Meanwhile we have empty 9 car sets running to and from Banbury. I only wish GWR prioitsed it's long distance travellers the way it does it's commuters......
Day one and the broken record comes out yet again...
Do you think a train departing from Banbury at 07.45 for Oxford, which continues as the 08.07 to Paddington, arriving there at 09.01, will be empty?
Or a train leaving Paddington heading to Oxford and Banbury at 18.28?
Of course it is then going to be quiet on the way back from Banbury at 19.44 - not even the most amazing bit of yield management jiggery-pokery with dirt-cheap advances would fill that one - in much the same way that there would be acres of empty seats if there was a procession of nine-car sets through Cornwall all the time.
I think the number of passengers using Oxford station alone (never mind the rest of the Thames Valley and beyond) might explain why GWR spends a bit of the time worrying about the mere 'commuters' who use its services and each cough up £5,200+ a year for a season ticket to London from Oxford and nearby stations.
The estimated passenger entries and exits at Oxford totted up to 7,984,000 in 2017-18, up from a pretty steady 6.5 to 6.6 million for several years before that. Never mind the rest of the Thames Valley, etc.
The total number of estimated passenger entries and exits across the whole of Cornwall in 2017-18, summer holiday season and all, was, er, 6,453,406.
With a great many of them, of course, not going anywhere near a long-distance train, such as on the Falmouth and St Ives branches, which by themselves account for getting on for a quarter of that total for Cornwall.