Sorry isn't it Bittern Line, named after the bird of the same name rather than Bitterne line! Bitterne being a Southampton suburb having a station on the St. Deny's to Fareham line.

These new TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine)'s have also appeared at Didcot Parkway. One has a massive touch screen similar to those used in other retail establishments.

Well I hope that isn't the final timetable as the Oxford - Didcot service in the late afternoon is worse than the current timetable.

Currently we have services at 1637, 1707, 1737, 1807, 1837, 1909
the new timetable seems to be 1637, 1707, 1752, 1825, 1906.

Is this tonight's test train http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/K00418/2017/07/20/advanced ? If it is, then also going to Reading, Newbury and Westbury, and then back to Bristol.

Thanks for the report of the journey, but just a couple of corrections. Hythe and Fawley are on the west bank of Southampton Water and not the River Itchen, and the village at the end is called Calshot.

I am not a marketing expert but do you think Inter-City 125 would work? or failing that High Speed Train or HST^▸ (High Speed Train) for short?
Any suggestions for colour schemes?

This was taken from the CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) at Oxford today and states 'No Std Wheelchair space' on the Hereford  - Paddington train.

But didn't the Grayling deferral come after that? And Grayling gave no dates or even any guarantees that electrification would ever be completed.

I would say that Sept 2018 was very unlikely given the lack of work undertaken between Kennington Junction and Oxford. No piling or even preparation for piling has ever taken place between those two places.

Just because they weren't due to complete in CP5 doesn't mean that no money would be spent in CP5, if deferred means stopped until CP6^▸ (Control Period 6 - The five year period between 2019 and 2024) then no money will be spent until CP5.

Whatever the reality of the situation I hope they don't use the Oxford station rebuild as an excuse not to complete electrification to Oxford. As as far as I can tell there is no approved/finalised plan for the rebuild and their certainly doesn't appear to be any money so we could be waiting a long time/forever.

Definitely electrification masts, the signalling gantries are much larger.

Does anyone know where this stabling point is going to be? Based on information from Didcot Railway centre I assume it is going to be next to them in the sidings currently used by DB^» (Deutsche Bahn - German State Railway - about) Cargo. But I have seen no plans and there is no evidence of any work in that area (or any other area in Didcot).

Any stabling point would need wiring and masts and currently the only wiring in Didcot, excluding the main-line, is between the station and Didcot West Curve and that is only partially complete.

I noticed today that some masts for electrification have appeared between Didcot North Junc and Appleford, these must have gone up over the weekend.
This follows on from piling carried out between Didcot East junc and Didcot North Junc on Christmas Day and between Didcot North Junc and Appleford just before Christmas.

Given that Didcot to Oxford electrification has been paused/deferred/cancelled I am surprised that they are putting up masts north of Didcot North Junc.

Maybe this should be in a new topic but is there a 'shortage' of units?

A couple of trains I catch have been running shorter this week:
The 0657 Paddington to Oxford has run as 2 carriages instead of 3 which makes it very busy between Didcot (0829) and Oxford (0847) and
the 1637 Oxford to Paddington which has dropped from 4 to 3 carriages, not any issue for me but maybe for the 1842 Paddington to Maidenhead, which I believe it returns as.

I think the unions have walked into a trap as Grayling is an ideologue, you only have to have seen his letter to Boris Johnson about tfl and the London suburban services to see that and the Govt will either make it difficult to call strikes in the transport sector or just ban them all together.

To know whether £6million is 'whopping' you would need to know what % of GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) revenue it is.
The revenue of First Rail (includes GWR and TPE^▸ (Trans Pennine Express)) was £1.3bn in 2015 so £6m is probably about 0.6% of GWR revenue (I can't find any figures that show how the revenue should be split between TPE and GWR). So hardly whopping.

First Group Accounts can be found here http://www.firstgroupplc.com/~/media/Files/F/Firstgroup-Plc/indexed-pdfs/2016%20ARA/FirstGroup%20plc%20Annual%20Report%20and%20Accounts%202016.pdf

And does the £6m include the season ticket discounts for delays?

In 14/15 GWR received approx £55m from Network Rail for delays. Data available here http://www.networkrail.co.uk/transparency/datasets/. Incidentally TPE received £5m for the same period. 

Obviously GWR will have costs attributed to disruption: coach hire, staff overtime, etc. But I can't see how they can't be making a profit from this.

The First Rail profit (GWR and TPE) for 2015 was only £72m so it could be that a large percentage of the profit was made from delay payments.
If that is true do GWR have any incentive to work with or put pressure on Network Rail in reducing delays?

This is the National Audit Office (NAO) view on the impact of the electrification delays on the rolling stock cascade:


Does ordering extra AT300's for the Oxford route suggest that the electrification is not just delayed but effectively cancelled?