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William,
While I have signed your petition, I do have reservations about your reference to "village stations", which might cover just about everywhere on the line apart from Evesham and Pershore. The reason the trains make as many calls as they do is because people want to use them.
In the 1970s, Pershore and Hanborough (PS Lee, the second platform survives here too) were down to a single daily train each way, now passenger journeys are in the 60,000-70,000 per year range at both. Honeybourne is somewhere near 30,000, despite having been closed from 1969-1981. If it had a decent train service, Shipton (and the Wychwoods generally) could well match that figure. Charlbury (232,000) generates almost as much traffic as Evesham (239,000), despite a far smaller population. Figures given are all for 2006.
If and when more double track is laid, the need to meet this demand will not change. Indeed a much enhanced service at Shipton would be justified and possible if the current timetabling constraints are removed.
By all means deal with slack scheduling on the Cotswold Line itself and the padding built into timings between Reading and London, but the days of the Cathedrals Express sweeping imperiously past everywhere except Moreton and Evesham are long gone. We may be a long way from London, but this route and much of the FGW▸ (First Great Western) network as far out as Bath and Bristol is now outer-suburban, not InterCity, which means current stopping patterns are here to stay.
While I have signed your petition, I do have reservations about your reference to "village stations", which might cover just about everywhere on the line apart from Evesham and Pershore. The reason the trains make as many calls as they do is because people want to use them.
In the 1970s, Pershore and Hanborough (PS Lee, the second platform survives here too) were down to a single daily train each way, now passenger journeys are in the 60,000-70,000 per year range at both. Honeybourne is somewhere near 30,000, despite having been closed from 1969-1981. If it had a decent train service, Shipton (and the Wychwoods generally) could well match that figure. Charlbury (232,000) generates almost as much traffic as Evesham (239,000), despite a far smaller population. Figures given are all for 2006.
If and when more double track is laid, the need to meet this demand will not change. Indeed a much enhanced service at Shipton would be justified and possible if the current timetabling constraints are removed.
By all means deal with slack scheduling on the Cotswold Line itself and the padding built into timings between Reading and London, but the days of the Cathedrals Express sweeping imperiously past everywhere except Moreton and Evesham are long gone. We may be a long way from London, but this route and much of the FGW▸ (First Great Western) network as far out as Bath and Bristol is now outer-suburban, not InterCity, which means current stopping patterns are here to stay.
I agree that one of the problems is that the Cotswold line as with most of the GW▸ (Great Western) mainline out of Paddington is now outer suburban so most trains will need to stop at most stations with double track you could have say an hourly semi fast (fast to Oxford) to and from Paddington and an hourly all stations that follows the fast from Oxford (connection from Padd) and arrives Oxford to connect with an Oxford to Paddington fast service (on the other half hour to the through fast).
However this will require very expensive diesel units to give the necessary acceleration to provide attractive journey times. So given the increasing outer suburban nature of the Cotswold line electrification should be the long term goal.
