Fare comparison - Melksham to Bicester and to Haddenham and Thame

[whole diary]

[grahame]

On Saturday, I'm taking a day return from Melksham to Bicester Village, change at Chippenham and Oxford on the way out, additional change at Didcot on the way back.

On a senior railcard, the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) web site quotes me £13.70

I could decides to stay on the train one more stop from Bicester Village to Haddenham and Thame Parkway.  How much do you thing the quoted fare is?

[Mark A]

£186.48?

Mark

[Ralph Ayres]

Haddenham & Thame is still priced via London despite the National Rail Journey Planner sending you via Oxford and Bicester.  I'm not sure whose responsibility it is to add fare routes when new lines are built but you'd think by now it would have been sorted.  I wonder if (pre COVID pseudo-nationalisation) GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) were being unco-operative in approving a new priced route as they would lose out, and it's still dragging on?

[ray951]

It is £5.10 extra if you buy a ticket from Bicester Village to Haddenham and T. and I know that wasn't the question.

[didcotdean]

Off peak day return from Didcot to High Wycombe not via London is £42.70. (Set by GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway))

Off peak day return from Reading to High Wycombe via Oxford is £32.80. (Set by XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)))

Also the any permitted off peak day return from Didcot to High Wycombe is  ... £42.70.

[RichardB]

Going for a completely random figure - £37.75?

[grahame]

I'm not actually posting the answer yet, but the amazing thing is just how widely members are guessing / voting.  What an amazing system where even the experts here can't even guess accurately!

[Mark A]

Thinking of your plans to travel to Bicester puts me in mind of two previous trips. Well, three, counting a visit by car, notable for being the one time ever that I've managed to run out of diesel.

The two trips by rail: the first was spur of the moment, out on an explore, pre-smart phone, in the days of the Bristol to Oxford direct trains but then an occasional crawling-speed service over knackered track to Bicester Town, then a ghost of Bicester London Road. On arrival at Bicester and walking up to where the buses stopped in the middle of town I checked the bus stop timetables, found that a bus ran to several... interesting places, then waited for ages for said bus. No show, so I headed back to Oxford. An email to the county council elicited huge apologies, the Saturday bus service from that stop had been gutted about six weeks previous to my visit but they'd not changed the bus stop timetables.

The second trip was out to Bicester with a bike during the Covid pandemic. At that time onward buses to Milton Keynes etc called in at the station forecourt, which might have been a Covid thing.

Most buses are now to be found ~20 minutes walk into town, and a single locked gate on the perimeter of the inconveniently located shopping outlet destination blocks the direct walking route.

What *does* run from the station, but Mondays to Fridays only, is the number 18 and its circuitous route to Buckingham. A couple of other bus routes with high utility to their users are to be found at the stops in town, some of which even run at weekends, including the hourly 500 service to Banbury via Brackley, which opens up a sort of round-trip opportunity...

Mark

Edit: the missing footpath link between Bicester Priory Lane and the station, missing in 2022, is now complete, allegedly.

[RichardB]

Going for a completely random figure - £37.75?

There's me not reading the question properly!  I thought you meant how much more is the fare to Haddenham rather than Bicester.  The fare to Haddenham is £51.45.  That £13.70 is a real bargain.

[Richard Fairhurst]

Haddenham & Thame is still priced via London despite the National Rail Journey Planner sending you via Oxford and Bicester.

Indeed. A couple of times I've wanted to go from Charlbury to somewhere like High Wycombe and the pricing system still appears blissfully unaware of the "new" Bicester chord. Maybe (he says optimistically) they'll finally sort it out when East-West Rail opens to Bletchley?

As ever, thank goodness for Trainsplit.

[ChrisB]

I have drawnb this to Chiltern's attention more than once & will do again at their next stakeholders meeting on Monday.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Thank you, ChrisB - that would be appreciated. 

[grahame]

Going for a completely random figure - £37.75?

There's me not reading the question properly!  I thought you meant how much more is the fare to Haddenham rather than Bicester.  The fare to Haddenham is £51.45.  That £13.70 is a real bargain.

Yes, and I was astonished.   

From the poll (which I have closed now that the answer is down-thread) it seems that it's far from obvious even for our experts members here to guess what the fare range will be Melksham to Haddenham, even with the clue given by the very fact there's a poll that it's likely to be a bit unexpected.

Best Melksham to London off peak day trip return fares study due to be done again.  Probably for railcard holders after this coning weekend when the railcard discount goes down and the fare goes up.