Though even SDO isn’t a panacea - the reason we apparently have never had 2x5 IETs on the Cotswold Line, despite expensive platform lengthening, is platform-end signal siting.

 


The really interesting thing with infrastructure limits is that the running of a 9 car IET rather than a 5 car one, or a 5 car train rather than a 3 car one (BTH to BOA) would make very little difference indeed to the number of trains that could pass over the line, or the number of train drivers and train managers needed,   For sure, there aren't enough trains available on lease to GWR to run full length, there may not be enough siding to park them at night or staff to service them, and I AM aware that a long train has to run at reduced speed for longer when going through junctions and around corners - but it could be done.

 
Thanks. That rather shows how capacity-constrained the railways are, that a one day a week service can be reinstated after a gap of some years and promptly fills standard class in a 5 carriage IET full and standing. It's dire, the cost of the infrastructure that could be bringing in far more income but there's often not the capacity in the trains or the variety of services to attract and carry an increase in passenger numbers.

Mark

 

The latest database update (that included added Melksham to the SDO station list) included generic headcodes for these services, so if the journey and reservations don't load the destination and calling points should now display and announce properly - provided the Driver or TM enters them.

 
No was just a sunny day, but our split tickets were mix of off peak day returns and anytime day returns.  So no real control of volumes sold.

Incidently we had to stand Bath-BoA on return because it was just a 3car turbo with people already standing when it arrived at Bath, and was very busy with rugby fans as match had recently ended at Bath.  And yes had one of those pointless counted place reservations that basically get you a bit of standing space.

More a case of weekend leisure journeys can see more passengers when good weather is forecast, but GWR doesn't have sufficient stock to lengthen trains.

 

I can understand your concern at that - but yet is there a need to check tickets on every journey? A random sprinkling of tickets checks should deter unpaid travel and you will find that very much the way it's done across many countries. Because people who will be inclined to try for a free journey don't know which trains / checks will be on, they will tend to minimise the risks they take and pay, anyway, for services on which it turns out there are no checks.  It just "feels" wrong when you buy a ticket and it's never checked.

Another thought / question - was your ticket checked during the return journey?  Noting that (and I'm using Melksham which is my knowledge point) Melksham to Oxford off peak day return is £20.80  and Oxford to Melksham super off peak single is £18.60 - if I manage to defraud the railway on the way up, all I'm saving is £2.20 when I get my ticket to come back - not worth the risk.

I would love to see - I think - stronger but occasional enforcement - however, the complexity of the current fare system that even the staff don't always understand has me worried about enforcing on people who have made a mistake and broken the rules.

 
Full and standing from Bath... do you know if there was any special event on please?

Mark

 
Thought I would give my experience of using the service (early October).  Travelled from Bradford on Avon (change at Bath), ticket split at Chippenham

Bit of scrum at Bath, reservations not working (train manager said not programmed), our group got scattered finding available seats, handful had to stand.  Rather more standing from Chippenham.  No advertised trolley service either,

The destination displays also displaying Reading.   Apparently since announcing the service in January haven't yet found time to add the route to train computers !

No ticket checks and at at Oxford the exit gates near the footbridge were open so no revenue check on whole outbound journey.

Return train was quieter, but got delayed behind a late crowded 2car turbo on southbound stopping service leaving Oxford, so ran 12-16 minutes late.  Arrived Bath 12 minutes late. Missed booked connection (now just 1 minute to get it) . Had to get next train. Arrived BoA 28 minutes late.  Submitted delay repay but rejected 2 weeks later as booked train was on time, had to appeal pointing out missed connection, then they decided to pay out for 12.5% of 2 of 3 tickets on submitted 3 tickets of groupsave. 

Overall 10/10 for potential free travel on outward train
0/10 for reservations and destination displays
10/10 for train managers announcements
9/10 for journey convenience
0/10 for advertised catering
1/10 for delay repay team

Would love service to be a success, but feel there is too much not working well that would make me happy to use it again. 

