Oxford station - facilities, improvements, parking, incidents and events - merged posts

[whole diary]

[willc]

There are a series of images of the design, including details of the platform, at the county council's online consultation page, which also feature in the display in the booking hall at the station.

http://myconsultations.oxfordshire.gov.uk/inovem/consult.ti/oxfordstation/consultationHome

[inspector_blakey]

I rather like the sweeping curves of the footbridge, although no doubt there will be those in the city who are furious that the building will not be constructed from Cotswold stone and feature spires and gargoyles. Can't say I'm much of a fan of the view from the platform side though: although I admit it's only a vague artist's impression, it looks like a quick and nasty 1960s prefab job from that angle.

And as an aside, I'm impressed that they managed an accurate depiction of an OBC Citaro (probably one of the flavours of route 4!) waiting at the traffic lights...

[IndustryInsider]

Thanks for the links, guys.  All looks fairly impressive to me, though I remain a little concerned over how many parking spaces will be lost.

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

^10m Oxford railway station upgrade under threat

A ^10m upgrade of Oxford train station is under threat.

The Department for Transport was set to contribute ^5m but the project is under review as the new government looks to cut back on public spending.

The plans include building a new platform on the existing long-stay car park and a new footbridge with a covered walkway over Botley Road.

Network Rail, which would also provide a share of the money, had planned for the work to be completed by early 2012.

The plans are part of Oxfordshire County Council's Access to Oxford project, which was set up to make the city more accessible.

Leader Keith Mitchell said he hoped there was a way the work could still go ahead.

"It's really important, not just for Oxford but for the whole transport system around because it's a pivotal point in the system," he added.

The plans went on public display at Oxford Station in April and a planning application was being prepared for later this year.

On 24 May, the government announced that savings of ^683m were to be made from the Department for Transport's 2010/11 budget.

[willc]

The new bay platform at the south end and the covered bridge over Botley Road have been given planning permission by the city council

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/8422329.Bridging_way_to_new_look_station/

[IndustryInsider]

I must admit I thought that the scheme might quietly be dropped to save some money, but good news that it's still looking likely to go ahead.

[gwr2006]

I must admit I thought that the scheme might quietly be dropped to save some money, but good news that it's still looking likely to go ahead.

Unfortunately the money isn't confirmed yet so there's still time for that happen!

[Chris from Nailsea]

It's also interesting that the figure for the cost of this project varies between ^10 million and ^12 million, and back again, in the three previous stories from the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page), quoted above. 

[paul7575]

It's also interesting that the figure for the cost of this project varies between ^10 million and ^12 million, and back again, in the three previous stories from the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page), quoted above. 

Depends if the journalist is writing in the peak or offpeak I expect...

Paul

[willc]

The ^10m figure was the one originally cited last November when the design was first unveiled. ^12.5m is the figure being given now.

The Network Rail share is coming from its Action Stations budget. The doubts are over the county's share, as that is meant to be part of its Access to Oxford strategy, which also includes other transport schemes and is caught up in the government spending review process. The council's ruling Tory group has been lobbying Mr Cameron personally, we have been told.

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the Oxford Times:

The Railway Station Oxford might have had

The railways came to Oxford comparatively late ^ thanks to the university authorities^ fear that the bright lights of London might tempt undergraduates away from their studies and generally undermine the cloistered world of dreaming spires.

The Warden of Wadham College led the fight against the Great Western Railway Act of 1843, which paved the way for the arrival of trains here the following year; and even when the first station was built, it was situated, inconveniently enough, in Western Road, Grandpont ^ so any student catching a train to London had to pay the toll to cross Folly Bridge to get there.

The first station on the present site opened on October 1, 1852, after Great Western took over a rival company, the Oxford and Rugby Railway, which had planned a station there.

Now the ^12.5m expansion plan for the place, approved last week, continues the ongoing railway saga at Oxford. But thanks to Frank Dumbleton, of Chilton, who sent in the lithograph (pictured), dating from about 1846, we have a tantalising idea of how the station would have looked had plans by the Oxford Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway company gone ahead.

The picture, displayed in the Great Western Trust^s Museum and Archive at Didcot Railway Centre, shows a splendid structure which, had it been built, would have provided a suitably grand arrival point in Oxford ^ instead of the series of far-from-grand stations we have had to put up with over the years.

Mr Dumbleton writes: ^The architectural style is very similar to Stoke-on-Trent station, which was completed in 1848 and is described as a ^robust Jacobean manor house^. The Oxford Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway (OWW^▸ (Oxford Worcester and Wolverhampton)) had a difficult history. It was incorporated in 1845 by Act of Parliament, but not completed until 1853. The route from Oxford to Worcester is today^s Cotswold Line. It was inextricably drawn into the gauge wars, with the Great Western Railway^s broad gauge branch from Didcot to Oxford at its southern end, and the standard gauge railways of the rest of the country at the Wolverhampton end. Not surprisingly, the gauge controversy cost much money, and the OWW had little left to build stations in the style it would have liked. In 1860, it became part of the West Midland Railway, which was absorbed into the Great Western Railway in 1863.

