Where are the replacement 93 trainsets coming from?

(other than the Strategic Reserve in Box Tunnel, obviously)

Some taxis were laid on, which is better than nothing. I think (via a second-hand report) that there may have been a concern about the IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) driver reaching their maximum allowed hours. Omitting the stops, plus the booked dwell at Evesham, meant that the 1612 was running to time by Worcester.

Slightly surprised that the busy West Oxfordshire stops were omitted rather than running late throughout and capeing it at Worcester, but I confess I've not looked at the single line utilisation to see if that would work.

And then the next three services:

1612 from Paddington (1645 Oxford) running 22 late and will apparently be omitting Hanborough, Charlbury, Kingham, Pershore, Honeybourne.

Halts train (1723 Oxford) is cancelled.

1658 from Paddington (1746 Oxford) is running... and is a 5-car.

Oh, that's very sad. He was our "eyes on the ground" for the western Kennet & Avon when I was editing Waterways World. Really lovely man. Thank you for posting this, Mark.

He reputedly does use LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about) quite often on the way to/from his Richmond constituency. I guess Prime Minister is one of the jobs which pays enough to afford the new LNER fares.

Not a stock photo, but worth noting as a rather spectacular goof by a well-known writer.

Here's Giles Coren in the Times reviewing Charlbury's gastropub, the Bull. He spends quite a lot of time talking about Adlestrop:


I know Cotswold Line punctuality hasn't been great recently, but "closed" is taking it a bit far.

(Later in the same article, he finally gets round to writing about the Bull. "Without restaurants in pubs, there would be no pubs at all in the countryside now. Just like there are no goddam railway stations." Charlbury, of course, has both a railway station and two pubs-which-aren't-restaurants. One of them, the Rose & Crown, is literally over the road from the Bull. Coren probably parked his Land Rover on the double yellows outside it.)

Harwich–Hook of Holland is easy. At Harwich, the station and ferry terminal are the same building. At Hook of Holland, you walk down the ramp (which admittedly is very long) into the terminal building; the metro station is just over the road.

A proposal has been kicking around (supported by the local councils) to extend the line a mile or two further north, to a new Park & Ride by Dowlais Top. But I'd be surprised if it happens.

Anecdotally, lots of previously five-days-a-week Charlbury passengers are now working from home much, or indeed most, of the time. I suspect the demographics of the place are particularly susceptible to that.

The ongoing carnage that is Oxford traffic has probably done Hanborough custom a lot of good too!

If we're doing "no longer applicable"... Charlbury, Kingham, Moreton-in-Marsh, Evesham, Worcester Shrub Hill.

(There was a 1980s Saturday service that ran Paddington-Oxford-Worcester-Birmingham-Banbury-Oxford-Paddington, and another the other way round.)

I'm sure you're right that it's replacing a Turbo service - you wouldn't stop at Appleford otherwise! So the Didcot call supplies connections to/from the Thames Valley local stations.

Interested to see (in the Clarion's second tweet) that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are citing "consistent country-end overcrowding experienced on Bristol–London Paddington services".

That's fantastic news. Let's hope it's the start of a fuller service.

Even as someone who used the old Thames/FGW^▸ (First Great Western) service when it ran, I have been genuinely surprised several times recently by the number of people you can see at Didcot making their way between Bristol trains and Oxford Turbos.

Ahem.

Richard
cycle.travel

“The dMS service at Platform 3 is in upside down formation. First class is at the bottom”

Very impressive showing for Worcestershire Parkway.