 
Note that the Wiltshire Rail Strategic Study mentions this service and how it could become both 2 TPH (IIRC) & a means of delivering a service to a new Corsham station.

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=29351.msg353131#new

 

Hopefully an all day, all week, service can commence from May 2026?  By which time the Class 175 fleet should be fully introduced.

 
This was confirmed at the TWSW meeting last week - and not only that, but it will continue from Sept 2025 for the season (to May 2026) - still as a trial service though.

 
Not that it is always accurate but if you look on RTT for the 18th January 2025 it shows the Oxford services running Saturdays only from 21st December 2024 to 17th May 2025.

 

To clarify that confirmation - Bristol -> Oxford may well extend to May.  The new service is not expected to run beyond May because the set will be needed for the summer seaside services.  Separately 175s to replace remaining HSTs and also IETs from Cardiff west of Exeter.

 

Probably the 175s freeing up the IETs

 

Confirmed at WWRUG last Wednesday

 
From this week's Oxford Clarion newsletter

 

What with the winter fuel allowance going, that 20p hike could be an issue.

 
The outside slope to platform 1 is not signposted within the barriered part of the station as far as I am aware. I have directed people that way on occasion. You also often also see people struggling down the stairs with heavy loads from platforms 2-5 as they haven't seen the lift further down. For going up, the lift in the passageway is more obvious.

 

Off Peak adult day return £32.10 according to real time trains, or £21.15 with a senior railcard. Price with a senior railcard rises to £21.35 for next Saturday.


Thought I answered that  - normally same set, I think - though it does shunt to Stoke Gifford for the two hours it's back in the Bristol area.

 

... and those with mobility issues might like to go to the pub too!

I was struck at the "Didcot Dance" on Saturday when I returned on the earlier train to watch the 30 people transferring off the local from Oxford onto the Didcot to Bristol express to see them struggling up the stairs - heavy cases, pushchairs and young children, and in once case what I can only guess was a cello.  And some not-so-mobile themselves struggling with the stairs. 

I don't think there's a lift to that platform?    But it is possible to do it on the level (or rather slopes not steps) by going out of the barbered area, around the outside of the station, and entering again at the barrier set which faces towards the western car parks.    I did not take a look at the signage to see how well signposted that option is, nor follow it round to see for myself - so an update from knowledgable members (correcting me as appropriate) would be appreciated.

 
Not all football followers want to be in the pubs,

some may have mobility issues and would welcome the chance to have a no change of trains option.

For those who used the service on Saturday just gone,what was the day return fare Oxford to Bristol.

Asking the question again,

A foot note IF its the same set bringing Oxford fans to Ashton Gate is the same set
could it take the football followers to Parson Street.
So therefore would be cheaper to shunt towards Ashton Halt or go all the way to Weston and  then return?

 
Yes there was catering.

Footie fans like to be in a local pub for lunch before a game & the 1203 off Oxford is far too late & the 1528 return far too early too.

The return fixture at Oxford United would quite possibly see the fans using that first service eastbound though

 
Thanks for your thoughts on the new service.

Not sure if it will be Oxford moving down or Bristol City moving up.

If loads of Oxford followers reserve tickets on the 12:03

would this "tumble" this computer to say I think a nine car set is required,or two fives?

A question will the service have catering?

regarding not being able to take the Oxford service back home.

It reminds of when air south west airlines had a service recently, Plymouth-Bristol Manchester on a Saturday morning!

Air south West promoted the service "Argyle fans you can fly to Northern football match's"

But there was no return service?

 

Thank you, but no need - the diagram has been published and it follows the marketing information in conforming it's a single 5 car IET making both return trips.


Is that next Saturday?  Certainly a direct Oxford to Bristol train is one to promote if it ties in with match times, but at the moment it's an expermental service and I suspect will get fans to Bristol, but not home again.

Come next season (ah, but won't Bristol City be in a division higher that Oxford by then?) it'll all be GBR and the network will be manageable as a whole, so the Marylebone to Oxford service will be extendable to Swindon, with alternate trains onward to Weston-super-mare and Weymouth. 

