Plan for further CP6 Cotswold Line Improvements

[The Planner]

Crossover is in the wrong place for it to do that without a shunt to the north end of the station. Not ideal.

 

[Andyjs247]

Crossover is in the wrong place for it to do that without a shunt to the north end of the station. Not ideal.

Actually they could just turn round in the platform if necessary - I was forgetting it's bidi signalled. It would mean going "wrong" line one way between OXP and Oxford North Jn - not that far. And the siding could be used if needed to put something out of the way and avoid tying up too much capacity.

 

[The Planner]

The Stone terminal siding is DBSchenker, Chiltern have to pay them to use it when they stable overnight there as they can't in the platform as if work needs to take place it messes with the axle counters. If the service ramps up as much as proposed I wouldn't really want to put bi-di moves in to be honest.

 

[jimm]

What would the point of sending Paddington trains up there be anyway? Can't see a need for it given all the other trains there will be using Parkway once East West opens, whereas going to Hanborough clearly helps to meet growing demand from West Oxfordshire.

 

[route:oxford]

What would the point of sending Paddington trains up there be anyway? Can't see a need for it given all the other trains there will be using Parkway once East West opens, whereas going to Hanborough clearly helps to meet growing demand from West Oxfordshire.

Reading?

It's quite a popular destination being the commercial centre of the Thames Valley.

 

[jimm]

Reading?

It's quite a popular destination being the commercial centre of the Thames Valley.

At least 2tph off East West will be going to Reading anyway under the current service plans, and possibly 3tph if XC starts to send some Manchester-Reading trains that way.

 

[Andyjs247]

What would the point of sending Paddington trains up there be anyway? Can't see a need for it given all the other trains there will be using Parkway once East West opens, whereas going to Hanborough clearly helps to meet growing demand from West Oxfordshire.

Well it could be a quick win; primarily it is somewhere to send trains to turn to avoid tying up too much platform capacity in Oxford. It might just be an interim solution if there isn't all the funding to put in a turnback at HND or it is delayed. Or if EWR gets delayed further (and there don't end up being through services to BDM for a while).

It might be an option for a late evening service anyway. Currently the last train to OXP leaves MYB at 2310 which feels quite early. From OXP the last return is 2245 or even earlier (2215) on a Saturday. That seems too early for me - Chiltern say it is something they will look at, it depends on diagramming etc and maybe it will change once their depot opens in Banbury and they can run through to Oxford later in the year. But there does seem to be an opportunity to provide a later service.

 

[jimm]

Well it could be a quick win; primarily it is somewhere to send trains to turn to avoid tying up too much platform capacity in Oxford. It might just be an interim solution if there isn't all the funding to put in a turnback at HND or it is delayed. Or if EWR gets delayed further (and there don't end up being through services to BDM for a while).

It might be an option for a late evening service anyway. Currently the last train to OXP leaves MYB at 2310 which feels quite early. From OXP the last return is 2245 or even earlier (2215) on a Saturday. That seems too early for me - Chiltern say it is something they will look at, it depends on diagramming etc and maybe it will change once their depot opens in Banbury and they can run through to Oxford later in the year. But there does seem to be an opportunity to provide a later service.

You could say perhaps to much of that, but once East West is open between Bicester and Bletchley, 2tph between MK/Bletchley and Oxford/Reading is a given, due to the size of the potential market, whether or not you can get to Bedford (a much smaller likely market to/from Oxon than the MK area) at that stage. So you've probably got the four Chiltern/E-W passenger trains each way per hour, one freight, an XC, plus random stone and MoD trains through Parkway from day one of East West operations.

But again this isn't the point of this thread. The Hanborough proposal isn't an either/or, as I see it. It's double track all the way from Wolvercot junction, to a three-platform Hanborough station, ie two main line platforms, plus a turnback platform, provided by rebuilding and extending the disused island platform. Electrification as well would be nice, but you can deliver an improved service in other ways without it, whether that is an Oxford/Cowley shuttle, or some 800s turning back there to maintain the 3tph frequency at times of the day when the Turbo is away further west up the line on halts duties.

And all as part of a package - just redoubling to Hanborough doesn't deliver the capacity to go to 2tph for Worcester without the extra double track through the Pershore area as well. And something needs to be done about the Worcester area. While the mechanical signals will probably go on forever with enough tic, the current track layout is an increasingly serious choke on capacity.

 

[The Planner]

It might be an option for a late evening service anyway. Currently the last train to OXP leaves MYB at 2310 which feels quite early. From OXP the last return is 2245 or even earlier (2215) on a Saturday. That seems too early for me - Chiltern say it is something they will look at, it depends on diagramming etc and maybe it will change once their depot opens in Banbury and they can run through to Oxford later in the year. But there does seem to be an opportunity to provide a later service.

Unless you start eating into the engineering access again (and leaving more mess behind....) then the latest you are going to be able to leave Marylebone is realistically 0000 or a little bit later.

 

[route:oxford]

There are later services from Paddington on a weekday to Oxford, don't forget that the coaches run all through the night too - and tend to be quicker than the Paddington services after 10pm too.

In the olden days, Thames Trains (owned by Go-ahead) had a deal with The Oxford Bus Company (owned by Go-ahead) where inbound return tickets from London were valid on the X90 service.