Cotswold Line redoubling: 2008 - 2011

[whole diary]

[willc]

I'ld love to know how many pax will be on the 0408, 0411, 0431 and 0436 replacement bus services next Monday from Shrub Hill....

So are you saying they shouldn't bother running them? What do you expect them to do? Tell their passengers to get lost, like a certain discount airline definitely would in similar circumstances? I'd like to think FGW^▸ (First Great Western), and the railways in general, are better than that.

The roads around here aren't exactly super-highways, even the A44, so they have to allow lots more time for the bus journeys, never mind trying to cover all the potential journeys that people could be making, say Worcester to Charlbury. FGW are doing their best, so please spare us any more of the constant carping that your posts seem to feature.

Bet they are empty

prob only need 2 of the 4 of those buses

Even the trains at that time (sorry we dont have a 4am departure) are half empty if that from WOS^» (Worcester Shrub Hill - next trains)!

I am just saying (and this is a forum where I can politely and frivolously express an opinion), that 4 buses departing within 30 minutes at such an early hour is overkill. Without bringing the esteemed founder of this forum into the argument, I feel he was making a similer point about the 0520 rail replacement bus from Swindon to Melksham in August....

But as I said, they have to cover every journey option and that needs this multiplicity of buses, because if you sent one or two off then, they would each take up to three hours to get to Oxford, winding up and down the back roads to serve the likes of Honeybourne and the stations in the Evenlode Valley, which are nowhere near the main road. It may look like overkill, but I'd rather they do this than not try at all.

Bleeder, I'm amazed that you say no-one in your office is aware of the closure. Is it a bunker? With a crude search I can find about a dozen reports about it on the Worcester News website, dating back to last December, with duplicates and other stories from the websites of its sister weekly papers in Malvern and the Vale. There have been posters up at stations on the part of the line I use for months now warning of the closure, so I find it hard to believe they have not been up at Shrub Hill and Foregate Street too.

[Lee]

Transport Briefing article - http://www.transportbriefing.co.uk/news/story?id=6073

BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) article - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8155965.stm

[Mookiemoo]

I'ld love to know how many pax will be on the 0408, 0411, 0431 and 0436 replacement bus services next Monday from Shrub Hill....

So are you saying they shouldn't bother running them? What do you expect them to do? Tell their passengers to get lost, like a certain discount airline definitely would in similar circumstances? I'd like to think FGW^▸ (First Great Western), and the railways in general, are better than that.

The roads around here aren't exactly super-highways, even the A44, so they have to allow lots more time for the bus journeys, never mind trying to cover all the potential journeys that people could be making, say Worcester to Charlbury. FGW are doing their best, so please spare us any more of the constant carping that your posts seem to feature.

Bet they are empty

prob only need 2 of the 4 of those buses

Even the trains at that time (sorry we dont have a 4am departure) are half empty if that from WOS^» (Worcester Shrub Hill - next trains)!

I am just saying (and this is a forum where I can politely and frivolously express an opinion), that 4 buses departing within 30 minutes at such an early hour is overkill. Without bringing the esteemed founder of this forum into the argument, I feel he was making a similer point about the 0520 rail replacement bus from Swindon to Melksham in August....

But as I said, they have to cover every journey option and that needs this multiplicity of buses, because if you sent one or two off then, they would each take up to three hours to get to Oxford, winding up and down the back roads to serve the likes of Honeybourne and the stations in the Evenlode Valley, which are nowhere near the main road. It may look like overkill, but I'd rather they do this than not try at all.

Bleeder, I'm amazed that you say no-one in your office is aware of the closure. Is it a bunker? With a crude search I can find about a dozen reports about it on the Worcester News website, dating back to last December, with duplicates and other stories from the websites of its sister weekly papers in Malvern and the Vale. There have been posters up at stations on the part of the line I use for months now warning of the closure, so I find it hard to believe they have not been up at Shrub Hill and Foregate Street too.

I might be wrong but i'm pretty sure the one at shrub is not in that obvious a position - especially if you already have a ticket and are just walking to the train.  I know I only noticed it when I looked for it - there isnt one on the over bridge or on either of the platforms

[Btline]

And most people seeing Engineering Works posters assume it is weekend and bank holidays only.

What they need to do is to put leaflets onto the seats!

[willc]

The posters were a model of clarity, with a very big heading right across the top saying Advance Notice of Major Engineering Work between Oxford and Worcester, or something like that - I think that should be enough to get most people's attention - and have been up since January or February. Oxford station was plastered with them - backed up by a countdown clock on the info screen next to the ticket barriers recently.

