Suggestions for later services on the Cotswolds Line

[whole diary]

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

I can only speak for what I know about Hanborough. However the further you get away from London, the lower the demand will be for late night trains from London. I do however as the CLPG^» (Cotswold Line Promotion Group - about) rep for Hanborough get regular complaints from Hanborough area residents that they either cannot go to an evening show in London and get home by train or that they do actually go to London for evening shows but complain about the high cost of getting a taxi home from Oxford. (of course for Charlbury residents alternative taxi costs would be even higher and to Morton astronomical.) Personally on the rare occasions that I go to London for a show I book for a matinee. However the matinee option is often not available for many shows/events.
Would a late night "rail/bus" be worth bidding for even if only as a time limted experiment to find out what the real demand might be. Local buses to Witney and Carterton from Oxford run well into the small hours and are well used but they do have a supplementary fare to go to the extra nightime costs. Would a supplementary fare make it more viable?

[ChrisB]

I'm not sure that's possible on the railways?

[willc]

That bus regularly has 40+ passengers on it - indeed I have alerted FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to this after 3 successive loadings of 45 recently. They have chosen to forward any overflow by taxi, rather than lay on a standy bus, which I think is sensible.

The later Cotswold train would have to be a turbo, and demand shown by the time the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) gets around to drawing up the new franchise - i.e. Very soon. Anyone know what the current Rules of the Route has for opening times?

Because you won't get that changed in time for the new franchise spec...

Chris, I'll ask again, does anyone ask those people for a ticket or a fare? Because i think that's a fairly important consideration when trying to assess whether the demand is really there and people are willing to put money in FGW's pocket for the service. If people can just wander up and board unchallenged (not that it would be any different from many late-night trains), then why bother paying? And if they aren't asked for a ticket, I'd like to see how many of your 45 would make a beeline for the ticket machines were an RPI^▸ (Revenue Protection Inspector (or Retail Price Index, depending on the context)) to be stood at the entrance to the coach for a few Saturday nights.

The signalboxes are being staffed round the clock at the moment, in connection with redoubling work, but the normal hours of operation on the line are roughly 5am to just after midnight Monday-Saturday and 9am to just after midnight on Sundays.

One could argue we have just had a six-month-long bus trial and experience suggests that most people using the Cotswold Line avoid them like the plague, given the loadings i saw when I rode on the buses and the numbers of people using the 19.22 from Paddington to make sure they got all the way home on a train during that period. Unless they run direct to Moreton-in-Marsh, bus journeys to Moreton and anywhere in Worcestershire take forever, given the routes that buses need to take to serve the west Oxfordshire stations off the A44.

Stagecoach operates the S3 route to Woodstock, Charlbury and Chipping Norton without any council subsidy, just as with the S1 and S2 to Witney and Carterton, and they don't bother running a night bus on the S3, finishing with the 23.45 from Oxford. Like all the other evening services on the route, it starts at Oxford's bus station, not at the railway station, which you might have thought it would, given the lack of a train beyond Oxford at that hour. Perhaps a comment on their view of the commercial prospects for late-night custom to what is, let's be honest, a pretty thinly-populated area? And even the NS1 only runs in the early hours of Saturdays and Sundays, not the rest of the week.

If you're going to have a trial of anything, then it should be a trial of a train service and that is going to be up to FGW and whether they are willing to foot the bill - as I say, with some sharp running by a 23.2x departure from Oxford to Charlbury and then back empty, you might just manage that without getting in the way of the train from Hereford and stay within existing signalbox hours but is a train only 30 minutes later than the present last train what people mean by a later train? If not, and I suspect that's not what they mean, then you are going to need extra hours for one or more signalboxes, with all the implications that has for costs, rostering, etc.

