Cotswold Line redoubling: 2008 - 2011

[whole diary]

[stebbo]

Well I'm off to use the Cotswold Line tomorrow for the first time since the redoubling to Evesham, so hopefully trains will be on time.

I had to sign off some expenses for a colleague who went from Cheltenham to London the other week. ^130 odd and takes longer - appalling.

I suppose they'll try and jack up the fares on the Cotswold Line soon.

[super tm]

I suppose they'll try and jack up the fares on the Cotswold Line soon.

This has been covered before.  They cannot jack up the fares as most of them are Anytime Day returns which are regulated.  Its just a quirk of privatisation that the cheltenham route had anytime open (1 month) returns which were not regulated and the cotswold route had anytime day return fares which were regulated and could only increase by a set amount each teay.

[Btline]

Stebbo's post makes shocking reading, which will only get worse when Water Eaton opens and the Reading works start. It is of course, good that Chiltern sacrifice profits to encourage car sharing.

And now, with Haddingham and Thame parkway being branded as "Oxford's New Station", with 41 minutes journey time and 30% cheaper fares, frustrated commuters may desert the Cotswold line in unprecedented numbers.

[willc]

Of course you can push up regulated fares above the headline average, thanks to the flexing mechanism, so long as you average out increases within a TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) across a basket of regulated fares.

And it has happened before on the Cotswold Line, three or four years ago, when peak day returns into Oxford went up by 10 to 11 per cent, eg Moreton-in-Marsh Oxford from ^9.90 to ^11, in a year when the average rise was about 6 per cent.

And now, with Haddingham and Thame parkway being branded as "Oxford's New Station", with 41 minutes journey time and 30% cheaper fares, frustrated commuters may desert the Cotswold line in unprecedented numbers.

Your fantasies become ever more fantastic. What on earth has a parkway station 15 miles east of Oxford (and which would more logically be branded the new station for Aylesbury) got to do with the Cotswold Line? Astonishingly, there are people who do not see a long drive in a car, with the attendant issues of congestion and pollution, to be a necessary prelude to making a train journey.

[IanL]

New chainlink fences going up at Charlbury to close off the access from the inductrial estate that was used during the construction of the new platform.

Steps from Platform 1 (new platform) over the footbridge still closed off and have never been opened.

[jebeale]

I find the tone of the debate on here recently rather confrontational . Can I just summarise where I think we are?

Firstly, no-one from the western end of the line should be advocating reductions in the level of service at stations such as Kingham, Charlbury and Hanborough. It is obvious that there is huge demand from these stations and many are regular commuters paying huge sums of money fopr their season tickets which helps to keep services running. They actually deserve a better service, with more seats and more parking, in particular.

Equally, it is also true that there is significant supressed demand at the western end of the line, not just for services to London, by the way. That's not just my opinion as a local from that area, but it was also stated in the West Midlands RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy). The problem is inconvenient stations, expensive and limited parking, slow services and poor connections. Frequency of services used to be an issue but that has largely been addressed with the exception of services to Cheltenham and Gloucester.

In terms travel to London, yes, people are put off living in the area and commuting precisely because of this and faster services would generate more demand. Some people do drive to Warwick Parkway, especially from the Evesham area. The A46 now makes that possible and is much more reliable than it was now that the M40 junction has its bypass. Very few, except possibly from north of Worcester would travel to Birmingham International due to traffic and the level of fares. Quite a few from Malvern and Ledbury drive to Cheltenham or Gloucester. Almost everyone from Hereford uses the connecting service via Newport, which is generally quicker, and more frequent. No doubt some will use the direct services via Chiltern Trains from Kidderminster. Worcester may be a relatively small city but has circa 100,000 inhabitants now, and the Malvern area has something like 35,000. Add to that Pershore Evesham and Droitwich and you have a significant catchment.

What the western end of the line needs is a more varied stopping pattern, particularly at peak hours, to bring the journey times down to around 2 hours or less from Worcester to Paddington, for an example. To compensate, I recognise that additional services would have to run at the eastern end of the line. An example of this would be all stations to Moreton-in Marsh, then non-stop to Oxford, Reading then Paddington. Connect this into a Moreton-Paddington service serving places like Kingham, Charlbury and Hanborough.

Unfortunately the recently completed redoubling scheme will not allow this to happen, as we have been left with a short, but significant single line from Charlbury to Wolvercote Junction. I regret that this will limit us to the current pattern of service for the foreseeable future, with just minor improvements to times. But lets just agree that we would all like to see more trains, faster trains and better car parking and stp sniping at each othere legicitomate arguments!

As far as the comments about Water Eaton Parkway are concerned, I am less able to comment about the local issues. However I would observe that Chiltern have been very smart in understanding the needs of regular commuters in needing parkway facilities (Warwick Parkway, Aylesbury Vale Parkway and other stations developed along the route). They have also successfully used infrastruture development as a lever to achieve advantage in the franchise negotiations. So, good luck to them! I have no doubt that Water Eaton Parkway will be very successful and it may have a negative impact on the Cotswold line as there will be some commuters that will put up with some traffic delays if the fares are lower and parking plentiful. So, why don't FGW^▸ (First Great Western) play the same game? They will be bidding for a new franchise soon. What if they were to offer to develop their own parkway scheme, west of Oxford. Would there be a suitable site for this (someone with local knowledge please comment) perhaps between Wolvercote Jc and Hanborough with good access to the A44? Maybe combine that with full or partial doubling to Charlbury, and use this as the natural terminus for Paddington-Oxford fast trains.

