Oh, is that the cause of the cancellations on the Cotswold Line today? Rather unfortunate timing given that the Wilderness Festival is taking place just outside Charlbury: shuttle buses are being cancelled then reinstated, rail replacement coaches laid on...

There's a notorious canal untown, which is Bewdley on the River Severn. The story goes that James Brindley, when plotting out the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal, was intending to terminate it at Bewdley - until the residents told him to "take your stinking ditch elsewhere".

Except it's not true. If you look at the lie of the land, getting to Bewdley would have required a massive tunnel. The eventual destination of Lower Mitton (aka Stourport) was always much more sensible: the canal could just continue down the Stour valley, and those wanting Bewdley could turn upstream along the Severn from Stourport. In fact, Bewdley petitioned Brindley to send his canal to their town, but he wasn't that stupid!

Yep. Also possible to operate with a 3-car and send passengers for the shorter platforms by taxi from Oxford - I've seen that done a couple of times.

And people are starting to arrive at Charlbury in their droves for the Wilderness Festival...

Yes - I wouldn't doubt your experience, TG, but you can't extrapolate it everywhere. Whatever indignities Thames, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have visited upon us in Charlbury over the years, in aggregate the train has been far more reliable than Wolvercote and Peartree roundabouts.

By all means.

We have the middle-of-the-day restrictions on Church Lane and Dyers Hill, the two streets nearest to the station, here in Charlbury. They prevent residents from being able to leave their cars outside their houses (most houses in central Charlbury don't have off-street parking) and simply move the fly-parkers further into the town - particularly the bottom of Nine Acres Lane, which has become increasingly dangerous due to the number of parked cars. There was a recent case where the District Council's enforcement team prosecuted a Church Lane resident for parking outside their house during the midday period, and the case was thrown out by the court.

I would very strongly recommend against adopting such a scheme in Kemble. We would do much better here with a full residents' parking scheme, but unfortunately West Oxfordshire doesn't have the revenue to implement one thanks to their regressive free parking policy.

IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) at Charlbury this evening...

"Disruptive electrification works". "Intrusive wires". I suspect those comments will come back to bite DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) in the posterior next time there's a Goring Gap situation.

Does the door lock count as "signalling"?

There's been talk for years of putting a cycle-friendly crossing of the A303 so that people can ride safely from Salisbury to Stonehenge - at present it's no fun at all (I did it once, years ago!). Maybe it'll be a spin-off benefit from the tunnel...

All done with OpenStreetMap and the superb Mapbox GL library too - I definitely approve!

I suspect it'll never be released for commercial reasons, but I would love to see a sample dataset of queries that people make online with National Rail Enquiries. Where do people actually want to go? What journeys do they want to make, and how well does the current rail network (and timetable, and fare system) respond to their needs?

To take an example from another thread, would it show lots of people looking for a late-night train from Stratford to London? Are there flows that could justify a new direct service (I've always wondered about Evesham/Pershore direct to Birmingham)? How about journeys where people look up the prices, but a smaller proportion than usual click through to purchase, perhaps because the fare is too exorbitant?

You'd have to treat it with the appropriate degree of caution, because a lot (maybe most) of NRE^‡(resolve) users are looking for journeys they already know they can make, but it would be fascinating and perhaps very useful data.

I wonder if Chiltern could extend the current Oxford service to Marylebone, reversing at Oxford. But I tend to agree with ChrisB's point that the solution is in the RSC's hands by starting at 7.30, if they think the market is big enough - which I suspect it isn't.

(On the rare occasions I need to go to Stratford in the daytime, I've taken to getting the train to Honeybourne then cycling along NCN 41 to Stratford - ten very easy, flat miles. Wouldn't recommend it at night though!)

A little bit of good news: Stagecoach are reworking the S3 and 7 service timings to provide a late-night service direct from Oxford Parkway to Charlbury and Chippy. So it should be possible to catch the 23.10 from Marylebone and still get a bus connection home. More S3 buses are going to "Oxford General", too, so Chippy retains a rail link of sorts...

https://www.stagecoachbus.com/service-updates/serviceupdatesarticle?SituationId=ID-29/06/2017-11:46:40:119