[IndustryInsider]

Chris, I'll ask again, does anyone ask those people for a ticket or a fare? Because i think that's a fairly important consideration when trying to assess whether the demand is really there and people are willing to put money in FGW^▸ (First Great Western)'s pocket for the service. If people can just wander up and board unchallenged (not that it would be any different from many late-night trains), then why bother paying? And if they aren't asked for a ticket, I'd like to see how many of your 45 would make a beeline for the ticket machines were an RPI^▸ (Revenue Protection Inspector (or Retail Price Index, depending on the context)) to be stood at the entrance to the coach for a few Saturday nights.

In that particular case I should imagine most of them do have tickets.  After all, it's mostly people returning home after having a night out in Oxford - hardly anyone would be making a one-way trip that time of night on a Saturday, and if coming in from Tackley, Heyford, Kings Sutton or Banbury it's very unlikely you'd have travelled in by any other method than a train earlier in the evening.  So, they'd have needed to buy tickets for the inward journey, and with the difference in price between a single and return being a mighty 10p, you'd have to be a bit silly to buy a single and risk having to fork out for another single for the return journey, however small the chances of an inspection.

[ChrisB]

Exactly.

And the same would apply to the extra service along the Cotswold Line - very very few, if any, would be makinga single journey....so its a bit if a false argument really.

[willc]

But you still haven't actually answered as to whether anyone does bother to check if people do have tickets. Yes or no? It's not a trick question. I assume the lack of an answer means they don't. Maybe they should try it and find out - especially given what laying on a taxi to Banbury will cost at that time of the night. Then you might find out if it's a false argument - and a false economy.

I'm not disputing that many people may have travelled in by rail but people may very well have got lifts into Oxford from friends or parents off to do something else there who are travelling back at a different time.

And given the number of times I see people who are quite happy to chance travelling without a ticket at all times of the day and paying a conductor if checked on the train or at the barriers at Oxford should the gates be in operation, even when ticket offices are open or machines are in working order at the likes of Charlbury and Hanborough, I can't imagine habits are any different in north Oxfordshire, especially of a Saturday evening when all four stations north of Oxford are ungated and three are unstaffed and it's not a penalty fares route. The Oxford Evening Out ticket may only be ^3, or ^2 with a railcard, but if you don't have to pay so much the better will be many people's attitude.

[ChrisB]

Yes, they do - or, the driver usually does rather amazingly.

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) usually contract the same bus each week, so the regulars ( and theres a lot of those) are known by the driver and vice versa. Most priduce without being asked when I've observed.

But, as has been said, this is likely because they have return tickets so its nit difficult to fish for your ticket.

This would be the same on any extra cotswold train - no one is likely to want to go out to the cotswolds in a one way trip at that time of night!

The cost if putting it on is the reason I said it needed to be specified in the franchise. There's no way it would ever be profitable - social trains need to be specified so that the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) know that it'll cost from the start.

[ChrisB]

The barriers at Oxford operate till after 9, so most people will get caught on the way in if they don't buy before travelling on bith routes

[willc]

I'll take your word for it that he does check, but it certainly was not the case on Cotswold buses - and due to a broken car one night, I did do a one-way journey.

And the opportunities for ticketless travel are there and there are people who will take them - you can always tell when a Cotswold Line train has gone off platform 1 at Paddington if a ticket check is carried out past Oxford. There are an astonishing number of people who just didn't have time to get a ticket... yet they always seem to have managed to buy them when you see them on other occasions and the train has gone from a barriered platform.

And there is a rather big flaw with Oxford's gates - maybe not on a Saturday but most certainly on weekday evenings up to 8pm. I'm sure you know what I mean. And leaving Oxford after 9pm, of course.

[IndustryInsider]

I don't think anybody doubts that ticketless travel is a problem, but both ChrisB and myself have tried to explain why"...if they aren't asked for a ticket, I'd like to see how many of your 45 would make a beeline for the ticket machines were an RPI^▸ (Revenue Protection Inspector (or Retail Price Index, depending on the context)) to be stood at the entrance to the coach for a few Saturday nights". the majority of those 45 people probably wouldn't need to make a beeline for the ticket machines.  I'm not sure whether you grudgingly acknowledge the logic in that when you go on with lots of spurious 'ifs and buts', such as ticketless travel from Platform 1 at Paddington, but it is the case. 