Numerous benefits such as bringing Swindon a train service within England's Heartland STB, bringing Trowbridge through trains to London (do you realise it's the closest county town to London without any through trains from thetre?), and doing away with the "Didcot Dance".  With some trains calling a the three stations between Oxford and Didcot and some trains reversing there, it saves the shuttle train and gives Radley, Culham and Appleford regular through trains to London once again.

 
Will not be able to advantage of the Saturday service/s,

not sure if any one would be willing to make the four trips and see if maybe they will use the same set for all four trips.

Not sure of the prices for the round trips,quite willing to contribute to the fare/s if any one is willing to undertake the four trips.

A footnote that Oxford United will be playing at Bristol City.

So numbers MIGHT be higher than what would be expected on a first (Satur)day

A foot note IF its the same set bringing Oxford fans to Ashton Gate is the same
could it take the football followers to Parson Street.
So therefore would be cheaper to shunt towards Ashton Halt or go all the way to Weston and  then return?

 

Indeed - the Culham visit was planned after learning about the weekend about it - ADVERT - here on the "Great Western Coffee Shop Passenger Forum"

 

You were in luck - Oxford Open House weekend....the same reason Culham station was open

 
A good day out (and a good record in one of the photos of my pernicious trolley fruit cake habit).

The Bristol to Oxford train busy, and merited its own announcement from the platform staff at Bath. Graham, joining the train at Chippenham, was very forebearing when I went into anecdote mode - it was very difficult not to mention the one-time refrigerator in the shop on the opposite corner from the Westgate Hotel on the Botley Road as it really was of a particular age - and then there's the eternal question of whether the railway has ever quashed the requirement to open the Botley Road level crossing on request from members of the public wishing to cross with vehicles too high to pass beneath the bridge (and if they did, the date at which that happened...)

Learnt a lot, saw places old and new, gazed with alarm at the seeming canal beneath the road bridge at Botley Road, and the slightly distressed arch for the footpath beneath the line there - somewhat bristling with telltales bridging various cracks. Oxford station is seeing so much flux that even its Wikipedia page has given up, if anyone is keen on editing Wikipedia and knows, that page would be a good one to which to give some love.

Finding the railway swingbridge over the Sheepwash channel on the way to the canal to be staffed by volunteers was a surprise, but unfortunately they cannot swing it without further work being done for fear that it might not open again. But they seem to have enough railway line stored in the undergrowth to take the track through the block of flats built over the trackbed, which raises questions. Also, on display there was the first photo on the following web page, a record of the decade or three when terrible liquids were carried in wooden hulled narrowboats, before both pipelines and changed industrial practices extinguished the trade - the photo shows what appears to be a boat from Thomas Clayton of Oldbury, they ran to and from Oxford's gas works for a time so it may have been heading there.

Mark


https://www.oxfordpreservation.org.uk/rewley-road-swing-bridge

 

Straight back into the Last Night of the Proms, broadcast live on a screen in the KGV Park here in Melksham to an audience of perhaps 400 to 500 who were picknicing there. Not a Coffee Shop topic,  but a delay in following up.  Here you go:

 
Sorry I missed you - XC was late down from Banbury & you'd cleared the station before I arrived.

Not so busy in the reverse direction back to BRI - although a balls-up on accessibility, which I'll say more on tomorrow. Hence enough to say that a 5 car IET only has two wheelchair spaces, where a 9car has three.

 

181 passengers in standard class on departure from Swindon.  Add just under 20 who got out of first clasa at Oxford and give or take a handful, that was 200 passengers.    Nice sunny autumn day for people to be out, but I did not see more than 1 or 2 more than Mark and I who were there to celebrate the return of the through service.

Headed back just before the direct Oxford to Chippeham direct service returns (as it misses the Melksham connection by 10 minutes).  Coming off there local from Oxford to Didcot, I counted just under 30 people coming back under the subway at Didcot and going up the steps to the westbound main line platform.

