Great Western Coffee Shop

Hello, I'm a new forum member so forgive me if this topic has been covered in the past. I was looking into commuting from Shipton to London and notice there are a few direct trains back in the afternoon/evening -- but no direct ones in the morning. Has there ever been any thought of having  just one direct morning train to Paddington, rather than rather than getting the one local stopping train and making a change or two.  Or, of course, commuting from Charlbury -- but it would be nice not to have to drive!  Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the Forum.

Don't know if it's been covered before ... and as I have been around from the start and can't remember, go for it   ;D ;D .

I am not familiar with the "north Cotswold" line but a lot of people here are - so I will leave it to them to come up with a substantive answer

Shipton is a slightly curious station with its imbalance of service.  The station layout is not conducive to commuting, as there is little parking provision and if you do park you car you are faced with a walk of over a quarter of a mile to get from one platform to another along the unlit approach roads and road bridge over the railway with no footpath.  Either that or you break the law and cross the tracks!

It did, some years ago (over ten), have another morning train, which was direct to Paddington departing at just gone 6am.  That was when the first London train of the day started from Moreton-In-Marsh as a Class 180, but I think it was dropped when that train became a HST and has never returned, so since has only had the one morning train towards Oxford, but three return trains in the evening.  Quite a few Shipton passengers leave from Kingham in the morning and return to Shipton in the evening.

I can't see the service being improved - the pressure to improve journey times on through trains from Worcester to London is too strong - though at least with Turbos virtually banished from the line it is pretty easy to stop an IET with its selective door operation, so you never know.

 Thanks for those replies.  I appreciate the points about lack of parking and pressure to improve Worcester train times, it just seems a bit of an anomaly that it's possible to get back from London but not really get there (except on Saturdays!). Maybe if the 7.10 which, if I'm reading the timetable correctly, starts at Moreton in Marsh made an extra stop at Shipton that could provide a solution?

It could, but I think it's doubtful that any such changes would be made until the timetable is recast.  That was supposed to be this December, but is now postponed until (probably) next December.  Schedules will change completely when it does to take advantage of the quicker journey times promised by IET services.  I think it unlikely Shipton would end up with more calls as a result, but now could be the time for people like yourself to put pressure on local MP's and other stakeholders to try to lobby to get a change to the SLC (Service Level Committment) which has been published but will now not happen this December.  You might be able to get it altered if a suitable case could be made.

The SLC can be downloaded here:  https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/617725/great-western-2015-commitments.zip - Page 53 of file 3b is where the current requirements are listed.  GWR are unlikely to add any additional stops of their own free will as an additional stop on a train would be likely to come at a cost to them rather than a money maker.

Thanks, that's really helpful. I will read myself in!

But if you go back to 1999, the service looks remarkably like today's. Still one morning train, just 10 minutes later, and needing a change at Oxford. Still three trains back (from PAD in this case), though with one much earlier - 13:48 from PAD. And still more trains on Saturday, but none of Sunday, and the other halts got a bit more than now (all four were request calls).

Obviously as it stands the limited service is for getting to work in Oxford, or thereabouts, not London. But I wonder if it started off in part as a stockbroker-type service - would only being at work from 10-4 be OK for that?

What is needed is a full re-doubling of the Cotswold line, then late running one way wouldn't impact on timetables in tother direction.

When you're building new homes to fill the national need - where do you put them and how do you plan to have transport to them?  We had a thread on this a while back, and indeed I recall the national infrastructure body looking at this very question.   By design, Copplestone has had houses built close to a remote station and passenger numbers have soared.  By sprawl, Dilton Marsh has also ceased to be a station in the middle of nowhere, though there it seems more accident that design, and the train service remains perverse and underused.

Where else?   The halts on the North Cotswolds could be next ... with development within easy walking / cycling distance of any or each of the stations, extra calls could be worthwhile for everyone.  A thousand new homes with a decent train service started before they were sold ... 2300 new residents, 50,000 passenger journeys per annum upwards.

Just sayin'   :D

Melksham, Breich, Pilning, Shipton...We do requests you know  ;D

I'm personally not going to disagree with that...

...but in reality: the West Oxfordshire Local Plan has just (last week) been adopted, with a fairly last-minute change in that the expectation of development within the "Burford/Charlbury sub-area" has been withdrawn.

The previous draft of the plan had a modest number of houses within the area, but it was successfully challenged on the basis this wasn't consistent with the statutory protection for the Cotswolds AONB. Although there may be some small-scale development, hundreds of houses are vanishingly unlikely, let alone a thousand. And both Combe and Finstock stations (as well as Charlbury, Ascott, Shipton and Kingham) are within the AONB.

You could well argue that it is absolute madness to be building those thousands at Witney, Carterton and Eynsham, which are served by the notoriously congested A40 and which don't have any railway service at all. I wouldn't disagree with you... but them's the breaks.

Well there was once a railway line that connected all those places to Oxford!

Yes there was and can we have it back please?

Current plans are to put them on the EAst-West line, the other side of Oxford. How many thousand homes is it?