Naming of Bicester London Road / Town

[whole diary]

[81F]

Still, the situation in Bicester will be annoying for Bicesterians!

And even more so for Bicastrians

[TonyK]

Still, the situation in Bicester will be annoying for Bicesterians!

And even more so for Bicastrians

Do Bicastrians have a foot in both camps?

[John R]

It will be the "Finstock" of the Chiltern line, withering on with no-one having the nerve to close it.

Hopefully, they'll just shove the franchise commitment calls to silly o clock hours to close it by stealth. The only reason it has so many passengers now, is that it acts as a mini parkway for Oxford, Water Eaton is basically replacing it.

In this day and age of constant fare hikes, you cannot justify keeping these halts open, pretending we're still in the 1950s. See also: Cotswold halts train!

Given Finstock has less than 2,000 entries and exits a year and Islip already has over 29,000 I think that's a pretty poor comparison.  And remember the current service is very slow, on account of the poor infrastructure. It'll be much faster one the upgrade is finished.

And what about that "halt" at Parson St, which has gone from 4,000 to 78,000 in the last 10 years. Would you have closed that one in 2001?

As regards Water Eaton Parkway, unless I'm completely mistaken, I thought the point was to provide a Parkway for those travelling towards London, not for Oxford commuters. In which case, it certainly wouldn't be replacing Islip in serving that purpose (not that it does anyway according to II).

[ChrisB]

Chiltern has considered the name & it's staying as is. Obviously, sponsorship of stations does happen, and there's nowt to prevent the Village from doing so in the future.

Bicester Village is at capacity at weekends already - it doesn't need many more customers and may end up having a capacity problem.

Chiltern will have to maintain the PSR^▸ (Permanent Speed Restriction) at all 3 stations (two Bicesters & Islip) - I think it's 7 at Islip. Chiltern agreed with FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to maintain the increased service at Islip until the line closed but has stated it will fall back to the PSR on re-opening.

There is a get-out clause should pax^▸ (passengers) numbers not materialise or performance not be as good as expected. By this, I mean a renegotiation with ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road, formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) as to agreed service levels. It's in the latest application to run service.

The magic journey time is 66 minutes London-Oxford, not 59.

[IndustryInsider]

The magic journey time is 66 minutes London-Oxford, not 59.

I'm sure the canny marketing lot at Chiltern will claim it's 'less than an hour' from Oxford though, with the small print clarifying they mean the 59 minutes from Water Eaton Parkway. 

[ChrisB]

Hmm. All their publicity so far has referred to 66 minutes.

THat is also the max journey time in the SLA

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

re John R's post on Watereaton being a Parkway for North to London and not south to Oxford, I totally agree. Having family living in Islip I know that the people currently using Islip are mainly villages who can walk to the station. They would not want to drive to Watereaton for a less frequent trainservice to Oxford than they can already use the frequent Watereaton/Oxford Park & Ride bus service.