1972 Cotswold Line Timetable

[whole diary]

[PhilWakely]

Couldn't you have stuck a bike in the guard's compartment?

Didn't you still have to pay a fare for bikes in 1972? You certainly did in the 60s because I paid to take mine on a few occasions.

I took a little Puch Maxi moped with me from Exeter to Bath, when I was at University in 1976. I didn't have to pay for it and the guard didn't bat an eyelid when loading into the guard's compartment (it had a full tank of 2-stroke as well)!.

[Oxonhutch]

When I was at Uni my bicycle travelled for free in the guard's van - and on a packed end-of-term train, it would often be my seat home - it beat standing up! Change at Birmingham New Street where I got to know the cavernous ramp and subway system linking the various platforms - I'm quite sure I wasn't supposed to actually cycle it but I did. Snow and ice on a journey back to Uni in 1980 forced me and my 125cc motorbike on to a train at Crewe for the rest of the journey south and I recall the fare was half the adult price, further reduced for having a Student Rail Card.

[jdw.wor]

Many thanks Grahame. Timetables very interesting. A Sunday shift at Shrub Hill was not too demanding!!

[grahame]

As far as I can tell, cycles were charged for in 1971-2 and free of charge in 1976.   Kinda hard thing to research / find online.

[stuving]

As far as I can tell, cycles were charged for in 1971-2 and free of charge in 1976.   Kinda hard thing to research / find online.

There was a trial offer of free carriage, using tickets you had to write in for, from 1 June 1977. Then the ticketing was dropped ("after applications for more than 40,000 tickets had been handled") for the rest of the trial period. In October it was announced that free carriage would resume "on the same basis as during this summer's offer".

Correction: the offer was due to finish on 30th September, and the continuation was announced on that day. This was of course for carriage in guard's vans.

[Oxonhutch]

My first such free carriage was in October 1978. One suitcase (no wheels) on each handlebar. Couldn't ride the bike, but it was better than carrying the lot. No parental taxi in those days 

 

[Richard Fairhurst]

Here's a poster I have up on my wall from 1966. It christens Charlbury as "the new rail centre for north west Oxfordshire". Maybe I should post a copy to the North Cotswold Line Task Force... 

[IndustryInsider]

A much improved service for Combe, Finstock and Ascott back then.   

[brompton rail]

I didn’t realise Pershore had just the one train a day each way back then.

Very useful service for commuters from Pershore to Worcester and back if you worked 9-5.  Hard luck if you didn't.

I do recall travelling, probably in the mid sixties, overnight on the Postal from Sheffield to Worcester Shrub Hill. Changed there onto the 04.20 to Pershore. From there we(myself and wife) intended to walk the two and a half miles to Wick, beyond Pershore. However the Post Van stopped and offered us a lift to Pershore PO which was gratefully accepted. He had, of course, seen us alight from the train, the only passengers, at the station. And, yes, it did carry the post!

None of that could happen today of course - no overnight trains, no postal trains, no likelihood of a lift in Post Office van ....... ah! Well, the good old days😁

[Witham Bobby]

A much improved service for Combe, Finstock and Ascott back then.   

There was a spell during 1973/4/5/6 when the BR(WR) London Division tried to put on a much better service extending out from Oxford to just over the Divisional Boundary at Moreton-in-Marsh.  A single car DMU would make, I think, five round trips per day shuttling between the two stations, calling everywhere.

As a signalman at Moreton in Marsh it made the job a bit more interesting.  The bubble car would have to be crossed from arriving at the Down platform, ready to depart on the return run from the Up.  The 0550 from Oxford ran ECS to Moreton in Marsh (although it did carry news), arrived in the Down platform, crossed over to the Up Main, then reversed into the sidings that had been the Shipston Bay.  It departed after a lesiurely filling of the tea can from the signalbox kettle, at 0702 back to Oxford.  I used to put it in the Up platform to depart, but both the other regulars at Moreton couldn't be arsed to do it properly and let it go from the Shipston platform towards Oxford.  Dodgy move, tbh, with unlocked trap point leading out onto the Up Main.

I always used the crossover to cross the unit.  Both the other signalmen tended to block-back to Evesham, draw a token, and use the single to double line connection at the country end of the layout to cross the DMU

Once, when the 0555 (or something) from Hereford was hauled by Class 31 "power", and had to be assisted Evesham - Moreton in Marsh by a loco pinched off the daily Long Marston trip, I had this express (horribly late), it's assisting loco, the 0700 Oxford to Worcester DMU, the bubble car, and a down engineers' train in the Down Refuge Siding all at once.  Five separate trains.  I think that was the record for the post-singling layout at Moreton in Marsh.

[Witham Bobby]

Many thanks Grahame. Timetables very interesting. A Sunday shift at Shrub Hill was not too demanding!!

Up until the time of the works on the Badminton route for HSTs in 1974, the 'boxes between Evesham and Ascott-under-Wychwood did a split-shift on the Sunday, worked by the late-turn Saturday man.

There'd be one train in each direction in the morning (the up one was 1015 off Worcester Shrub Hill, I recall) and then you'd go home and return in time for something like the 1615 off Worcester Shrub Hill

BR was a bit careful with spending the double-time wages

[Witham Bobby]

I didn’t realise Pershore had just the one train a day each way back then.

Very useful service for commuters from Pershore to Worcester and back if you worked 9-5.  Hard luck if you didn't.

I do recall travelling, probably in the mid sixties, overnight on the Postal from Sheffield to Worcester Shrub Hill. Changed there onto the 04.20 to Pershore. From there we(myself and wife) intended to walk the two and a half miles to Wick, beyond Pershore. However the Post Van stopped and offered us a lift to Pershore PO which was gratefully accepted. He had, of course, seen us alight from the train, the only passengers, at the station. And, yes, it did carry the post!

None of that could happen today of course - no overnight trains, no postal trains, no likelihood of a lift in Post Office van ....... ah! Well, the good old days😁

That 0425 was a 3-car Swindon DMU, with mail bags loaded in the passenger compartments.  The postmen would descend on Evesham to unload their bags at ungodly o'clock.  I think this also stopped at Pershore to drop off mail, and also brought a much smaller volume of mail to Moreton in Marsh.

The DMU would sit in the Up platform at Moreton-in-Marsh for just about an hour, whilst the driver and guard would come up in the signalbox for a cup of tea and a setting-to-rights of the entire world, before forming the 0602 to Oxford, and back to Worcester as the 0700 from Oxford to Foregate Street.

[Witham Bobby]

Here's a poster I have up on my wall from 1966. It christens Charlbury as "the new rail centre for north west Oxfordshire". Maybe I should post a copy to the North Cotswold Line Task Force... 

This timetable is obviously a product of the silo mentality that existed between the divisions of BR(WR).  It doesn't actually show the full (what we nowadays call) Cotswold Line service,  It omits the Worcester to Stratford upon Avon (and beyond) trains that still ran via Evesham and Honeybourne until 1969  Charlbury fell into the London Division, whereas Worcester, Evesham and Honeybourne were run from Bristol, in what had become, by then, I think, the West of England Division.  There were such petty and stupid rivalries between divisions, I always felt.