December 2015 Cotswold Line timetable changes

[burty76]

Mod Note: Split from this thread

Significant changes on the Cotswold Line: http://clpg.org.uk/content.php?pagename=News-Page, plus a late-night FO service from Paddington to Moreton-in-Marsh.
That's a lot better than it is now

It really isn't if you live in Worcester. The new 16.22 departure replacing the 15.52 now takes 2 hours 37 minutes. For 125 miles. Stopping at every hamlet in the Cotswolds.

When are GWR going to provide a limited stop service to Worcester? It's not like they don't have the stock or are restrained by the infrastructure any more.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

You might well take that up with your elected representatives. If any stops were to be removed from Cotswold services (aside from the near-parliamentary, once-a-day service at the Oxfordshire halts) they would be Honeybourne, Pershore and Worcestershire Parkway... all three of them in Worcestershire. But Worcestershire's councillors and MPs squeal whenever anyone proposes dropping a single Pershore stop, and I can't imagine them being too happy if their shiny new station were omitted.

Hanborough, Charlbury, Kingham and Moreton are far too lucrative to skip. Charlbury (population 3000, but a very significant railhead) has more passengers than Evesham (population 22000); and most Evesham passengers are heading west, so wouldn't benefit from a limited-stop service to London, whereas Charlbury traffic is almost entirely eastbound.

Do they really have the stock or the infrastructure? Even with the current timetable, trains are regularly held at Charlbury to await services coming off the single line. And if there were a surfeit of trains, GWR wouldn't have to deploy their new AT300s to cover the shortfall of IEPs for the peak Cotswold service.

 

[HarleyDavidson]

I think it's terribly naive not to reinstate the rest of the double track section on the Cotswold line. It could allow a ½ hourly service across there with some of the smaller stations getting their service back too, as well as removing the bottlenecks & constraints that the single line sections inherently bring.

 

[burty76]

You might well take that up with your elected representatives. If any stops were to be removed from Cotswold services (aside from the near-parliamentary, once-a-day service at the Oxfordshire halts) they would be Honeybourne, Pershore and Worcestershire Parkway... all three of them in Worcestershire. But Worcestershire's councillors and MPs squeal whenever anyone proposes dropping a single Pershore stop, and I can't imagine them being too happy if their shiny new station were omitted.

Hanborough, Charlbury, Kingham and Moreton are far too lucrative to skip. Charlbury (population 3000, but a very significant railhead) has more passengers than Evesham (population 22000); and most Evesham passengers are heading west, so wouldn't benefit from a limited-stop service to London, whereas Charlbury traffic is almost entirely eastbound.

Do they really have the stock or the infrastructure? Even with the current timetable, trains are regularly held at Charlbury to await services coming off the single line. And if there were a surfeit of trains, GWR wouldn't have to deploy their new AT300s to cover the shortfall of IEPs for the peak Cotswold service.

I'm not suggesting that Hanborough, Charlbury, Kingham and Moreton should be skipped. But a service every two hours off-peak and hourly at peak times should suffice. Which would give more chance of an accelarated time for Worcester. For example :

Odd Hours : Oxford, Hanborough, Charlbury, Kingham, Moreton, Evesham, Worcester
Even Hours : Oxford, Charlbury, Moreton, Honeybourne, Evesham, Pershore, Worcester

With those frequencies repeated hourly at peak times.

 

[Starmill]

You want Moreton-in-Marsh and Hanborough to go down to 1tp2h?

Have you actually thought about this at all...?

 

[jimm]

It really isn't if you live in Worcester. The new 16.22 departure replacing the 15.52 now takes 2 hours 37 minutes. For 125 miles. Stopping at every hamlet in the Cotswolds.

When are GWR going to provide a limited stop service to Worcester? It's not like they don't have the stock or are restrained by the infrastructure any more.

Why on earth should they provide a limited-stop service for a city of just 100,000 people? What is it about Worcester that is supposed to be so special? Please enlighten me, because every time the supposedly persecuted status of Worcester is raised here or at firstgreatwestern.info the advocates of these limited-stop trains never seem to come up with any kind of argument beyond 'they just should run them', never mind any supporting evidence.