And I'd really rather not travel around in a mobile litter bin, thanks all the same. We managed without leaflets on seats when there was a two-week blockade a few Augusts back.

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) and Network Rail have both made strenuous efforts to get the word out there since the start of the year, both at stations and in the local media (but maybe no-one believed our reports) - as I said, you really would have to have been in a bunker not to notice something or other about it along the way.

Oxford station was all geared up ready this evening, with signs along platform 2 indicating the route to the buses, which will use the short-stay car park area, which is closed to cars for the duration - and as noted by someone in a previous post, the former British Legion Club car park alongside Moreton station has been taken over as a temporary extra spaces, though I suspect it won't be needed until the trains resume on August 3, to handle people driving over from the Vale

Enjoyed a lively final morning run to Oxford today, with an announcement just before we left Moreton-in-Marsh that due to a security alert, anyone for Kingham should get off the train and ask for help getting to their destination. We then sailed through Kingham at 90mph (don't get too excited btline, it was only a Turbo). My colleague's report on what it was all about is here http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/headlines/4499026.Kingham_station_reopens/

Then we were treated to a classic ticketless traveller episode after Charlbury, when the conductor carried out a full ticket check and got involved in a heated discussion with a man who, by his style of dress and accent probably wasn't down to his last two pennies, but who had no ticket, no bank card and no money about his person (no, it wasn't Prince Charles).

He loudly protested that he simply had to get to London for 11.30 and was meeting his wife who would pay for his ticket there. When threatened with the possibility of being stopped in the penalty fares zone and taken to court he said 'that's a risk I'm prepared to take'.

The conductor firmly but politely insisted that he would have to get off at Oxford and make arrangements there for his wife to pay before he got on another train. After much huffing and puffing either side of Hanborough, he said he would get off. Since we were a bit late and I had to get to work, so was first out of the door, I didn't see whether he did get off, but I suspect the train wouldn't have left until he had done so, voluntarily or otherwise.

[Mookiemoo]

The posters were a model of clarity, with a very big heading right across the top saying Advance Notice of Major Engineering Work between Oxford and Worcester, or something like that - I think that should be enough to get most people's attention - and have been up since January or February. Oxford station was plastered with them - backed up by a countdown clock on the info screen next to the ticket barriers recently.

And I'd really rather not travel around in a mobile litter bin, thanks all the same. We managed without leaflets on seats when there was a two-week blockade a few Augusts back.

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) and Network Rail have both made strenuous efforts to get the word out there since the start of the year, both at stations and in the local media (but maybe no-one believed our reports) - as I said, you really would have to have been in a bunker not to notice something or other about it along the way.

Oxford station was all geared up ready this evening, with signs along platform 2 indicating the route to the buses, which will use the short-stay car park area, which is closed to cars for the duration - and as noted by someone in a previous post, the former British Legion Club car park alongside Moreton station has been taken over as a temporary extra spaces, though I suspect it won't be needed until the trains resume on August 3, to handle people driving over from the Vale

Enjoyed a lively final morning run to Oxford today, with an announcement just before we left Moreton-in-Marsh that due to a security alert, anyone for Kingham should get off the train and ask for help getting to their destination. We then sailed through Kingham at 90mph (don't get too excited btline, it was only a Turbo). My colleague's report on what it was all about is here http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/headlines/4499026.Kingham_station_reopens/

Then we were treated to a classic ticketless traveller episode after Charlbury, when the conductor carried out a full ticket check and got involved in a heated discussion with a man who, by his style of dress and accent probably wasn't down to his last two pennies, but who had no ticket, no bank card and no money about his person (no, it wasn't Prince Charles).


He loudly protested that he simply had to get to London for 11.30 and was meeting his wife who would pay for his ticket there. When threatened with the possibility of being stopped in the penalty fares zone and taken to court he said 'that's a risk I'm prepared to take'.

The conductor firmly but politely insisted that he would have to get off at Oxford and make arrangements there for his wife to pay before he got on another train. After much huffing and puffing either side of Hanborough, he said he would get off. Since we were a bit late and I had to get to work, so was first out of the door, I didn't see whether he did get off, but I suspect the train wouldn't have left until he had done so, voluntarily or otherwise.

