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From the Witney Gazette (http://www.witneygazette.co.uk/news/10931531.Railway_line_could_hold_answer_to_A40_problem/?ref=ar):

Which roughly translates as "Todays problems, Yesterdays solutions."

Have they already done a feasibility study that concluded that improving junctions along the A40 is the best way forward, or is the county council leader coming to that conclusion without such background work (that's certainly the implication)

There does indeed need to be careful choice of feasibility studies made, but they're a vital way forward to ensure that much bigger spends are properly targeted, once there is the smattering of a chance that a study will lead to a better informed and perhaps different conclusion about the way forward.   Of course, if there's no prospect of any way forward from options studied, there's little point in studying.

I can recall being faced with the need for studies here in Wiltshire for the TransWilts which at the time looked like a near-impossible hurdles with a significant price tag - what a relief that a way was found through co-operation between the various parties involved to get over those hurdles, even if the studies (or necessity) used various theoretical methods which have themselves been discussed and argued over as we've gone forward, better informed towards the decision made to raise services from under 1,400 to over 5,400 per annum.

My knowledge of the area is a bit dated, but 23 years ago I periodically had to make the journey eastwards along the A40 from Witney in the early morning rush hour and was taken aback even then as to how long the queues were. And a quick look at the map made me wonder why a short link to Peartree wasn't built to redistribute traffic more efficiently.  (Would need to ensure Pertree has the capacity to take the extra traffic though.)

So whilst I am inclined to support rail over road, one has to recognise the many of those queuing will not be heading into the centre of Oxford, and many won't be starting their journey from Witney. So maybe a short section of new road would be a cost effective way of relieving many people's daily commute.

In a similar way, a relatively modest investment has improved the M5 J19, and significantly eased (so we're led to believe) the daily queues coming out of Portishead. Whilst some of those drivers will be headed towards the centre of Bristol, many more will be headed elsewhere, and won't be able to benefit directly from the railway (except to the extent that it will further ease the traffic). So, we do need to have a balanced view.   

Hudspeth before becoming leader of the council held the transport portfolio for many years so probably knows the thinking as much as anyone. The council's current position is not to permit further development to prevent a rail option in the future, but doing anything more positive is a long-term aspiration and no more.

The original route doesn't have a lot going for it really. Single throughout, it has been built over it several places, including a stretch of road, and crossed the A40 on the level. The old station sites are gone, and don't go well with the way the places have developed anyway. It met the OW&W at Yarnton, not the best place for capacity even assuming re-doubling.

A new light rail route might be cheaper and better but any through route route into Oxford would be the main difficulty.

Witney-Oxford currently supports a fully commercial bus service with frequencies up to 9 an hour.

The comment by didcotdean that "the railway crossed the A40 on the level" is incorrect, The A40 crosses the railway by a bridge that was rebuilt to modern standards a few years ago to preserve at least part of the old track route. There are however many places where the rail route has been built over including both Eynsham and Witney.
I attended the meeting and with regard to Grahame's comments on a study, it was pointed out that consultants Mott Macdonald carried out a study into reopening the Witney Line for the county council in 2001. Many of the ssumptions used in that study have since proved to be very wrong on such points as population growth has been much more than predicted in the study with much more growth likely under the emerging West Oxon local plan. In addition, commuting for work has grown enormously as traditional Witney work places such as Witney Blankets have closed and a greater proportion of a much larger poulation commute to the Oxford area and South Oxon (Culham, Harwell and Milton Park etc). It is therfore thought that the 2001 report that predicted a cost benefit ration of 1.8 for a scheme to reopen the Witney line would now be much higher with updated figures. An updated report should, it is thought, cost much less than a completely new study.
A report of the meeting is now on the Witney Gazette web site.

Must have been misremembering the situation relating to the A40 (or maybe what I remember reading elsewhere was itself wrong), so thanks for the correction on that point. My main aim though was that consideration of a modern route rather than resurrection of the old is likely to result in a better cost benefit.

The constraints to expanding housing provision in Oxford which have been in place for decades and consequential expansion in hitherto small towns has heightened the amount of commuting on insufficient infrastructure, some of which are used for long distance travel (road and rail). This has been clearly highlighted this month with the flooding closing or restricting routes and the resultant effect on that remaining.