As Dr Fegg points out, the number of London services Worcester currently enjoys is in large part down to the volume of traffic at the intermediate stations on the way to Oxford. It is that traffic that has permitted the build-up of services to Worcester to current levels, with mid-evening trains and extra off-peak services tried out as far as Moreton-in-Marsh over many years by Thames and FGW/GWR, then, once a demand (and a revenue stream) has been shown, these have been extended out to Worcester. The Friday late-night extra to Moreton starting in December may be extended further west in the future if it attracts decent loadings.

So you'll have to excuse me for being deeply sceptical about the idea that the number of passengers on offer from Worcester justifies trains hurtling past stations that actually produce the passengers that pay the bills on the route.

The December changes actually reinstate elements of the timetable that applied until early in the last decade, e.g. a 15.22 from Paddington to Malvern, and the 16.22 forming the halts train west of Oxford. Given how crowded both those trains were beyond Oxford back then, a train in between to soak up passengers out as far as Moreton-in-Marsh would have been very welcome. That will now be the case from December, as will an hourly train from London to Worcester from 08.21 until 20.22, plus extras at 15.52 to Moreton (which will make room for Worcestershire passengers at 15.22 and 16.22) and 17.50 to Worcester (and hopefully a 16.50 and 18.50 to come with IEP). The 15.50 from Worcester will also now run into London, which one might think was also a good thing.

I'm not suggesting that Hanborough, Charlbury, Kingham and Moreton should be skipped. But a service every two hours off-peak and hourly at peak times should suffice. Which would give more chance of an accelarated time for Worcester. For example :

Odd Hours : Oxford, Hanborough, Charlbury, Kingham, Moreton, Evesham, Worcester
Even Hours : Oxford, Charlbury, Moreton, Honeybourne, Evesham, Pershore, Worcester

With those frequencies repeated hourly at peak times.

I did like the line about not suggesting that stations should be skipped when you then go on to suggest precisely that. Have you even looked at the passenger figures for Hanborough recently? They near enough doubled past 200,000 in six years and I fully expect another big rise when the 2014-15 figures appear. The new 115-space car park extension at Kingham is already more than half-full on the busiest days of the week a month after it opened. But what the heck, let's halve the service...

PS: I take it that given Worcester is so special you are also in favour of the notion that trains should make three stops in four miles to serve the megalopolis once Worcestershire Parkway opens. That's really going to help speed up journey times...

 

[306024]

Having sampled the 15.52 Paddington to Worcester last Thursday something needs to be done to reduce overcrowding. Formed of a class 180 unit it was full from Paddington, got busier from Reading and was hopelessly overcrowded from Oxford. Oxford commuting to the local stations seemed popular despite having to stand. No chance for the buffet trolley to make any money either as no one could get to it.

 

[jimm]

Having sampled the 15.52 Paddington to Worcester last Thursday something needs to be done to reduce overcrowding. Formed of a class 180 unit it was full from Paddington, got busier from Reading and was hopelessly overcrowded from Oxford. Oxford commuting to the local stations seemed popular despite having to stand. No chance for the buffet trolley to make any money either as no one could get to it.

Hence the changes from December, recognising that the 90-minute gap in Cotswold Line services from London between 14.21 and 15.52 - which partly accounts for the pressure on the 1552 - is no longer sustainable, and addressing the heavy commuter loading out of Oxford shortly before 5pm for the stations out to Moreton-in-Marsh by trying to separate that flow from Worcestershire passengers, as well as eliminating the need to change at Oxford by making the 16.22 a through service, which should also have beneficial effects for the northbound XC departure from Oxford at 17.36, which currently falls foul of any delays to the arrival of the 16.22 and subsequent despatch of the halts train.

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out, as I expect a number of people who have taken to avoiding the 1552 since a 180 took over to release an HST for the overhaul programme will switch back from the 1622 and the 15.22 is likely to prove popular as it was always a busy train when it was in the timetable in Thames Trains days.