There are announcements every five minutes at Reading about engineering on the cotswolds line - have yet to hear one whilst waiting for the train at WOS^» (Worcester Shrub Hill - next trains)

[inspector_blakey]

It's not the same South African lady whose recorded voice bawls "may aah hiv your attention PLEASE, thus us un iccident blickspot" every fine nanoseconds by the escalators on platform 8 is it? If so, my sympathy.

[willc]

If anyone is interested, I have posted a few photos on flickr taken along the line between Charlbury and Evesham this year, showing soon-to-disappear single line and semaphores, among other things.

There is also a fresh one taken today at Ascott-under-Wychwood of work going on to put in what looked like some kind of cable inspection ducts in the middle of the trackbed - but I expect those of you who work in the industry can probably explain exactly what that moulding sitting on the platform is for.

The gallery is here http://www.flickr.com/photos/willc2009/

[Chris from Nailsea]

Absolutely brilliant, willc - thanks very much for posting! 

Having never actually travelled on that line, your photos do offer some insight into the issues involved.

(And I liked the scenes in the snow - classic Christmas cards!)

Thanks again.  C. 

[paul7575]

...but I expect those of you who work in the industry can probably explain exactly what that moulding sitting on the platform is for.

It's the bottom of a drainage sump IIRC^▸ (if I recall/remember/read correctly). You would normally see a rectangular grating about 4 ft x 2 ft at surface or ballast level, usually formed of 'stacked' concrete rectangular sections. They interlock with each other and stand on the top of the piece in the photo.

Paul

[willc]

That would be it paul - there were indeed concrete sections - if you look behind the two guys standing in the trench at the front, there's a 'stack' behind them

[IanL]

No sign of any new work starting at Charlbury this morning, just the new rails laid out along the centre of the existing track which was done some months ago. Will try and get some pictures when work starts.

[willc]

Definitely much work going on at Chipping Campden tunnel - but no pics as the vegetation around the mouths is jungle-like and the lie of the land and lack of footpaths around most of the area didn't help, so impossible to get a shot of anything much except greenery. You need to be on Network Rail property to get this view http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/imagelibrary/detail.asp?MediaDetailsID=2457

At the south (town) end the track is all out and old ballast and spoil was being removed in dumper trucks. At the north (Vale) end, new drains were going in, most of the the way down the bank to the bridge over the Campden-Mickleton road - in the area where the train is in the picture above, but I was peering over the fence further down, so couldn't see if the rails still went all the way to the tunnel at this end.

[Chris from Nailsea]

While modesty may have precluded him from posting it here ( ) - from the Oxford Mail:

Work starts on Cotswold Line upgrade
By William Crossley ^

Railway engineers have begun work on the first major phase of the project to restore double track on 20 miles of the Cotswold Line from Oxford to Worcester.

Network Rail staff and contractors will reposition almost 10 miles of existing track, complete installation of more than 20 miles of signal cable ducts, lay 30 miles of new cable and reposition signals to prepare the way for extra track to be laid next year.

The six-week closure of all or parts of the 50-mile route started on Saturday.

First Great Western project manager Martin Barnett said: ^This is a particularly congested part of the railway, which means small delays tend to have more of an effect on our customers than they should.^

He added: ^The redoubling of the track will provide extra capacity for more trains to carry more customers, should demand continue to increase, and help sustain improved performance in the area.^ The work will include about four miles of extra track from Ascott-under-Wychwood, near Charlbury, where engineers were at work yesterday.

New signals, to be controlled from Network Rail^s new Thames Valley signalling centre, at Didcot, will also be installed next year.

The remaining new track will be laid in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, between Moreton-in-Marsh and Evesham.

The whole line is closed for the next two weeks and again from August 24-September 1, with buses replacing trains.

Trains will be running on the sections between Oxford and Moreton-in-Marsh, and Evesham and Worcester, from August 3-23.

Once the redoubling project is completed in early 2011, there will be two sections of single track left, between Charlbury and Wolvercot junction, north of Oxford, and from Evesham to Worcester.

Article also in the Witney Gazette and the Oxford Times.

[willc]

Couple of track machines in the sidings at Moreton-in-Marsh for the past couple of days - one's a tamper but I've not been down into the station, so not sure what the other is. Nor do I know what work they are doing.

The A44 is thick with rail replacement coaches, with operators from Oxford, Worcester, Kidderminster and Swindon as well as those previously mentioned. Loadings look light on the whole but I'm usually on the road 9am to 10-ish and 6.30-7.15, so not necessarily a representative time to get an overall feel.