^The Oxford station lithograph used to hang at Paddington station in London, along with many other mementoes of the Isambard Kingdom Brunel era. When Stanley Raymond became the Western Region^s general manager in the early 1960s, he had a mission to banish the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) traditions that still permeated the place, and he ordered that all the pictures be destroyed. Fortunately, railway enthusiasts rescued many of them.^

For more than a century the present Oxford Station stood cheek by jowl with the lovely Rewley Road station, opened in 1851. It served the line to London via Bletchley and was built by the same engineers who developed Joseph Paxton^s ideas at Crystal Palace ^ which housed the Great Exhibition in London of that year. It closed to passengers in 1951 and was removed to the Quainton Railway Society^s Railway Centre, in Buckinghamshire, in 1998 ^ to make way for the Said Business School.

Crystal Palace burned down in 1936 but the Rewley Road station contained so many echoes of it that the magazine The Structural Engineer commented in 1975: ^Until recently it was thought that no trace of the Crystal Palace structure remained. Strictly speaking, none does, but something very similar has survived.^

It then went on to describe the Paxton-like work at Rewley Road. The magazine added: ^Almost more telling as a comparison than the structural components are the remains of the decorative iron cladding at Oxford which were clearly made from the same castings as in the Exhibition Building.^

As for the dons^ fears that the train to London might take students away from their studies, perhaps they were right: the last train back to Oxford was for years called the Flying Fornicator.

[JayMac]

From the Oxford Times:

As for the dons^ fears that the train to London might take students away from their studies, perhaps they were right: the last train back to Oxford was for years called the Flying Fornicator.

Can we petition FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to get that name reinstated?!?!

 

[Chris from Nailsea]

Would it be a turbo, or a pacer? 

[ChrisB]

The new bay platform & associated transfer deck has been a victim of the cuts!

From the Oxford Mail....

Transport projects worth ^62m shelved
9:00am Friday 29th October 2010

^By Chris Walker ^


PLANS to Transform Oxford railway station and the A34 as part of the most extensive transport project in the city^s history have been shelved.

In 2007 the county council was allocated ^62m for its ambitious Access to Oxford project, which promised to expand the railway station and tackle congestion on the A34 as well as the city^s ring road.

At the time the county^s then transport chief David Robertson said it was ^the largest sum for transport ever handed to Oxfordshire^.

Funding for the scheme became uncertain when the Regional Transport Board was abolished by the coalition Government in June 2010.

Now it has emerged County Hall has missed out on the cash after the Department of Transport overlooked the project and chose to spend ^2.3bn on 24 other transport schemes instead.

Commuters now face missing out on the ^12.5m expansion of the station for the foreseeable future as Network Rail^s funding for the scheme is dependent on the council getting the cash.

A further ^47m of investment to cut congestion on the A34 and install new slip lanes and bus lanes on the northern and southern approaches into Oxford also hang in the balance.

Hugh Jaeger, spokesman for the Railfuture campaign group and Bus Users UK^▸ (United Kingdom) in Oxfordshire said: ^This is a disaster.

^The buses will lose out, the trains will lose out and the poor people trying to get into Oxford will lose out.^

The blow comes just six weeks after the city council gave planning permission for the expansion of the station.

The plan would see a new platform added south of the Botley Road to reduce passenger congestion and improve journey times to London.

Chairman of the Oxford-Bicester Rail Action Group Dr Ian East said: ^Oxford Station really did need reconfiguration and expansion.

^At the busiest times it^s overcrowded and heading towards being dangerous.^

The station is at the start or end of 5.6 million train journeys a year, with passenger numbers at Oxford rising by 16.5 per cent in 2008/09.

County Hall can now submit new bids for cash to the ^560m Local Sustainable Transport Fund and ^400m Regional Growth Fund in April next year.

However, with public finances tight it is unclear what scale of project the council will be able win cash for.

Earlier this year councillor Ian Hudspeth, the council^s cabinet member for growth and infrastructure, made a personal appeal to Prime Minister David Cameron to try and secure the cash.

He said: ^This is bitterly disappointing news. Having initially secured funding we have now become victims of the nation^s financial woes and the Government^s efforts to resolve them.

^However, we must retain our ambitions and push our case to central government at any and every opportunity.^

Missing this funding does not affect the council^s ability to fund Transform Oxford or improve Frideswide Square.

However, these projects are currently part of the council^s review of all its capital spending.

Plans to change Heyford Hill roundabout are also not expected to be affected.

Network Rail spokesman Russell Spink confirmed that Network Rail^s cash for Oxford station was not ring-fenced.