Pictures to follow - just a few minutes to Melksham ...

 

*Waves*

Mark

 
Might see you at Oxford as you alight....will be there ready to go in the opposite direction from about 1115

 


Will the trolley have champagne to celebrate the first scheduled through service from Swindon and beyond to Oxford for many years?  Anyone else going?

 
Thanks for digging that out, the event in honour of Network Southeast must have been one of the most astonishing piece of whimsy of all time. I'm sure I saw a photo of one of those NSE station platform rotating flappy next train destination announcement boards with 'Finmere' on it too, though I can't find a photo of it.

Mark

 
From 2016 - http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/f/finmere/finmere_gala)13.8.2016).pdf

 
Last time I headed to Oxford, it was with a bike.

The connection just missed at Didcot, which shaved an hour off the time at my destination, which involved a change at Oxford, a Chiltern train to Bicester, and a somewhat convoluted cycle into the countryside east of the town.

On arrival there, among other things, I hovered for some time by the main road at Finmere on that cool April day, watching a digger chew away at Finmere station's cream-glaze-faced brick stair well wall. Also, stripped by the contractors of its enshrouding vegetation, the GCR embankment, the trains it once carried would have been exposed to all sorts of winds and weather, climbing north to the station at its characteristic 1:176 gradient. It must have been a fun location to handle a slip coach operation.

The station site, perched on its embankment, is destined to become a substantial cutting for HS2 with a road over rail bridge on a slightly different alignment replacing the somewhat dramatic twin rail over road bridges. By the time the new line opens and carries trains, the likes of slip coaches at Finmere will be a distant memory indeed.

Mark

 
Very tempted to try it out on 14th September - or perhaps on some other Saturday.   Now from Melksham:

Melksham - 10:09
Chippenham - 10:19 - 10:44
Oxford - 11:29

ah - fond memories of giving training course in Oxford, though obviously outbound on the 07:20 (the only choice - next train was 19:47) and back at 19:20 (only train from Swindon after the 06:20)

Homeward

Oxford - 17:12
Chippenham - 17:57 to - oops
Melksham  - 20:08

Still very tempted ...

 
I think that is still a problem, isn't it? Look up Oxford - High Wycombe & see if it isn't priced via Paddington/Marylebone still.

 
It's Bristol - Bath - Oxford - Bicester and then turn right that strange things used to happen with the fares system. Fine to Bicester and then a, er, non-linear adjustment as the fares system hadn't caught up with the changes to the network. Hopefully something that will be sorted for East West Rail.

Mark

 
Current Advance fares available either way @ £12.50 Standard, £32.65 1st class.
OPDR Standard £32.10, SOPR Standard £50.40, OPR 1st Class £144.90 (Ouch)

 
Bristol to Oxford through trains start on 14th September, Autumn Saturdays only.

10:18 from Bristol Temple Meads calling at Bath Spa, Chippenham and Swindon (10:58) and arriving Oxford 11:29

15:18 from Bristol, same calls, arriving Oxford at 16:31

Return services from Oxford at 12:03 and 17:12, same calls as outward journey

 

That is helpful, and very interesting.

 
GWR confirm that the services to which this thread refers are *not* stopping at Didcot & are all using the west curve. In both directions.

Being run with a 5car IET GWR said yesterday.

 

Certainly busy on Saturday with Reading playing at Oxford, almost got trampled as the herd migrated between platforms.

 
Interesting to see Swindon, Bath Spa and Bristol Temple Meads all in the top 15 ticketed passenger flows from Oxford http://www.passenger.chat/flows.html?stn=3115 . Chippenham is in the top 50 too.  Really a good flow considering the Didcot Dance that has to be done to make these journeys.

 

Kennington (south of Oxford) hasn’t shut for flooding since alleviation works were carried out some years ago.  The route to Bristol via Box does close for flooding occasionally but is nowhere near as vulnerable as the route via Chipping Sodbury.

