Culham station - facilities, services and events - merged posts

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Will it be selling tickets?

No - they were giving away Edison tickets stamped in one of the old stamping machine they have there.  An interest look around the inside of the building - the old ticket office and waiting room, and then the back office, with a historic interpretation provided by two of the team there, to whom a hearty "Thank You".   The 175 anniversary of the station was celebrated in June 2019, and since this is the first public opening since then, so the look around was truly appreciated.

Our member's mirror - http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/mirror/281008culham.pdf - includes a series of external pictures from Lee, and it strikes me how little has changed.  Arriving from Oxford, perhaps just 2 or 3 got off the train. Picking up the train an hour later, I was the only one joining and just one person got off.   Apparently, Culham was the only brick built (Brunel) station between Didcot and Oxford - impressive for the lord of the manor who had a private driveway to the station, and in early telephone days (before exchanges - a direct line) would have the station alerted so that the London express could stop for him.   How things have changed - these days the historic building and its platform are listed and preserved, asd a new platform with a modern shelter are provided just to the north.

We are short of housing in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) and our new government vows to step up building, including some with somewhat relaxed rules of "where" on agricultural land, and near to where travel infrastructure in in place.  I wonder if Culham has potential?

[IndustryInsider]

Arriving from Oxford, perhaps just 2 or 3 got off the train. Picking up the train an hour later, I was the only one joining and just one person got off.

It remains very busy in the weekday peaks for the science centre with 20-30 often alighting from each of the four trains from Oxford between 7-9am, and probably half that using it in the other direction from Didcot.  They all go home in the evening of course.

Outside of that, off-peak is much quieter.  Leisure traffic is tiny as Culham village is 1.5 miles away, Clifton Hamden nearly as far the other way.  Bus links and a much larger car park mean Radley is the main railhead for nearby Abingdon.

However, science centre traffic is what drove the 80752 yearly passenger count in 2022/23.  Down a little on the 92000 pre-Covid figure, but not by much, as the majority of science centre jobs can’t be done from home.

[RichardB]

Sorry to be boring, Graham.  It's Edmondson not Edison tickets after Thomas Edmondson who invested the little card tickets.

[grahame]

Sorry to be boring, Graham.  It's Edmondson not Edison tickets after Thomas Edmondson who invested the little card tickets.

Delighted to be corrected - thank you.  Now that you remind me, a lightbulb has gone on in my head.

[Richard Fairhurst]

We are short of housing in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) and our new government vows to step up building, including some with somewhat relaxed rules of "where" on agricultural land, and near to where travel infrastructure in in place.  I wonder if Culham has potential?

It very much does - there's an outline plan for a new town with 3500 homes there. The Oxford Clarion did a long piece on it earlier this summer. https://oxfordclarion.uk/culham-town-the-future-of-housing-in-oxfordshire/

[Western Pathfinder]

Sorry to be boring, Graham.  It's Edmondson not Edison tickets after Thomas Edmondson who invested the little card tickets.

Delighted to be corrected - thank you.  Now that you remind me, a lightbulb has gone on in my head.

A Lighthouse moment,one might say !..

[Red Squirrel]

Hmm… and do I see some rosemary growing in the background of grahame’s picture? Thought so…

[Mark A]

We are short of housing in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) and our new government vows to step up building, including some with somewhat relaxed rules of "where" on agricultural land, and near to where travel infrastructure in in place.  I wonder if Culham has potential?

It very much does - there's an outline plan for a new town with 3500 homes there. The Oxford Clarion did a long piece on it earlier this summer. https://oxfordclarion.uk/culham-town-the-future-of-housing-in-oxfordshire/

A good read with a very strong concluding paragraph. It did make me wonder as to how close the old GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) came, if at all, to quad-tracking Didcot to Wolvercote (thinking about it, Aynho the answer to that).

Mark