators out of action at once is alway very high. Strangely, when an escalator is out of order (and not being worked on) it's blocked off, so you can't use it as a fixed stair. There's no indication on the platform when an escalator is out of order where the nearest fixed stairs are. On the footbridge, I've seen a sign directing to the lift; moving all the passengers for a Summer XC service to Plymouth by lift would mean that you would have to allow a very long time for your connection to be sure.
New Street escalators have been breaking down since the new station opened. Hard to understand why.

 

[crablab]

but it would be very interesting to know whether delays are linked to workforce (getting someone to work on it) or parts. A crack team won't help a lot if the have no replacement parts to fit!

Parts availability did seem to be one of the issues. It was mentioned they're now holding a stock of spares (this may have been one of the changes with the contract switch to Stannah) and some of the challenges with availability in 2024 were due to lead times (according to the documents).

I've previously FoI'd the complete list of faults for a given period. There isn't always a lot of detail, but I think it's fair to say the mechanical issues aren't necessarily caused by passengers.

 

[E B]

But, due to the design of the station, only the footbridge at the North end enables direct transfer between many platforms. Changing at New Street may well involve changing from a train on the Euston route to a Cross-Country or suburban service and, if you use the South exit it's a circuitous path from, say the exit barriers to 1-5 to the entry ones for 8 or 11.
So effectively there's only one escalator for transit passengers. The proportion of New Street escalators out of action at once is alway very high. Strangely, when an escalator is out of order (and not being worked on) it's blocked off, so you can't use it as a fixed stair. There's no indication on the platform when an escalator is out of order where the nearest fixed stairs are. On the footbridge, I've seen a sign directing to the lift; moving all the passengers for a Summer XC service to Plymouth by lift would mean that you would have to allow a very long time for your connection to be sure.
New Street escalators have been breaking down since the new station opened. Hard to understand why.

Ah ok.