He said: ^The loss of the county council^s funding is a blow, but all parties are determined to find a solution which allows us to deliver this scheme.^

DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) spokesman Paul Starbrook said: ^The Access for Oxford scheme did not secure funding through the regional funding and we would therefore encourage the promoters to look at alternative funding mechanisms.^

Labour MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) for Oxford East Andrew Smith said: ^This is really bad news. I wrote to the Government strongly supporting the county bid.

^This Coalition decision is cutting off its nose to spite its face because Oxford is an economic powerhouse for the region and the country.

^These improvements would have boosted the economy as well as making travel better for local people.

^I will work with the county council to continue to press our case at every opportunity.^

Conservative MP for Abingdon and Oxford West Nicola Blackwood said: ^This decision is obviously a big disappointment for all of us.

^But we are dealing with one of the most serious fiscal crises this country has faced in the last 50 years and the Government^s first priority has to be to get the public finances back in order.

^Access to Oxford is an important project that would offer a significant economic boost to our region, not to mention improve the quality of life of many residents.

^I have already written on this issue to Philip Hammond, Transport Secretary, and will continue to work with the county council to take our case to the Government.

^I hope that Oxfordshire^s new status as a local enterprise partnership will help strengthen our cause.^

Conservative MP for Henley John Howell said: ^I agree with the county council that it is a shame, but I^m not surprised given the way we^ve been left with no money by the previous government.

^More important than that, the bid made by the county council and others for one of the new local enterprise partnerships has been approved, which presents an exciting opportunity to grasp the issue of infrastructure for the Oxfordshire region as a whole.

^And who knows what that may produce for transport in the local area.^

Conservative MP for Banbury Tony Baldry said he was confident the privately funded Bicester-to-Oxford rail project would go ahead. He said: ^ Clearly it^s a time when all public spending is being substantially reduced so it^s not surprising programmes such as this are being cut back.^

Conservative MP for Witney David Cameron was in Brussels last night and unavailable for comment. Conservative MP for Wantage Ed Vaizey did not return our calls.

A new bus interchange in Mansfield, a plan to make Ipswich^s transport infrastructure fit for the 21st century and a new south entrance to Leeds train station were among the 24 schemes to win funding from the Government.

More than 16 roads projects were among those winning funding from Transport Secretary Philip Hammond including improvements on the M25, M60 in Manchester and M1 in Yorkshire and Derbyshire.

The Government will spend ^8.6m on a new bus station in the heart of Mansfield bringing it closer to the town^s trains with a new pedestrian bridge. Meanwhile, a ^14m project to build a new south entrance to Leeds railway station will make it more accessible to 20,000 passengers who head in that direction each day.

In Ipswich rebuilt bus stations, a computerised traffic management and improvements to the town^s cycle network will cost about ^25m. Although not included in this cash, an ^850m revamp of Reading train station and the surrounding track network will start in earnest in December.

And -

Cameron blames deficit for city's transport snub
9:10am Saturday 30th October 2010



Prime Minister David Cameron says he is disappointed that Oxford has missed out on ^62m of investment to improve its road and Rail network.

Yesterday, it emerged the county council had lost out on funding for the most extensive transport project in the city^s history which would have seen the expansion of Oxford Railway Station and tackled congestion on the A34 and city ring road.

Witney MP Mr Cameron has blamed the Government^s ^900bn national debt for the cut in spending on transport projects throughout Britain.

He told the Oxford Mail: ^Clearly it is disappointing some transport schemes aren^t going ahead because of the massive budget deficit we inherited.

^Our priority has to be cutting it. This involves taking difficult decisions and means that it is just not possible for every road and public transport scheme to go ahead immediately.^

Next year the council will have to re-submit the bid to try to win part of a ^2bn cash pot from the Local Sustainable Transport Fund and the Regional Growth Fund.

Wantage MP Ed Vaizey has not responded to requests for a comment.

[Lee]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Oxford railway bridge work begins

Work has begun to knock down a railway bridge in Oxford and replace it with a new one so the line underneath can transport more freight.

It is part of a ^71m scheme to improve the rail line between Southampton port and Nuneaton in Warwickshire, via Reading, Didcot, Oxford and Banbury.

Network Rail said the project should provide a cheaper, quicker and more practical way of transporting goods.

Work was due to get under way while the railway was shut on Christmas Day.

The project is expected to be completed by March 2011 and the road over the bridge is due to remain closed for the majority of that time.

The upgrade of the bridge that carries the Old Abingdon Road over the railway at South Hinksey is needed to allow 9ft 6in (2.9m) containers to travel underneath it.

Network Rail said much of the traffic on the A34 is caused by HGVs transporting goods to and from Southampton port.

"The A34 is one of the most congested roads in the country and much of the traffic is HGVs transporting goods to and from Southampton port," Network Rail said.

"With the cost of road congestion to the British economy estimated at more than ^10bn a year, the project will provide vital extra capacity to get freight off the roads and on to the railway."