Charlbury station - facilities, services, improvements and incidents - merged posts

[whole diary]

[willc]

David Cameron's research assistant has posted on the Charlbury.info website that Mike Carroll and Richard Rowland of FGW^▸ (First Great Western) will be back in town on Friday, April 4, at 7pm (venue tbc) for an update on issues raised at a public meeting held in January - see earlier thread An evening out in Charlbury

(Topic now linked to Calendar - Lee Fletcher.)

[willc]

The venue for Friday's meeting has now been confirmed as Charlbury Memorial Hall, in Browns Lane, at 7.15pm.

[IanL]

My notes on the redoubling are presented elsewhere so I wont repeat them. Meeting was only for 1 hour.

Interesting figures for the Cotswold line (not the thames valley) PPM^‡(resolve) was 61% for the CL in Dec/Jan, now up to 79%, still the worst performing FGW^▸ (First Great Western) line but catching up to the rest of the FGW network.

General consensus was that punctuality is improving but still needs work. Mike Carroll gave update on a list of irritants from the January meeting. 1.CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) stilll not working properly
2.Stopping with first class only on short platforms was expected to take a month to fully remove, now will be mid May. Agreed that the current situation where some trains regularly stop with standard on the platform (but sometimes dont) and some trains nearly always stop with first on the platform (but sometimes dont) is a pain in the neck and will be ended.
3. Carparking at Charlbury, needs integrated approach since BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) residuals own the waste land between the road and station, NR^» (Network Rail - home page) to look at doing this work along with the redoubling since it requires a lot of landfill.
4. Late trains stopping short/trains not completing full journey...no real answer yet.
5. Short forming trains...didnt get to ask, sorry.

Lots more questions but they were often about specific services and didnt really interest me.

All for now

[IanL]

Well, a few days past the meeting when all the positive news about improved punctuality and the redoubling was announced, and how are trains running: very poorly! Morning trains very late, cancellations most mornings, broken trains.

Oh but they have installed a cover to keep the rain off the Charlbury ticket machine.

[Lee]

Well, a few days past the meeting when all the positive news about improved punctuality and the redoubling was announced, and how are trains running: very poorly! Morning trains very late, cancellations most mornings, broken trains.

Oh but they have installed a cover to keep the rain off the Charlbury ticket machine.

You have an interesting revision this morning as well.

09:37 Worcester Foregate Street to London Paddington due 11:58
This train will be started from Oxford.It will no longer call at: Worcester Foregate Street, Worcester Shrub Hill, Pershore, Evesham, Honeybourne, Moreton-In-Marsh, Kingham, Charlbury and Hanborough.This is due to an earlier broken down train.

[IanL]

Lee,

This is the return journey of a train going to Worcester, the 0821 from Charlbury to Worcester which was running late due to the earlier broken train. so terminated at Oxford, ie cancelled from Oxford to WOS^» (Worcester Shrub Hill - next trains), therefore the return journey also cancelled until Oxford.

Two cancellations for the price of one broken train...how can FGW^▸ (First Great Western) promote this...."Improved efficiency"

Ian L

[IanL]

The broken down train....I suspect this was the 0637 HST^▸ (High Speed Train) from Charlbury, reported as 57min late into Oxford and only running with one engine working.

[swlines]

That one had it's Didcot Parkway stop axed and arrived Paddington 64 minutes late.

[gwr2006]

Well, a few days past the meeting when all the positive news about improved punctuality and the redoubling was announced, and how are trains running: very poorly! Morning trains very late, cancellations most mornings, broken trains.

Oh but they have installed a cover to keep the rain off the Charlbury ticket machine.

For the record, the broken down train that delayed services into and out of Paddington this morning was a freight train that broke down at West Ealing so was nothing to do with First Great Western. 

The canopy on the ticket machine was requested by local people at the meeting in January so FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have given them what they wanted.

[IanL]

GWR2006,

Sorry not used to these smileys etc, the last comment was slightly tongue in cheek, yes we asked for the ticket machine to work in the rain, the cover was FGWs^▸ (First Great Western) response promised back in Jan.....it arrived just (the week) before the followup meeting.

We also asked in January for improved CIS^▸ (Customer Information System), punctuality, reliability and while last week it looked as though some of those things were improving and some hadnt changed the point of my post was that straight after the follow up meeting it has all gone to pot again, now if the follow up meeting had been this coming friday FGW might not have got the same reception.

As for the broken down train, due to the limited information available to passengers waiting on platforms or checking the computers before walking down to the station it is difficult to assess whether the delays are due to the broken down freight train elsewhere on the network (agree that this is not FGWs fault) or the heavily delayed broken train on our local bit of line (FGWs fault).

[Chris from Nailsea]

Thanks, IanL!

I do agree with the need for proper covers for the ticket machines, if they are going to work the morning after an overnight downpour, for example!  I have sounded off about this may perhaps have mentioned this once or twice, re: the machines at Nailsea & Backwell, which also became soggy and unusable after a wet night!

(See http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=1297.msg7126#msg7126 for details!)

Chris 

[IndustryInsider]

3. Carparking at Charlbury, needs integrated approach since BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) residuals own the waste land between the road and station, NR^» (Network Rail - home page) to look at doing this work along with the redoubling since it requires a lot of landfill.

I wonder whether any thought has been given to solving Charlbury's parking problems by constructing a second car park on the other side of the track? Now that the station will be receiving a second platform linked by a footbridge, there would be enough room behind that new platform to build a single row car park extending the length of the platform (and slightly beyond) which would give the station another 60 spaces (approx.). As far as I can see it is land owned by NR. There's already an access road to this area from behind the nursery which leads down to the sewage works - it would need improving, but is only a short section of road about the same length as the current station approach.

The area I am referring to is located on the link below. The access road curves behind the three roofed buildings to join the B4437.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=charlbury&ie=UTF8&ll=51.872358,-1.490313&spn=0.001166,0.003457&t=h&z=19

[Richard Fairhurst]

Press release from FGW^▸ (First Great Western): http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/About-Us/Media-centre/First-Great-Western-has-altered-the-time-of-two-key-services-in-the-North-Cotswolds

First Great Western is informing customers travelling to and from the North Cotswolds of changes to the train timetable from Monday 4 March.

To improve train performance and to build greater resilience in the Oxford area alterations to train times are to be implemented.

• The 0715 Charlbury to London Paddington service will depart earlier from Charlbury (0712) and Hanborough (0721). This train arrives in Oxford at 0730 and all other times as published.
• The 0548 London Paddington to Worcester Foregate Street ceases to call at Radley and departs earlier from Oxford (0653) and Hanborough (0702). All other times are as published.
• The 0549 Reading to Banbury service will now call additionally at Radley and arrives in Oxford at 0643. All other times are as published.
  

First Great Western's Managing Director, Mark Hopwood said:

"Due to a number of challenges performance on our services in this area has not been up to the standard we expect to deliver for our customers.

^We are working with Network Rail to improve the situation and these changes are just one of many ways we are working to provide a more punctual service.^

[autotank]

The cynic in me says - Great more slowing down on an already slow route!

But if it can make the service more reliable, which is what most passengers rate the railway on then it's probably a sensible thing to do.

I do hope that timings on the Cotswold route can be looked at seriously at the next major timetable change in a few years once Reading is finished. I remeber hearing that Oxford - Paddington was once timetabled for 43 minutes on some of the crack expresses?!

[smokey]

43 minutes it's possible!
 
Not sure I'd like it in the rear coach of Loco hauled stock!

I make 43 mins for 63 miles 18 chain an average of 88.25MPH

  Cracking good cheese this Gromit 

  Don't spare the horses