Isambard Kingdom Brunel infamously gave Reading an inconvenient station with only a single platform; after four major rebuilds it now has 15. All Change at Reading documents 175 years of growth, and looks forward to the future of train travel to and from the town.
Local historian Adam Sowan begins his journey in the ‘railway mania’ of the 1840s, moving through the ‘battle of the gauges’ and the fierce competition between the Great Western, South Western and South Eastern lines, as new branches and connections shot up and speeds increased. Today thoughts turn further afield, to the possibility of direct links to Heathrow and even mainland Europe.
Adam Sowan’s previous books about Reading, all published by Two Rivers Press, include Believing in Reading: Its Places of Worship (2012), The Reading Quiz Book (2011) and A Much-Maligned Town: Opinions of Reading 1126-2008 (2008). He is an activist in Reading Civic Society.