[ChrisB]

IT wouldn't get off the ground if Chiltern win their public enquiry.

I still don't see that there's latent demand for regular fast services from Worcester & Malvern to Paddington. To other destinations nearer, I don't doubt.

[Btline]

Thanks Jebeale for your balanced post. I agree with most of what you say. I think i've suggested a similar service pattern before. But be prepared to be told in a vitriolic manner that there is no demand! Despite the fact that people are prepared to drive for miles to go elsewhere! I don't agree with your parkway station idea. Even if FGW^▸ (First Great Western) wake up and build a car park at Hanborough, fustrated commuters will still desert to Chiltern for the plethora of reasons given above.

Hopefully the OXF^» (Oxford - next trains) resignalling will mean extra double track so OXF fast can extend to Charlbury at least, allowing Hanborough calls to be axed from key trains.

[Richard Fairhurst]

What the western end of the line needs is a more varied stopping pattern, particularly at peak hours, to bring the journey times down to around 2 hours or less from Worcester to Paddington, for an example. To compensate, I recognise that additional services would have to run at the eastern end of the line. An example of this would be all stations to Moreton-in Marsh, then non-stop to Oxford, Reading then Paddington. Connect this into a Moreton-Paddington service serving places like Kingham, Charlbury and Hanborough.

I don't doubt that a two-hour service from Worcester to Paddington is a laudable aim. But economically it would be a huge gamble for the GW^▸ (Great Western) franchise holder to rely on custom from Moreton and further west to fill an InterCity-class train. Any solution which doesn't omit stops at the busiest station on the line (Charlbury), and the also very busy Kingham, would be much easier to justify.

This should be possible. The 18.27 from Paddington used to reach Charlbury at 19.29 and Shrub Hill at 20.26 (figures completely from memory but I think that's right). Since then we have had the Heathrow Express to slow things down. But, on the other hand, we also have a redoubled line; we should hopefully be getting the Adelantes back, which accelerate more quickly and have powered doors for reduced station dwell times; and further into the future, CrossRail should enable a recast of the Paddington/Heathrow/Reading axis. In particular, though Reading stops are (rightly) now part of the furniture for all Cotswold Line trains, there is no reason why Slough's service needs to be provided by trains destined for Hereford.

The 17.22 currently takes 53 minutes from Paddington to Oxford (the fastest London-Oxford train, I think?). Its Paddington-Reading run is, however, 3 minutes slower than many other HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) are timetabled. So 50 minutes Paddington-Oxford is already achievable in an HST. (An Adelante could do it in 48 or even less - Voyagers are two minutes quicker Reading-Oxford, and I presume Adelantes are similar.) Add two minutes at Oxford and 14 minutes to Charlbury (HST timing without a Hanborough stop) and you're back to 1hr06 to Charlbury in an HST, which is only marginally slower than the old 1hr59 Worcester trains. In an Adelante I suspect you could match the old timing.

So let's get away from this idea that the only way to get faster trains to Worcester is by removing stops at the busy Oxfordshire stations. The real win will come by using the increased reliability provided by redoubling to tighten up the timetable both east and west of Oxford.

Edit to add: Current fastest Charlbury-Shrub Hill is 53 minutes by Turbo (0921 from Paddington M-F, doesn't stop at Honeybourne or Pershore) and an Adelante could easily manage that. Fastest current HST appears to be 58 minutes (on a Sunday service stopping at Pershore but not Honeybourne). In other words, an Adelante could do 1hr59 Paddington-Worcester, and an HST could do 2hr04, on existing timings and without omitting Charlbury or Kingham.

But for this to happen, Worcester business leaders, MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament) and councillors will need to make a fuss - just as their counterparts in Plymouth did to get a sub-3hr service to Paddington.

[jebeale]

I would totally agree that Adelantes running an accelerated timetable including all the current stops is an excellent solution off-peak. I would also agree that the Reading stops should remain for connections and that most Slough stops could be avoided.

Though I would like to see Worcester-London under 2 hours, a reliable 2hrs 10min and 2hrs 30 to Malvern is likely to be the best we can hope for and would be acceptable to most. Replace Turbos by Adelantes on most diagrams, and I would be happy.

[ChrisB]

And I bet thre'd be less than half a dozen on any train going to London.

[stebbo]

Just to add to this:

1. I understand the arguments pro and con trains with more or less stops on the Cotswold line - all I would say is that having lived in Hereford and now north of Cheltenham, so an Evesham user, I still believe there is a need for at least one faster train in each direction on the Cotswold line;

2. As for a Parkway station on the Great Western line, how about the old Yarnton Junction? The land next door is now an old gravel pit and you could have access direct off the A40 (and good excuse to do some more redoubling).

[FellowTraveller]

Stebbo, not sure if you've ever attempted to travel on the A40 towards Oxford in the morning but unless you are east of Witney by 6:00 you are in for an a slow crawl to get to the North Cotswold BMW dealership/Wolvercote roundabout frequently reaching a top speed of 15mph. (Return leg in the evening similarly painful. For the last 4 years I've avoided this route unless travelling between 11:00 to 15:00 or between 20:00 to 5:00.) Anything that adds to the traffic burden on the A40 west of Oxford and you might see gridlock as far back as Burford!

[Btline]

Some sensible suggestions.

I've always though a 180 or HST^▸ (High Speed Train) could do Pad - Oxf in 50 mins. Axe the Hanborough stop and you can be at Charlbury shortly after. Worcester and Hereford could do with a fast evening peak train for headline timings to get people back on the line. Ditto in the morning.

[JayMac]

A warm welcome to the forum, FellowTraveller.