1900s Gloucester to Oxford rough timing?

[Peter Fox]

Timetable question.
In a story I'm writing, set about 1900, I'm setting-up my main character to appear at an inquest in Oxford at about 11am on a weekday. Assuming he would travel from Gloucester to Swindon then to Oxford (possibly via change at Didcot station? (Was that possible)) then what time would he have to leave Gloucester.

*Everything* apart from start and finish points is flexible. The 1922 Bradshaw is good enough as a guide. I just need something that's reasonable and readers can take as about par for the course.

 

[30907]

April 1910 Bradshaw:
7.40am Gloucester, by slip coach arr Didcot 9.23am (nice detail there!)
9.34 Didcot arr Oxford 9.57am

About 1970 Ian Allan reprinted the GWR timetable from around 1902, but I don't have it

 

[Spudleigh Bear]

I do but at home . . . I can look later.

 

[30907]

I do but at home . . . I can look later.

Brilliant. I didnt check via Cheltenham and Kingham BTW, though it wouldn't normally have been quicker.

 

[Peter Fox]

April 1910 Bradshaw:
7.40am Gloucester, by slip coach arr Didcot 9.23am (nice detail there!)
9.34 Didcot arr Oxford 9.57am

Very nice. I like the slip coach bit. (That'll be bizarre for readers. Needs explaining, but what's the point of having culture if you don't refer to it?
Thanks.

 

[30907]

Very nice. I like the slip coach bit. (That'll be bizarre for readers. Needs explaining, but what's the point of having culture if you don't refer to it?
Thanks.

The train is described as a Hereford and Cheltenham Express - I don't know whether the loco would have worked through Hereford-London, and I wonder which portion the slip was on. No mention of a breakfast car, but your traveller wouldn't have been able to access it anyway.

 

[Spudleigh Bear]

Via Didcot, IIUC, the first connection of any sort would leave Gloucester at 0745, and get one into Oxford at 1113, unfortunately.

As Kingham opened in 1906, I think the first via Cheltenham offering (via Chipping Norton) would not actually get you to Oxford from Gloucester until after 1500.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Via Didcot, IIUC, the first connection of any sort would leave Gloucester at 0745, and get one into Oxford at 1113, unfortunately.

As Kingham opened in 1906, I think the first via Cheltenham offering (via Chipping Norton) would not actually get you to Oxford from Gloucester until after 1500.

Perhaps I am misreading the 1902 reprint but I make it Gloucester 0745 to Swindon, arrive at 0853. Join slip coach for Didcot, depart 0902, arrive at 0930. Join Southampton-Leicester express at 0938, arrive Oxford at 1003. Should leave ample time for a coffee or legal 'conference' before the inquest at 1100. Sorted!

 

[Spudleigh Bear]

Sure it was me making the mistake. Completely rushing it earlier.

 

[Bevan Price]

There was an alternative route - feasible, but maybe less likely than via Swindon.
Gloucester 07:23
Ledbury (change) 08:03 / 08:23
Worcester Foregate St. (change) 08:53 / 09:00
Oxford 10:40
(GWR 1902 timetable reprint)

 

[30907]

There was an alternative route - feasible, but maybe less likely than via Swindon.
Gloucester 07:23
Ledbury (change) 08:03 / 08:23
Worcester Foregate St. (change) 08:53 / 09:00
Oxford 10:40
(GWR 1902 timetable reprint)

Would never have thought of that!
I wonder if one could have gone from Gloucester Eastgate (MR) via Worcs Shrub Hill (or even Ashchurch-Evesham!)?

 

[Bevan Price]

Would never have thought of that!
I wonder if one could have gone from Gloucester Eastgate (MR) via Worcs Shrub Hill (or even Ashchurch-Evesham!)?

The 1903 MR timetable reprint shows a 07:05 Gloucester Eastgate arriving Worcester Shrub Hill at 08:21.
The first train from Ashchurch to Evesham was at 09:35 - but the earliest arrival in Oxford would have been at 12:36.

 

[infobleep]

Perhaps I am misreading the 1902 reprint but I make it Gloucester 0745 to Swindon, arrive at 0853. Join slip coach for Didcot, depart 0902, arrive at 0930. Join Southampton-Leicester express at 0938, arrive Oxford at 1003. Should leave ample time for a coffee or legal 'conference' before the inquest at 1100. Sorted!

There was an alternative route - feasible, but maybe less likely than via Swindon.
Gloucester 07:23
Ledbury (change) 08:03 / 08:23
Worcester Foregate St. (change) 08:53 / 09:00
Oxford 10:40
(GWR 1902 timetable reprint)

How reliable were train connections back then? I've read about trains on the Cambrian Railways being regularly late (referenced in one of Mollys Hughes' autobiographyies A London Girl of the 1880s or A Home in London in the 1890s). However I don't know about these lines.

 

[jimm]

Via Didcot, IIUC, the first connection of any sort would leave Gloucester at 0745, and get one into Oxford at 1113, unfortunately.

As Kingham opened in 1906, I think the first via Cheltenham offering (via Chipping Norton) would not actually get you to Oxford from Gloucester until after 1500.

Just to correct the historical record, Kingham station opened as Chipping Norton Junction in 1855, when the branch to Chipping Norton was completed. It was renamed Kingham in 1909.

The branch line from there to Bourton-on-the-Water opened in 1862, with this line extended through to Cheltenham in 1881.