 

[306024]

Trying to predict how passengers will adapt to timetable changes is not one of life's exact sciences. Yes the December timetable changes must be designed to help although it is not a part of the world I know well enough to comment on the detail. Having seen the numbers boarding at Oxford, you wonder how much suppressed demand there is out there too. The extra capacity could be taken up quickly.

 

[jimm]

Trying to predict how passengers will adapt to timetable changes is not one of life's exact sciences. Yes the December timetable changes must be designed to help although it is not a part of the world I know well enough to comment on the detail. Having seen the numbers boarding at Oxford, you wonder how much suppressed demand there is out there too. The extra capacity could be taken up quickly.

People will put up with standing in and out of Oxford from the stations in West Oxfordshire for the very simple reason that driving yourself or trying to get a bus takes infinitely longer due to the appalling peak traffic congestion around Oxford, so much of the extra capacity will likely be taken up quickly, but traffic to and from London on the Cotswold Line is also growing fast, currently up almost 10 per cent year on year, according to FGW, so adding an HST-worth of capacity on the busiest section of the route out to Moreton-in-Marsh and another service to the timetable will be welcome all round.

 

[burty76]

It appears that my pro-Worcester sentiment is not a popular one on here!

For the record, I was stating that Hanborough (population 2,630) and Kingham (population 913) could cope with a two-hourly off-peak and hourly peak service from London. Worcester (population 100,000) suffers from an incredibly slow service that is seen as a joke to residents of the city.

Before passenger numbers are quoted as a better measure, it might be pointed out that passenger numbers grew dramatically at Hanborough when the service was improved. A hell of a lot more Worcester people would use the London service if they could get there in two hours and not have their journey slowed down by stops at the likes of Shipton (population 1,244).

10 or 20 years ago there were slightly less trains to London from Worcester but most took just a little over two hours. Now, theyre closer to two and a half, and have seen extra stops added. Before the main expresses stopped only at Evesham, Moreton, Kingham, Charlbury, Oxford and Reading. Now you have to add Pershore, Honeybourne, Hanborough, Slough and even sometimes Shipton to that list. A look at the timetable in the early 90's shows the 10.10 from London arriving at 12.02 at Shrub Hill. The equivalent train today, the 10.22 takes half an hour longer.

I would infinitely prefer the timetable as it was 20 years ago, and GWR now have better trains and improved infrastructure, yet the timetable is infinitely worse.

You can get to Darlington quicker than you can get to Worcester....

 

[Class 170101]

Would Worcester to London not be faster via Kemble anyway if such a service ran?

 

[burty76]

Would Worcester to London not be faster via Kemble anyway if such a service ran?

No. And to be fair Cheltenham also suffers from a farcically slow service to London. Almost exactly like Worcester, where trains took around two hours ten or twenty years ago, they now take up to half an hour longer.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

It appears that my pro-Worcester sentiment is not a popular one on here!

For the record, I was stating that Hanborough (population 2,630) and Kingham (population 913) could cope with a two-hourly off-peak and hourly peak service from London. Worcester (population 100,000) suffers from an incredibly slow service that is seen as a joke to residents of the city.

Ah, but Guangzhou has a population of 8.525 million, so by that reckoning it should be first in line for a direct fast train from London...

Hanborough is a little village (well, two villages really, Long and Church), yes, which happens to be the railhead for the large and fast-growing town of Witney, a town which has utterly dire road connections.

Hanborough is also ~1hr05 from London. It is no surprise that a 1hr05 commute is going to be more popular than a journey which, at a pinch, you could get down to 1hr55 if you pulled out lots of stops.

Worcester does have a (fairly) fast and (very) frequent service to its nearest metropolis, the city which much of its population looks to. It's just that the metropolis in question is Birmingham. A large population doesn't automatically correlate to everyone in that city wanting to go to London.

(I'm not anti-Worcester - quite the opposite. I'm a frequent visitor, most recently yesterday; we moor our narrowboat there. I know and like the place pretty well, which is partly what makes me sceptical that there will ever be massive demand for London trains.)

