Great Western Coffee Shop

Has any consideration been given to the naming of the station at the south end of Bicester. When I was a lad it was called London Road, but since re-opening it has been called Bicester Town.

As far as many visitors to Bicester are concerned, it should surely be re-named Bicester Village, as that "outlet centre" is the destination of thousands of visitors each month. I am sure that as soon as through trains start running from Marylebone, many tourists from all over the world will take advantage of the new link, to stock up on last year's fashions.

Perhaps it should be known as "Bicester Town, for Bicester Village"?

i would imagine promotion of Bicester Town for Bicester Village is in the forefront of Chilterns plans!

Once the link is up and running look out for the ads,  special offers (discount vouchers with rail tickets) etc.

I think Bicester Town is going to become an extremely busy station in the future especially once the east-west route is completed and electrified.

Hopefully we will see a return of the direct Bristol - Oxford service which could then continue over the east-west route to Either Milton Keynes or to Bedford and further north to Nottingham.

If the GW starts running local services between Milton Keynes and Reading perhaps these could be interworked with the proposed Reading - Heathrow Airport services unless they become part of Crossrail.

Certainly the owners of the Bicester Villiage shopping outlet can certainly expect a sharp increase in visitor numbers

It's a shame that there isn't a single interchange station, as Bicester will have 3 / 4 tph to London, but only effectively 2 tph (if you've parked at one station, you can't really come back to the other).

Unfortunately Chiltern can't use the Oxford service to axe more Bicester North stops, as it would affect Bicester to B'ham commuters.

A station at the point where the East-West line crosses the London-Birmingham line?  How sharp is the Oxford - London curve?  Could a platform be built on that curve to be in effect a triangular station like Shipley?

All you need to do then is move Bicester Village Outlet centre a mile to the new station (I've look at that on the map / just an estimate of the distance!)

Always an axe...

A curved platform and/or a platform on a significant gradient would not be allowed under current group standards, AFAICT.  There are always dispensations available if there is absolutely no alternative, but I doubt they'd be allowed here.

http://www.rgsonline.co.uk/Railway_Group_Standards/Infrastructure/Railway%20Group%20Standards/GIRT7016%20Iss%203.pdf

Page 7 Part 2 refers...

Paul

In this instance platforms wouldn't be needed.

London to Bicester to B'ham served by existing route.

Oxford to Bicester to Milton Keynes served by new EWR.

Then the (probably already packed) Oxford to London trains curve round and miss Bicester and have their journey time sped up (hopefully the pointless Islip station can be axed as well as Chiltern clearly want).

Simples.

Not to me ... but then it's early in the morning.    Are you suggesting
a) Closing the current Bicester Town and making people walk from the Village to the new station?
b) Having two stations on the East-West line - one at Town and one at Junction
c) Moving Bicester Village to be adjacent to the new Junction station, and missing the stop anyway on Oxford / London?
d) Another option I haven't thought of?

I wonder what those who made the 29126 passenger journeys to/from Islip in 2011/12 would feel about their station being regarded as "pointless".

Context, Gentlemen.   "100 people were given 100 seconds to name as many of the top 30 stations in the UK National network in terms of passenger numbers using them, according to the office of the rail regulator".  TV quiz program 'Pointless', quite recent edition.   And two of the top thirty were indeed 'pointless' in that no-one guessed them!

Come on Grahame, don't leave us hanging! What were they?

Whilst Islip has a modest number of passengers, it has seen quite a sharp rise in useage in recent years. In any case, over half of the new Oxford/Water Eaton to Marylebone services won't stop at Islip anyway, so I think it would be a bit harsh to call for taking away any more stops from that station!

Blackfriars and Fenchurch Street

Hmmm, I thought that Bicester Town is quite near the proposed junction, but having looked at at a map, I'm wrong.

Still, the situation in Bicester will be annoying for Bicesterians!

Islip commuters should use Water Eaton Parkway. It will become a pointless station and will probably cost Chiltern more in fuel to stop than they'll get from fares! Indeed, if a call pushes the journey time over the all important 59 minute mark, then it could cost them a lot.

It will be the "Finstock" of the Chiltern line, withering on with no-one having the nerve to close it.

Hopefully, they'll just shove the franchise commitment calls to silly o clock hours to close it by stealth. The only reason it has so many passengers now, is that it acts as a mini parkway for Oxford, Water Eaton is basically replacing it.

In this day and age of constant fare hikes, you cannot justify keeping these halts open, pretending we're still in the 1950s. See also: Cotswold halts train!

No it doesn't.  There's rarely more than half a dozen or so cars in the car park which can hold around 35 cars.  I'm a little surprised it doesn't attract more parkway commuters into Oxford, but it doesn't despite the OBRAG usergroup trying to push for the car park to be used more.

What it does do is nicely serve a small village community with a pretty good service for a station its size, in a similar manner to nearby Heyford.  It will continue to do so, though the number of trains may well drop to around 7 a day if Chiltern's proposals go through when the new service starts in 2016.

And even more so for Bicastrians

Do Bicastrians have a foot in both camps?

Given Finstock has less than 2,000 entries and exits a year and Islip already has over 29,000 I think that's a pretty poor comparison.  And remember the current service is very slow, on account of the poor infrastructure. It'll be much faster one the upgrade is finished.

And what about that "halt" at Parson St, which has gone from 4,000 to 78,000 in the last 10 years. Would you have closed that one in 2001?

As regards Water Eaton Parkway, unless I'm completely mistaken, I thought the point was to provide a Parkway for those travelling towards London, not for Oxford commuters. In which case, it certainly wouldn't be replacing Islip in serving that purpose (not that it does anyway according to II).

Chiltern has considered the name & it's staying as is. Obviously, sponsorship of stations does happen, and there's nowt to prevent the Village from doing so in the future.

Bicester Village is at capacity at weekends already - it doesn't need many more customers and may end up having a capacity problem.

Chiltern will have to maintain the PSR at all 3 stations (two Bicesters & Islip) - I think it's 7 at Islip. Chiltern agreed with FGW to maintain the increased service at Islip until the line closed but has stated it will fall back to the PSR on re-opening.

There is a get-out clause should pax numbers not materialise or performance not be as good as expected. By this, I mean a renegotiation with ORR as to agreed service levels. It's in the latest application to run service.

The magic journey time is 66 minutes London-Oxford, not 59.

I'm sure the canny marketing lot at Chiltern will claim it's 'less than an hour' from Oxford though, with the small print clarifying they mean the 59 minutes from Water Eaton Parkway.  ;)

Hmm. All their publicity so far has referred to 66 minutes.

THat is also the max journey time in the SLA

re John R's post on Watereaton being a Parkway for North to London and not south to Oxford, I totally agree. Having family living in Islip I know that the people currently using Islip are mainly villages who can walk to the station. They would not want to drive to Watereaton for a less frequent trainservice to Oxford than they can already use the frequent Watereaton/Oxford Park & Ride bus service.