What opened in 1906 was an avoiding line, crossing over the Cotswold Line, which was mainly built to allow iron ore trains between Hook Norton and South Wales to run direct without a reversal in Chipping Norton Junction station. The abutments for the avoiding line bridge are still in place just north of Kingham station.

For almost the entire existence of the Cheltenham-Kingham line, the first train from Cheltenham St James left at times between 06.30 and 06.50 in the morning, reaching Chipping Norton Junction/Kingham an hour later. It connected there with a Worcester-London train that got to Oxford around 08.30 and Paddington around 09.50. It can be seen in timetables from the 1880s right through to the 1960s, when the branches from Kingham closed.

As the Cheltenham-Kingham-Banbury timetables in books I have don't show Gloucester, I don't know if there was an early-morning connection from Gloucester that would allow a passenger in the early 1900s to change at Cheltenham Malvern Road or St James to join the Chipping Norton Junction/Kingham train.

So unless the character in the story was a very early riser (and didn't mind hanging around in Oxford for a couple of hours) he would have been better served going via Didcot.

 

[Bevan Price]

Just to correct the historical record, Kingham station opened as Chipping Norton Junction in 1855, when the branch to Chipping Norton was completed. It was renamed Kingham in 1909.

The branch line from there to Bourton-on-the-Water opened in 1862, with this line extended through to Cheltenham in 1881.

What opened in 1906 was an avoiding line, crossing over the Cotswold Line, which was mainly built to allow iron ore trains between Hook Norton and South Wales to run direct without a reversal in Chipping Norton Junction station. The abutments for the avoiding line bridge are still in place just north of Kingham station.

For almost the entire existence of the Cheltenham-Kingham line, the first train from Cheltenham St James left at times between 06.30 and 06.50 in the morning, reaching Chipping Norton Junction/Kingham an hour later. It connected there with a Worcester-London train that got to Oxford around 08.30 and Paddington around 09.50. It can be seen in timetables from the 1880s right through to the 1960s, when the branches from Kingham closed.

As the Cheltenham-Kingham-Banbury timetables in books I have don't show Gloucester, I don't know if there was an early-morning connection from Gloucester that would allow a passenger in the early 1900s to change at Cheltenham Malvern Road or St James to join the Chipping Norton Junction/Kingham train.

So unless the character in the story was a very early riser (and didn't mind hanging around in Oxford for a couple of hours) he would have been better served going via Didcot.

The 1902 GWR timetable shows there was no connection from Gloucester onto the 06:50 Cheltenham to Chipping Norton Junction (as it then was)/Kingham. (And no MR service to Cheltenham, which would also have required walking (or horse drawn cab) between the MR & GWR stations in Cheltenham). The first train with a connection from Gloucester to Kingham was the 10:20 from Cheltenham, with a 12:36 arrival at Oxford.

 

[Dr Hoo]

How reliable were train connections back then? I've read about trains on the Cambrian Railways being regularly late (referenced in one of Mollys Hughes' autobiographyies A London Girl of the 1880s or A Home in London in the 1890s). However I don't know about these lines.

Not really an issue for a fictional account. The OP can include as much (or as little) "nail-biting", "anxiety", "gasping, chest heaving, leapt onto train as it accelerated..." as they want!

 

[30907]

How reliable were train connections back then? I've read about trains on the Cambrian Railways being regularly late. However I don't know about these lines.

I suspect the Southampton-Leicester might not have waited at Didcot, but there might well have been a local train a bit later.

 

[Taunton]

What opened in 1906 was an avoiding line, crossing over the Cotswold Line, which was mainly built to allow iron ore trains between Hook Norton and South Wales to run direct without a reversal in Chipping Norton Junction station. The abutments for the avoiding line bridge are still in place just north of Kingham station.

It was also used by an express that ran, improbably, from Newcastle to Barry, in pre-grouping days via the NER and GCR to Banbury, then this way to Cheltenham and South Wales. Known as the "Ports to Ports express". The route from Banbury, along the Kingham avoiding line, to Cheltenham is steeply graded up and down, and was commonly known as "Over the Alps".

It seems to have died out very slowly. George Behrend wrote of taking the train in October 1945, going home when he was demobbed, on day one of the postwar timetables, when it restarted, and finding out only when en route it now ran via Oxford and Swindon.

There is quite a long article about it in the 1930s Railway Wonders of the World, who had taken it from a 1929 Meccano Magazine.

https://railwaywondersoftheworld.com/ports.html

 

[jimm]

It was also used by an express that ran, improbably, from Newcastle to Barry, in pre-grouping days via the NER and GCR to Banbury, then this way to Cheltenham and South Wales. Known as the "Ports to Ports express". The route from Banbury, along the Kingham avoiding line, to Cheltenham is steeply graded up and down, and was commonly known as "Over the Alps".

It seems to have died out very slowly. George Behrend wrote of taking the train in October 1945, going home when he was demobbed, on day one of the postwar timetables, when it restarted, and finding out only when en route it now ran via Oxford and Swindon.

There is quite a long article about it in the 1930s Railway Wonders of the World, who had taken it from a 1929 Meccano Magazine.

https://railwaywondersoftheworld.com/ports.html

What the article does not explain is the rationale for the operation of this train - it was popular with seafarers who were transferring between ships at ports (or home) in South Wales and other ships at ports (or home) in the North East and vice versa. Clearly the Great Central and GWR knew something about identifying fairly niche markets to serve - each company provided one set of rolling stock for the service, dong the round trip over two days.

Not dissimilar to the more recent traffic of Royal Navy personnel between Plymouth and Roysth, using CrossCountry services and the old South West-Scotland sleeper trains.