Oxford - Banbury (potential, fantasy, services)

[Tomnot27]

East west rail should allow more services like Cardiff/Bristol to Norwich/Ipswich as I feel this would be an effective use

Also it doubles up as a half hourly fast Oxford to Cambridge

 

[Starmill]

I can't imagine it would be popular to cut the Chiltern service to Birmingham, which seems to have been very successful, in favour of a slower and more indirect service via Oxford.

The only reason it has been popular is because the privatised industry has been charging too much for the fastest services between London and Birmingham. This is entirely in line with government policy and is exceedingly unlikely to change.

However, there is no reason, in the strategic and long-term sense you are talking about, for anyone travelling between central London and Birmingham city centre (plus a sizable chunk of the West Midlands, and places like Shropshire and North Wales where Chiltern sell tickets to) to do so via High Wycombe. This is the only reason it has been succesful. It would be much better to take all of those passengers away and have them travel on the WCML and use the Chiltern Mainline to serve Buckinghamshire and Warwickshire, and anywhere else where journeys to London Marylebone are the fastest way to central London.

 

[jimm]

The only reason it has been popular is because the privatised industry has been charging too much for the fastest services between London and Birmingham. This is entirely in line with government policy and is exceedingly unlikely to change.

However, there is no reason, in the strategic and long-term sense you are talking about, for anyone travelling between central London and Birmingham city centre (plus a sizable chunk of the West Midlands, and places like Shropshire and North Wales where Chiltern sell tickets to) to do so via High Wycombe. This is the only reason it has been succesful. It would be much better to take all of those passengers away and have them travel on the WCML and use the Chiltern Mainline to serve Buckinghamshire and Warwickshire, and anywhere else where journeys to London Marylebone are the fastest way to central London.

So where exactly should Chiltern's services from London finish? Solihull?

Should Stourbridge and Kidderminster lose their direct London services?

Should passengers not be able to avoid Virgin's peak fares from Birmingham if they want to?

Should Chiltern be told to end their services to Oxford?

 

[cle]

I think Chiltern serves both London/Birmingham, and the parts in between, pretty well and with plenty of capacity for the various flows.

There are some quite short formed trains too, so any increases are easily met, in time.

Provides welcome relief for Euston too, and for the tube, directs people to the Bakerloo where again, there is capacity.

 

[nw1]

Should Chiltern be told to end their services to Oxford?

Speaking as a non-local (and hence not fully aware of traffic in this area, so my assumptions might be wrong, though I've travelled on the London-High Wycombe section a couple of times) would the Chiltern Oxford services be more useful if they stopped at more stations between Oxford and London, as arguably the whole point of the link is to improve links between Oxford and the Chiltern area (High Wycombe, Beaconsfield, etc)? ISTR just one of the two stops at High Wycombe, for instance, and none stop at anywhere between there and London.

However I do see a point in the 'fast' services in the peak, when the Paddington route is presumably at capacity, as it allows more than 2 trains an hour Oxford<->London.

(I see the reason, it's basically trying to compete for the profitable Oxford-London market, but was just thinking philosophically that the route could be used to improve direct links to Oxford for places that currently don't have them)

 

[67018]

Given the way Chiltern run their services to wring as much possible capacity our of the line, the intermediate stations probably have a stopping service that will offer an interchange onto the Oxford train at High Wycombe or Haddenham. In the same way as the Birmingham connection from several stations is achieved by changing onto the following fast service at Bicester or Banbury.

Looking at some of the Oxford trains, if they had more stops they would get caught up by the following Birmingham train. The whole line relies on trains terminating or turning off just before the next one catches them up.