This map dates from after the closure of the majority of the Midland & Great Northern Joint network in 1959. There are a few stubs from these left on here but most of these went in their mid 1960s. There has been the idea floated of (re)opening a line from County School to Fakenham & then Holt, this joining up the preserved railways and forming a circular route but how actually useful that might be is not clear to me - or indeed how easy.

I have had a quick look through the raw data for the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).

I couldn't see any real funnies such as fares above the theoretical maximum. However, this did show up that all the journeys have a start point of London, which may or may not be representative.There are a variety of shorter ones such as Reading, Didcot, & Oxford, and some longer ones such as Bristol, Cardiff, & Plymouth. Using the capital or a single major city as the sole starting point has not been followed for all of the operators studied though.

It is all done on single fares which can be distorting what people really pay for routes where a return is only a little more than a single and which most people would buy especially where no advances are made available. This is a common issue that arises in international fare comparisons and being a singular UK^▸ (United Kingdom) wrinkle rarely gets specifically accounted for.

Some of the price data used in this study has been challenged by Simon Calder, who has apparently ploughed through some of the backing data.

As the linked report says: "Victor Thévenet, the rail policy manager and author of the report, told me: “Data collection was carried out in August for September ticket sales. At the time of data gathering, we found prices [for the London-Milton Keynes trip] ranged from £15 to £74.”

Yet the the maximum you can pay for a standard class fare is according to Avanti West Coast is an Anytime single between Euston to Milton Keynes for £24.20. (All operator fare is £24.80.)

This may only be a single example and relates to Avanti but it puts a question mark over it as to how the data was gathered.

The 'concept' of a new road from the north / eastern side of Didcot to the east of Abingdon and then onto Oxford rather than its precise details has been around for decades - pre the Second World War in fact, alongside such other as yet unbuilt schemes such as a Marcham bypass.

Post WW2 there was general dithering about it between Berkshire & Oxfordshire, it being an overall priority for neither party. Fleetingly considered as a route for the A34 the version as built killed it off for about 30 years before it re-entered the 'review and report' cycle again. The last 10 years of procrastination was initially as to how it could fit in with an Oxford-Cambridge expressway.

There is also a single Oxford to Euston service at 0754, calling at Didcot only.

First bus do offer tap on / off arrangements in some areas which don't involve paper tickets.

The report though is unclear as to what happened to the paper ticket, ie was it lost, never picked up, even never properly issued etc.

The lift provision seems sized more in mind of the need to meet the needs of a limited people with mobility issues that make them unable or uncomfortable to use escalators rather than be the major method of access with luggage. Banks of large automatic lifts as found at Underground stations without escalators might have been more appropriate for this purpose. Reported elsewhere that it can currently take 15 minutes by lift from surface level to platforms which is a long time. Might be quicker than this now to go via the new Bakerloo Line access but that adds a lot of walking.

Unfortunately the lift capacity to get to the Elizabeth line at Paddington is inadequately sized to be able to cope with the full number of people with large luggage items. It also requires the use of two lifts - one to get to the ticket hall level and another after the barriers to get to the platform.

Indeed there is a arrival and departure pair of Didcot semis @ platform 14 around the time I am writing this (12:50 & 13:08) - at least accoring to Realtime Trains.

Also stops at Platform 14 @ Reading.

Apparently in this case 

Fortunately for those concerned this advice was wrong. GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) on social.media corrected this to them running between Reading & Didcot Parkway as would be expected in this kind of disruption.

An Australian study analysed fare evasion into 4 categories: accidental, "not my fault", calculated risk taker, and career evaders. The attached figure gives some characteristics of each type.

The people in question are claiming that they are in the not at fault category; they had no intention to evade but this happened because the barriers to buying a correct ticket (complicated interactions between the poor naming of types of ticket, time of day, complicated railcard restrictions varying on what day of the week or month of the year it is) led them to buying an inappropriate one.

Northern (& apparently the legal system to date) are treating them as calculated risk takers. They picked from a list of train times and bought a ticket only offered for a later train but deliberately used it on an earlier one when it had not been offered. They knew what they were doing and the risk they were taking, and maybe did it regularly.

For any specific individual case either of these could be the "right" description. However, it makes sense to attempt to reduce the not my faulters by better design of fare systems. They aren't where the bulk of revenue is being lost.

According to Wikipedia the current arrangements of a £12 minimum before 10am have been in place since 17 May 2009, although there were varying sometimes more complicated minimum fare arrangements going right back to the start of the card, 10am becoming the boundary in 1986.

The no minimum in July and August (whatever the rules otherwise in force at the time) goes right back to 1978.

The outside slope to platform 1 is not signposted within the barriered part of the station as far as I am aware. I have directed people that way on occasion. You also often also see people struggling down the stairs with heavy loads from platforms 2-5 as they haven't seen the lift further down. For going up, the lift in the passageway is more obvious.

Off peak day return from Didcot to High Wycombe not via London is £42.70. (Set by GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway))

Off peak day return from Reading to High Wycombe via Oxford is £32.80. (Set by XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)))

Also the any permitted off peak day return from Didcot to High Wycombe is  ... £42.70.