I would infinitely prefer the timetable as it was 20 years ago, and GWR now have better trains and improved infrastructure, yet the timetable is infinitely worse.

They don't. GWR have the same trains as 20 years ago - HSTs and Turbos - plus just five 180s, which mostly don't operate in the peaks on the Cotswold Line. The redoubling helps reliability and frequency, but not journey time per se.

Intercity services across the whole Great Western have slowed since 20 years ago for three reasons: defensive driving, Heathrow Express, and the growth of Reading as a destination, making skipping it largely indefensible. It's not just Worcester that suffers.

The only factors unique to Worcester compared to 20 years ago are occasional additional calls at Hanborough, Honeybourne and Pershore. As I say, Honeybourne and Pershore stops could and should be the first to go if you were looking at a faster Worcester service, but you try explaining that to Worcestershire County Council and local MPs. Shipton, halts train aside (which is a once-a-day nicety), gets a small number of off/contra-peak services so isn't a significant factor.

I'll grant that you could perhaps take the Shipton stop out of the 17.49 if you were seeking to prioritise Worcester above all else; but actually, the section of route where that train loses most time compared to (say) the Cathedrals Express 20 years ago is London-Oxford, a whole hour vs the 45 minutes that the CE used to do it in.

(For what it's worth, my memory is that the down Cathedrals Express back then, timetabled to be the fastest of the day, was on time at Charlbury perhaps 10% of the time. So although Worcester did have a headline 2hr time, in practice I doubt it was often achieved.)

Anyway, there's not that much point grouching about the current HST timetable, when the IEP timetable does indeed seem likely to achieve faster times to Worcester - not least thanks to power doors reducing station dwell time (something that's very noticeable with the 180s), and the 365/387s taking up the Slough and Maidenhead stops. It will also be interesting to see whether the improved acceleration of the AT300s helps on the Cotswold Line.

 

[burty76]

Thanks for the long response

I take your point about the need to stop at Hanborough. The timings noted about the Cathedrals Express are also true, it did miss out Reading. But my timings about the 10.10 Cotswold and Malvern Expeess were also true - Padddington to Shrub Hill in 1hr 52 with stops at Reading, Oxford, Charlbury, Kingham, Moreton and Evesham.

I think the point in trying to make is not that Worcester has a divine right to a dedicated intercity style service to the capital - 20 years ago most people were happy with the timetable, most trains took slightly over two hours but were frequently held up by the long single line sections. Nowadays that is less of a problem but the added 20 minutes on the journey time and additional stops definitely is.

So much so that myself and others I know often go via New Street and Eustion as the timings are comparable and there's a more frequent service. And Euston is also better for onward connection. I think it's summed up by the fact that the train I would now get back from a meeting in London next year, the new 4.22, is 15 minutes slower than getting the 4.23 from Euston and changing at New St. You can see why people like me are discouraged from catching such a slow and frequently stopping train

 

[FenMan]

I think it's summed up by the fact that the train I would now get back from a meeting in London next year, the new 4.22, is 15 minutes slower than getting the 4.23 from Euston and changing at New St. You can see why people like me are discouraged from catching such a slow and frequently stopping train

Euston is actually in London whereas Paddington is somewhere in the western outskirts.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

​

You can see why people like me are discouraged from catching such a slow and frequently stopping train

I can, absolutely. But the difficulty is working out what service Worcester merits, and whether it's economic to provide it.

GWR have said that the typical journey time from Worcester (presumably Shrub Hill) to Paddington will be 2hr08 from December 2018, and that there'll be a fastest time of 2hr00.

If there's an appetite to go faster still, when do you provide it, and what do you chop to make it possible? Worcester is still, I suspect, too far out to be commuter territory, so is the priority day-trippers going to London, or morning meetings in London, or meetings in Worcester, or...? Once you've identified the market, how do you justify the consequent loss in service further east from the stops you remove? Nothing's impossible, but there needs to be a clearly articulated business case and, thus far, the MPs calling for faster Worcester trains haven't made it.