 
Will it be flood proof?

 

Yep, I have moved a couple of things around and merged that with a topic that started a couple of days ago "Across the  West" to keep all the discussions together.  This board is probably the right one for it - it's so long since we had this much-wanted service that it had go into the  more general place!

 
Hi all,

Found an interesting article stating that GWR are planning to run direct IET services from Bristol Temple Meads to Oxford via Didcot Parkway. I have attached the article below. What does everyone think about these plans? I think it would be very beneficial for passengers travelling down from Bristol and stations in between and it would be an effective way to get more people using the rail network.

https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/24035352.new-direct-swindon-oxford-trains-planned-great-western-railway/?ref=fbshr&fbclid=IwAR3DWWG1r_EqrqsTeDZZ_LZPwC9zfPCtj1kZ0JM-eWcXYxGsFakbBaXq9CU

Thanks all,
GWR 158

 

Regardless, it would need to operate several more trips a day to release a Turbo anyway.

 
Only one of those it seems will call at Didcot - the one that states that it does - otherwise the others would too.

So on its own, it won't release a turbo.

 

Yep, and Tom has sent me an email to let me know.   Really interesting development and I'll be making full local comment later.   This is a flow that I know has very great potential; I used the service in the past so I'm not totally green on it.  But it also needs to work today as sentimentality won't pay for it.

 
GWR Press Release
https://news.gwr.com/news/great-western-railway-planning-to-restore-direct-bristol-oxford-services

 

They could…but a TM would need to be provided (with the associated route learning cost).

 

Indeed.

When you think about it, hardly a shock. At the start of 2020, plans were for 4 trains an hour from Bristol Temple Meads to London (Paddington).  But that's been cut back to 2.  I know that Bath and Chippenham still only had two an hour to London, but those Pesky Bristol to London people are filling the trains.

 
I'm sure you're right that it's replacing a Turbo service - you wouldn't stop at Appleford otherwise! So the Didcot call supplies connections to/from the Thames Valley local stations.

Interested to see (in the Clarion's second tweet) that GWR are citing "consistent country-end overcrowding experienced on Bristol–London Paddington services".

 
My bet is that is running in place of the turbo, to release the other one still in the Saturday timetable. The OXF-BAN service could also be run by an IET if they chose to.

Meanwhile the Didcot call maybe either a) to complete those OXF-DID service calls, and/or b) to wait time somewhere in order to wait a suitable path.

GWR will have between presented with a budget cut for next financial year & this may be one way of finding some of that - by releasing that turbo.

 

May well have to do with pathing - but also either provides an extra service between Oxford and Didcot or is simply running in the path of an existing one.

 

That might be diagrammed Banbury Didcot, the Oxford Bristol service filling the void while the Oxford Banbury is ran .......................... just a wild outta box thought

 

I expect time will tell.   With planned calls at intermediate stations between Didcot and Oxford (but not, I note, between Bath and Bristol) I'm guessing in might be taking the path and contractual service needs of those stations. Releasing a turbo ...

 
I wonder as to why the Didcot call.  Didcot is already well served to Bristol and Oxford and using the West Curve would save considerable time and a reversal.

 
Guess that is why it is September, following the end of the peak summer services to places like Newquay and Pembroke Dock.

 
Hmmmmm, thought there was no spare rolling stock?

 
That's fantastic news. Let's hope it's the start of a fuller service.

Even as someone who used the old Thames/FGW service when it ran, I have been genuinely surprised several times recently by the number of people you can see at Didcot making their way between Bristol trains and Oxford Turbos.

 
According to the usually reliable Oxford Clarion on twitter https://x.com/OxfordClarion/status/1742528741627007417?s=20 GWR have asked permission to start an Oxford to Bristol sevice from Spetember 14th 2024.
Service will start as 2 trains a day on a Saturday calling at Radley, Culham, Appleford, Didcot, Swindon, Chippenham and Bath.
Operated by Class 802 trains.