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If the UK government had contributed the additional money, it would have amounted to further subsidizing a Chinese investor’s leveraged buyout. The initial rescue plan was £900m of new money plus conversion of £1.7bn of existing debt to equity. The conversion of RBS’s part of those loans to...

Some basic passenger facilities are pretty dire at Oxford station. The men's toilets aren't great but the women's are clearly inadequate, with a long queue far into the concourse at many times of the day. Yes there are some more beyond the barrier but that doesn't really help. Improvement to...

In the early schematic representation of the new timetable service provision, not only did the weekday Cardiffs stop at Didcot, they didn't stop at Reading except in peaks, although that didn't survive into the next iteration.

Except at the weekends, when the Cardiff service stops hourly and the Swansea at the ends of the day. Not regularly stopping the Cardiffs on weekdays except at the ends of a day and a few on peak is a change from all the indicative stopping plans published over the years for this timetable...

In the 1980s because of the booming stock market many organisations with funded DB pensions largely invested in equities found themselves in significant surplus, at least by the actuarial rules of the time. They were then strongly encouraged into pension holidays by government action as any fund...

The story that went around at the time was that the 442 had some compartments because a high percentage of the first class passengers especially down at the Weymouth end were UKAEA or MoD/Royal Navy employees on business and they could hold semi-private discussions in them. Not sure this...

It doesn't work so well at the extremes, but F=C*2+30 isn't a bad approximation for most day temps and easy to do in the head. Celsius has been used in public weather forecasts from the Met Office since 1962.

There was a LCC concept in the mid 1980s to have trams running on the GCR alignment then still extant, with street running through the city centre where this had already gone. From memory it wasn't on the books for long.

IETs stopping at Didcot Parkway (from London anyway) have an announcement about changing there for Oxford, Banbury and the North. This is heard even on services that actually continue on to Oxford.

The 387s also routinely arrive early or recover from minor delays compared with the turbo-based timetable. On more than one occasion I've left Didcot 4 minutes late yet arrived at Reading on time for example.

East West Consortium Strategic Board itself seems to favour Didcot over Cowley for the final destination. Maybe they want a stop at Culham as well enroute ...

One possible factor to depress the Didcot usage figures for the latter part of this period was the more limited parking available than usual, as the multi-storey car park was built. If this was significant it won't work its way fully out of the figures until 2019-20, although alternatives may...

Similarly for the Oxford Evening Out, which is also no longer available although still listed on www.railrover.org

The A4310 road from the A34 as far as the roundabout where you would turn left for the car park was constructed in the 1970s along with the A34 dual carriageway itself. Originally it was national speed limit all the way to that point, but the subsequent expansion of Didcot westwards has dropped...

Notable maybe that no road sign within Didcot mentions 'Parkway'. On the outskirts 'Town Centre' and 'Station' (or just double arrows) are on direction signs and closer in those placed either side of the station itself with the various access details are headed 'Didcot Station'.

Vice for "instead of" or “in place of" is a borrowing from Latin. Used in the military before the railway, although obsolete elsewhere.

The Saturday evening XX22/XX20 Oxfords load up quite well in my experience - a 5 Car 800 usually to the extent of last minute people standing not by choice, although not being rammed. After Slough (and later in the evening Maidenhead) there isn't normally a probem.

Indeed so, although this would also be outside the inner ring road. This is also somewhat of a return to the medieval core centre location, as opposed to what developed to the south in the 19th century, even before the coming of the railway.

Plus Leicester station is really on the south-eastern edge of the centre. It seems further out because over the last 50 years the gravity of the centre in particular for shopping has shifted over to the north-west side, with that close to the station in long term decline.

Between 19:00-20:00 GWR will be accepting Chiltern tickets to Oxford from Paddington, as will West Midlands from Euston to Birmingham and Cross Country from Banbury to Birmingham.