[Oxman]

Whilst I appreciate the discussion about ticket checks on bus services, and fully support the desirability of this, I do have sympathy with the staff that are given this task, particularly on late evening services.

A few years ago I was DM at Reading and was supervising the boarding of one of the regular late evening bus services to Newbury. A "customer" was refused entry to the coach because he did not have ticket. Yes, we were checking tickets!

He kicked up a fuss - the usual stuff about replacement bus services being free - and then walked off. Ten minutes later, after the bus had gone, he returned and stabbed one of our security guards in the stomach. The guard was taken to hospital and survived (he is now a driver with FGW^▸ (First Great Western)).

The point is that it made us all keenly aware of the dangers of late night ticket checks on buses - even with well qualified security staff to support you. I certainly would not like to undertake such a task as the only member of staff on duty, as is common at many stations in the late evening.

The assailant was caught and prosecuted, but got off on a technicality.

[willc]

I don't think anybody doubts that ticketless travel is a problem, but both ChrisB and myself have tried to explain why"...if they aren't asked for a ticket, I'd like to see how many of your 45 would make a beeline for the ticket machines were an RPI^▸ (Revenue Protection Inspector (or Retail Price Index, depending on the context)) to be stood at the entrance to the coach for a few Saturday nights". the majority of those 45 people probably wouldn't need to make a beeline for the ticket machines.  I'm not sure whether you grudgingly acknowledge the logic in that when you go on with lots of spurious 'ifs and buts', such as ticketless travel from Platform 1 at Paddington, but it is the case. 

I'll grudgingly acknowledge the logic if you insist and it may be the case that the people of the Cherwell Valley are all astonishingly honest - and here comes the but - in my experience the late-night replacement buses on the Cotswold Line were wide open to ticketless travel and anyone making the trip a couple of times would have cottoned on to that - and not everyone was/is necessarily making a return journey, however much you might wish to convince yourselves that is the case.

And i don't believe a more general point about people's willingness to take a chance on getting a free ride, be it on a train or a replacement bus, is spurious in this context. We all know fare-dodging costs the rail industry a  fortune every year. We've all seen people trying it. First Group alone has come up with estimates of ^15m to ^40m a year across its rail franchises. The lower end of that is almost enough to pay for the Turbo refresh programme twice over.

[ChrisB]

It must be cheaper nit to staff late nigjt properly, than to collect the very few one-way trips being made, or they'd do the former, surely?

[IndustryInsider]

A cheap way of trialling what kind of demand might be out there for a later evening service might be to extend one of the late services from Paddington through to Charlbury just on a Friday evening - in the same way a couple of Chiltern's late evening services on a Friday extend, such as the 23:54 going to Leamington Spa (as pointed out earlier by Willc).

You could choose either the 22:49 from Paddington going on from Oxford at 23:55, Hanborough at 00:04 and Charlbury 00:12 (return ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock) at 00:15 to clear the branch and allow Ascott signalbox to close at 00:30ish).

Or the 23:20 going on from Oxford at 00:30 calling at Hanborough 00:38 and Charlbury 00:46 (return ECS at 00:50 to clear the branch and allow Ascott signalbox to close around 01:15).

Both options would mean a modest extension of the box hours at Ascott, but for only one night of the week.  The new(ish) 00:38 Oxford to Banbury train really is starting to pick up some business on a Friday evening, so having a Hanborough and Charlbury service (advertised in the local area as an 'evening out' service for both Oxford and London) would be of real social benefit to the residents of Hanborough and Charlbury and the surrounding villages.  Not to mention looking good in the eyes of the locals another positive benefit of the re-doubling.

If successful you could look at either extending it to Moreton, or running it throughout the rest of the week (at slightly revised timings due to the two-track timetable variations on the Paddington to Oxford leg).

[ChrisB]

Yup - that would be my suggestion too.....

That 0038 is quite busy on Thursdays now too....