Let's see, you're a tourist visiting Stratford-upon-Avon from London for the day - do you expect:
a. A direct, reasonably fast through train service to one of the UK's top tourist destinations?
b. Being tipped out at Oxford, Banbury or Leamington Spa to be wedged into a two-car Turbo? Which is pretty much the way that Chiltern currently operates it anyway, with a Leamingon-Stratford shuttle.
Or do you just get on a coach up the M40 that drops you off in the centre of Stratford? Like most tourists do right now, due in part to Chilltern's cack-handed way of operating London-Stratford services for the past 20+ years, with constant chopping and changing of service speed, frequency, calling patterns, etc, thus alienating the types of group travel operators that Thames had carefully cultivated back in the late 1990s.
Frankly, it feels as though Chiltern still resent being instructed by the Strategic Rail Authority to take over providing the London-Stratford link shortly after First Great Western Link was created in 2004, hence the miserable service now offered, irrespective of any grudging 'improvements' offered from December.
The Thames Trains' Paddington to Stratford services were through trains, with many operating between London and Oxford coupled to Cotswold Line services (and XC only operated hourly then, so there were a lot more services between Oxford and Banbury operated by Thames Trains than GWR runs now). Worked by 166s, the typical timings were around 2 hours 15 or 20 minutes end-to-end, despite going the Great Way Round via Reading and Oxford and being limited to 90mph. Five trains each way on weekdays, and three to Stratford on Saturdays with five the other way, with one each way on Sundays.
I wonder what timing an 80x could manage these days? Never mind what it could do if it was able to run from Oxford via the Cotswold Line, then take a right turn on a reinstated Honeybourne triangle and reach Stratford via Long Marston.
As for all the doom and gloom merchants in this thread going on about all the things that just can't be done to get the railway back through the west side of Stratford - just wait and see what the locals say they want to happen once the new settlement at Long Marston grows and grows and grows, along with all the resulting car traffic on an inadequate road network. Depending on which version of the development it ends up as, the population there could be anything from 8,000 to 25,000 people - which is not far short of the current population of Stratford-upon-Avon itself.
A line ending in a car park at the edge of Stratford is not going to cut it, unlike a reinstated rail line to the existing station, which would offer conectivity from Stratford and the Long Marston settlement across the whole area between Worcester and Leamington/Coventry, up to Birmingham and down into the Cotswolds (where Moreton-in-Marsh is set to grow substantiually in the draft version of the new Local Plan there) and Oxford, etc.
Oxford is a different prospect to Leam Spa or Banbury.
It's far better connected, especially with EWR opening soon, and a major tourist destination in itself.
Therefore, self-guided tour London-Oxford-Stratford upon Avon is a very natural choice, especially for a history buff.
I agree that it was a bad idea to change from Thames Trains' Oxford to Stratford shuttle to one starting in Warks, but I don't think coach journeys are particularly popular with those who are not on a guided tour itinerary type arrangement.
A lot of tourists prefer to plan journeys to and visit places themselves, and booking a direct coach from London to Stratford is quite difficult these days.
NX have made significant cutbacks, Flixbus don't really service places outside the larger cities, Megabus doesn't exist, and the local bus network in South Warks isn't simple for non-locals to use.
GWR doesn't have the spare 80x to operate this service, so it will fall to Chiltern whatever.
Luckily, Project Churchward at GWR means their DMUs are due to be replaced, and spare stock may then be available for service expansions on Chiltern, including an Oxford to Stratford shuttle.
Regarding the new development at Long Marston, I find it quite likely that the developers can subsidise the provision of a new railway station - maybe WMR can extend services from Worcester, or given the ability to segregate services from mainline rail with the disused railway alignment, perhaps you could use a light rail based shuttle to Honeybourne instead.
In an ideal world, the developers would fund a rebuilt alignment inc. tunnel the whole way to Stratford, but I don't think the Section 106 revenues on a 4,500 home development would be enough to justify that.
You could think about extending to the proposed southern site with the S106 money and build a temporary station similar to Heathrow Junction there, but I fear it may become permanent.
I totally agree that a through line is preferential, but I think it needs more than S106 on 4.5k houses to fund it, and Government regeneration funding probably won't be forthcoming as it's not in a remotely deprived area.