The current county rail strategy for Witney as I recall considers little more in the immediate term than improving bus service to Hanborough.

I think that didcot dean may have been thinking of the crossing of the B4044 near the toll bridge at Eynsham.  This could now be a major obstacle to reopening on the original alignment.  The track bed has been obliterated by a roundabout between the B4449 and B4044 and part of the B4449 has been constructed on the old alignment.  I think that there is also a small industrial development in the same area.  There is also the major problem of crossing the A40 Witney Bypass dual carriageway if the railway is actually to get into Witney - this road was built after the railway closed.  Possibly, a railway would have to terminate on the south side of the bypass about ^ mile from the town centre and currently with no easy access to it.

Thanks for that update, Andrew1939.  :)

For the sake of completeness, I'll quote that Witney Gazette article (http://www.witneygazette.co.uk/news/wgheadlines/10946688.Tram_trains_could_be_answer_to_A40_gridlock/) here:

Meanwhile campaign group Witney Oxford Transport is calling for the Witney to Oxford line to be reopened to allieviate pressure on the congested A40.
 The line closed to passenger trains in 1962 and continued as a freight-only line until 1970 when that too ended and the track was ripped up.
 A section of the line at Eynsham was subsequently built on, making restoring the line a much more difficult and expensive operation.
 As reported in yesterday^s Oxford Mail, a likely solution to the A40 problems is a guided bus system, similar to one already in operation in Cambridge, which will enable bus services to speed past traffic queues on a dedicated route.
 Oxfordshire has been given a ^35m Government grant which would cover the lion^s share of the ^40m the scheme is expected to cost.

The above is a quote from today's Witney Gazette.
http://www.witneygazette.co.uk/news/wgheadlines/11456948._We_ll_be_the_centre_of_the_rail_universe_/

Read a further article at http://www.witneygazette.co.uk/news/11454679.Cash_secured_for_improvements_to_commuter_routes/ along with the revelation from the managing director of Stagecoach Oxfordshire that the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway has been "hugely successful", thus proving conclusively that I've been living in a parallel universe for at least the past decade.

Let's face it, guided bus-ways are provided because politicians won't stump up the money for proper transport. Makes you proud doesn't it to live in a place where proper environmentally clean rapid transport seems to be anathema..

Even if the blocked section of the line could be diverted, surely there would be no way of fitting in services in between Cotswold Line trains (assuming that they would join at a rebuilt Yarnton Junction). Would a feasible alternative be to re-open Yarnton as a "parkway" station (or is Hanborough already considered to fulfil that function)?

Should this pipe-dream come true, can I plea for any potential through trains for London be diverted to a different terminus? I would dearly love to say I have travelled on the Witney-Euston express!

Except that the Cambridge one cost far more than reinstating the railway!  Except that the initial estimate said it would be cheaper!

If that is true then pressure groups such as Railfuture should be shouting this message out loud & clear