(Crayonista time: I've very occasionally wondered whether there'd be a case for a slightly limited-stop Cotswold Line train continuing to Ludlow, serving the affluent South Shropshire area and the Ludlow leisure market. But it would be a bit of a stretch, it couldn't turn back before Craven Arms, and I can't imagine GWR wanting to mix up Cotswold single-line and Marches disruption on one service...)

I remember the Cotswold & Malvern Express. But sadly I also remember that it was mostly empty as an HST, and that GWT eventually subcontracted it out to Thames Trains to run as a Turbo.

 

[greenline727]

So much so that myself and others I know often go via New Street and Euston as the timings are comparable and there's a more frequent service. And Euston is also better for onward connection. I think it's summed up by the fact that the train I would now get back from a meeting in London next year, the new 4.22, is 15 minutes slower than getting the 4.23 from Euston and changing at New St. You can see why people like me are discouraged from catching such a slow and frequently stopping train

Whilst the journey might be quicker via New Street, what about the fare?
London to Worcester is wholly within the Network Card area, where fares are generally cheaper than via New Street.
An off peak return via Evesham is £42.50; via New Street is around £54.00 (depending on restrictions). I daresay there may will be cheaper alternatives if the journey is split, but shouldn't the difference in fare be offset against the difference in journey time?

 

[burty76]

If the standard time of 2hr 8m from December 2018 (at presumably a standard pattern hourly service) goes ahead then I think that's pretty much all the residents of Worcester can ask for.

My dismay is the overall slowing down of services in recent years. To have a peak time London to Worcester service calling at Finstock, Combe, Ascott and Shipton is just not acceptable.

The overall timetable planning seems odd too. An hourly service from London 0822 to 2022 (with a peak extra) but in the reverse direction theres gaps of 1hr 40m all over the place and then 4 trains in an hour and a half. It should be perfectly possible to have an hourly standard pattern service now calling at all the major stations (inc Pershore, Honeybourne and Hanborough but not the halts) in around 2hr 10m.

As for the fares issue - that certainly is a consideration when choosing to go via Birmingham. If you're a business customer the company might well pick up the tab which would negate this. A leisure customer would be looking for advance fares. One major positive recently is the introduction of cheap advance tickets on both the Cotswold Line and to London via Birmingham. Personally speaking if the advance fare was the same on both routes I'd be likely to choose Euston as it's much better connected - and now the cotswold line has been slowed down so much the journey times are about the same.

 

[jimm]

If the standard time of 2hr 8m from December 2018 (at presumably a standard pattern hourly service) goes ahead then I think that's pretty much all the residents of Worcester can ask for.

My dismay is the overall slowing down of services in recent years. To have a peak time London to Worcester service calling at Finstock, Combe, Ascott and Shipton is just not acceptable.

The overall timetable planning seems odd too. An hourly service from London 0822 to 2022 (with a peak extra) but in the reverse direction theres gaps of 1hr 40m all over the place and then 4 trains in an hour and a half. It should be perfectly possible to have an hourly standard pattern service now calling at all the major stations (inc Pershore, Honeybourne and Hanborough but not the halts) in around 2hr 10m.

As for the fares issue - that certainly is a consideration when choosing to go via Birmingham. If you're a business customer the company might well pick up the tab which would negate this. A leisure customer would be looking for advance fares. One major positive recently is the introduction of cheap advance tickets on both the Cotswold Line and to London via Birmingham. Personally speaking if the advance fare was the same on both routes I'd be likely to choose Euston as it's much better connected - and now the cotswold line has been slowed down so much the journey times are about the same.

What slowing down? If you mean the Cathedrals Express, its 'speed' was of no use whatever if your journey did not coincide with the time of day it ran. And all this was going on when FGW ran two and a bit trains a day on the Cotswold Line rather than the entire service as it does now. Nor was there a regular interval timetable between Oxford and London until December 2006, nor anything like as many trains operating on the GWML or the Cotswold Line, so it was a lot easier to run a few faster journeys.

Several services currently operated by Class 180s are faster than they used to be when Turbo-operated thanks to the 180s' superior acceleration and ability to run at 125mph east of Didcot.

Under BR and Thames Trains, the 16.22 service from Paddington ran for something like a decade as the halts service west of Oxford, whether you think it was acceptable or not. And a lot of people may find it operating as a through train from December a lot more acceptable than being turfed off an HST and told to stand at the uncovered north end of platform 2 at Oxford, whatever the weather, for 10 minutes or so waiting for the 180 to turn up from Didcot.

It's a bit hard to have a regular interval back from Worcester when some trains turn back there, others go to Malvern and others to Hereford. And the mid-afternoon surge eastbound is needed to get trains back to Oxford/London for the afternoon and early evening peak.

Please don't go around claiming that stops at Shipton are some terrible imposition on Worcester passengers. The 17.49 skips Hanborough to allow for the Shipton stop and this train is for some reason far less popular with Worcestershire passengers than either the 1722 or 1822. PS: Shipton-under-Wychwood and Milton-under-Wychwood are effectively one contiguous community, so the population served is more like 2,900, ie far more than live within the same distance of Honeybourne, which has a far superior service to Shipton.

And I'd be very interested to hear how you propose to speed up journey times to Cheltenham. Carve a new high-speed line straight across the heart of the Cotswolds perhaps? You could always omit the Gloucester stops but that might hack off the 122,000 people living there...

Darlington, hmm, let me see, it's at the end of a purpose-built express line where you can run at 125mph most of the way and the intermediate stations are served by other trains, as opposed to a Brunel built-to-a-budget line west of Oxford. And there are the modest hamlets of Newcastle and Edinburgh further north, which might just be able to drum up a passenger or two. And what is there past Worcester? Malvern and Hereford... And most trains to Darlington actually take rather longer than a typical London-Worcester timing, never mind the Class 180 on the 13.22 which clocks in at two hours dead, inclusive of eight intermediate stops.

Is it actually cheaper to go via Birmingham? GWR is offering plenty of advance singles from Worcester for £6. I really can't see how Virgin/LM could go any cheaper than that short of giving tickets away for free.

 

[Starmill]

When you've competition (as you do for Worcester - London tickets) between Virgin, Chiltern, London Midland and Great Western, the latter offering regularly the best value tickets is something quite remarkable. Also consider the market's contestability; if there weren't CH, VT or LM tickets from Worcester to London would the GW ones ever be so cheap? Can we have 4 operators' tickets for Darlington to London please?

 

[burty76]

Thanks for the reply jimm. I would respond to your points but they'll just be met by more sarcasm and sniping.

 

[jimm]

Thanks for the reply jimm. I would respond to your points but they'll just be met by more sarcasm and sniping.

Probably, but as I said in my first response, all that advocates of faster trains to poor persecuted Worcester ever do is just say that there should be faster trains to said city, end of story, irrespective of all the other basic considerations that I and others have had to point out here, which you don't seem to be aware of, such as the ever-growing volume of traffic at Hanborough and why that is happening. They also seem very keen to deprive other parts of Worcestershire, notably Honeybourne and Pershore, of many of their services towards this end.

Or did I miss the detailed and convincing business case you set out?

Was that the bit about the wonders of the timetable 20 years ago, when there about 10 or 11 Worcester-London trains a day, as opposed to 17 now, and 18 from December and 16 going up to 17 in the other direction, plus the via Cheltenham trains. Even if a couple of trains did get below two hours end to end in the good old days...