Of course Stagecoach would say the Cambridge Busway has been a success. It is the major operator. Similarly, Cambridgeshire County Council will also say it is a success.Politically it could not say anything else. However I have been looking back over the Cambidge Busway thread on this site and it is nothing but reports of delays, massive overspendings, a poor safety record that would not have been seen with a heavy rail or tram project and most recently structural failure with a projected ^20M repair bill leading to yet more action between the contractor and the county. This sounds much more like a disaster to me than a success.
The busways recently constructed, i.e. Cambridge, Luton and Fareham/Gosport all run on the trackbed of former heavy rail lines. Where in Oxfordshire is such a line suitable and useable for a busway? The only option seems to be to build the proposed busway alongside the A40 leading to substantial land acquisition costs.
Returning to the WOT, it has been campaiging for an update to a professional consultant report commissioned by Oxon C.C. about 12 years that discounted a heavy rail solution on the line of the old Witney line as being too expensive. It has not voiced any paarticular preference but I think most of its members would like to see a rail option. In the past 12 years there has been a complete change in rail viability and WOT believes the economics and attractions of reopening the Witney line in some form would produce a much higher CBR figure than 12 years ago. I have also seen another proposal by a member of CPRE for a much cheaper heavy rail option whereby the new line would leave the Cotswold line a few miles east of Hanborough and run south west over fairly level land crossing only the River Evenlode and3 minor roads to run just north of the A40 and terminating near the recently contructed A4095 Witney perimeter road where a substantial P & R car park could be built with easy accessess from Carterton and the West via the now approved Shores green road cominbg off the Witney by-pass. It would only be around 8 miles long and cost considerably less for similar benefits. This route would mean no demolition work and only low grade agricultural land acquisition and minimum bridge work. Moreover it would pass centrally through a massive new gravel extraction site to be opened about midway between Eynsham, Hanborough and Freeland. This, at present will mean massive HGV movements from the site onto the grossly overcrowded A40 taking gravel etc eastwards through Oxfordshire to Buck, Berks and other south east areas. A sendible planning sytem would require the gravel extracton companies to pay for a loading loop together with a part cost of constructing the new line so that gravel could be taken out by rail. The main disadvantage would be that the CL would need to be redoubled back to Wolvercote to cope with the additional traffic and by terminating the line to the east of Witney it would not be practical to extend the line westwards beyond Witney to Carterton.
My concern is that a study for the A40 relief should sensibly investigate all possibilities, heavy rail, light rail/tram, monorail, a further recent proposal, busway or simply dedicated bus lanes along the A40 and a proposal be picked from such a report. It seems to me that someone in Oxon C.C. has picked on a busway as the answer without a proper study of options being carried out.
 

Initial estimates of cost for the Cambridge route were ^50 million for guided busway and ^54 million for restored rail.  The guided busway price kept going up and ended up around ^181 million.   Of course, it's quite possible that the cost of restoring the railway would also have risen from initial concept through to completion ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridgeshire_Guided_Busway

http://www.castiron.org.uk

P.S.  I seem to recall that one of the big attractions of the guided busway was that it could attract external funding from sources not available to the restoration of the railway - so again from a local budget viewpoint, it's not as clear cut as you might think

Hope you don't mind me mentioning this, but wouldn't this thread be more suited to the "Campaign for new and improved services" Board.   Perhaps, if the Moderators agree, they might move the topic.   Thanks.

Yes, that would seem appropriate

Would this help much, given the potential for conflicting movements at both Yarnton and Wolvercote junctions? If a second track is built, might it be better to keep the Cotswold and Witney routes as separate single lines. If the new "Port Meadow" loop is/could be bi-directional, then the Witney line could feed directly into that, so you would simplify operation and only need one new point into the bargain?

That would be a sensible thing to do operationally, but I fear it would add a lot to the cost and be very difficult to engineer.  I very much doubt approval would be given to build on any part of Port Meadow, then you have Wolvercote village, the A34 and A40, Wytham Hill, the River Thames and a large flood plain to contend with.  A project already very unlikely to happen due to costs in my opinion would then be an awful lot harder to get off of the starting blocks.

Sorry, I meant the new track that is currently being (re)built - I just dubbed it "Port Meadow" because it is on that side of the lines; I expect it is called the "down relief line" or something officially.

"down Frieight" I believe

Oh right, so you'd use the same route as far as Yarnton Junction but have a separate, independent line that would feed into the loop somehow?  Yes, that could work - good idea - though might prevent/complicate Cotswold Line redoubling over the same bit of track.  Apologies for not reading your previous post thoroughly.

It's the 'Down Passenger Loop' formerly known as the 'Down Goods Loop'.  I presume it will keep that name when extended, unless it becomes the new 'Down Main' and the current 'Down Main' becomes the 'Down Passenger Loop'.

I understand that the problem with redoubling the line to Wolvercote is the lack of signalling capacity in the Oxford area. Logically, when the Oxford area resignalling is done to cope with the electrification and rebuilding of Oxford station etc., the Wolvercote junction will not be redoubled. Instead it will have what they call "passive" provision for redoubling of Wolvercot junction. That means redoubling might not happen until well into the 2020s. Presumably it is the lack of funding that has resulted in this situation in the same way as the Oxford rebuilding will have no provision of a second through Up line at Oxford station, only "passive " provision for providing a second through line at a later date that would also probably be well into the 2020s

Exactly - so at the current north end of the down loop you either continue to merge right onto the main line, or carry straight on along the Witney line.