 

[backontrack]

OK:

Hanborough is the nearest station to Woodstock, Witney and Carterton, so it is convenient for these towns.
Charlbury serves a town with a population of 2,830. It also serves the town of Burford (although Shipton and Ascott stations are nearer).
Kingham station is the nearest stop to Chipping Norton, Stow-on-the-Wold and Bourton-on-the-Water (although the station at Adlestrop was nearer to all of these).
Moreton station serves itself (pop: 3,493) and is near to Shipston-on-Stour, Stow--on-the-Wold, Bourton and Chipping Norton. Although Kingham is nearer to the latter three, Moreton is arguably more convenient for them.
Honeybourne is the nearest station to Chipping Campden and Broadway.
Evesham is convenient for Broadway as well as Honeybourne.
Pershore is 1 mile north of the station it serves.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

If the standard time of 2hr 8m from December 2018 (at presumably a standard pattern hourly service) goes ahead then I think that's pretty much all the residents of Worcester can ask for.

My dismay is the overall slowing down of services in recent years. To have a peak time London to Worcester service calling at Finstock, Combe, Ascott and Shipton is just not acceptable.

The overall timetable planning seems odd too. An hourly service from London 0822 to 2022 (with a peak extra) but in the reverse direction theres gaps of 1hr 40m all over the place and then 4 trains in an hour and a half. It should be perfectly possible to have an hourly standard pattern service now calling at all the major stations (inc Pershore, Honeybourne and Hanborough but not the halts) in around 2hr 10m.

Hmm. There's some rumbling going on right now concerning the reopening of a station at Chipping Camden. Although this would be quite pointless IMHO, it would lessen the need for Honeybourne to be a 'main' station, either rotating with it on the main services or replacing it as a main line station. This would leave Honeybourne as one of the 'halts' on the line, or it could rotate with Shipton.

 

[jimm]

OK:

Hanborough is the nearest station to Woodstock, Witney and Carterton, so it is convenient for these towns.
Charlbury serves a town with a population of 2,830. It also serves the town of Burford (although Shipton and Ascott stations are nearer).
Kingham station is the nearest stop to Chipping Norton, Stow-on-the-Wold and Bourton-on-the-Water (although the station at Adlestrop was nearer to all of these).
Moreton station serves itself (pop: 3,493) and is near to Shipston-on-Stour, Stow--on-the-Wold, Bourton and Chipping Norton. Although Kingham is nearer to the latter three, Moreton is arguably more convenient for them.
Honeybourne is the nearest station to Chipping Camden and Broadway.
Evesham is convenient for Broadway as well as Honeybourne.
Pershore is 1 mile north of the station it serves.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


Hmm. There's some rumbling going on right now concerning the reopening of a station at Chipping Camden. Although this would be quite pointless IMHO, it would lessen the need for Honeybourne to be a 'main' station, either rotating with it on the main services or replacing it as a main line station. This would leave Honeybourne as one of the 'halts' on the line, or it could rotate with Shipton.

The idea of reopening Chipping Campden (with a p) station has been around for a long time as an aspiration but unless there is full redoubling, allowing more trains on the line, it's not going to happen, even if the funds could be found. And it's quite a hike from the old station site to the town centre, which is what most visitors want to see, or the high school which would be the only other obvious big traffic generator, so a business case is going to be hard to make.

While Honeybourne is marginally closer in road mileage terms, most Chipping Campden passengers use Moreton-in-Marsh, because everything stops there and you can almost be home by the time the train gets to Honeybourne, plus the bus link operates from Moreton station as well. Same factors apply to Broadway. Honeybourne's key catchment area is the villages at the eastern end of the Vale of Evesham and out to the likes of Bidford and Welford-on-Avon.

Since the end of last month, there has been a new railbus link (Pulhams 802) between Kingham, Stow-on-the-Wold, the Rissingtons and Bourton-on-the-Water. Also connects at Kingham with the X8 Chipping Norton railbus. Start-up funding for the 802 has come from a housing developer building at the former RAF Little Rissington but I'm not sure how long the money will last.

Kingham is far more popular with Chipping Norton, Stow and Bourton-on-the-Water people than Moreton - again the extra running time to reach Moreton is a factor. Charlbury, despite its small size, is a community where rail is the default mode of transport into Oxford, due to the road congestion in the city, plus it acts as railhead for places a lot further out than Burford, such as Northleach. People also drive over from the eastern fringes of Cheltenham, as train to Charlbury plus car on the A40 beats train times to/from Cheltenham.

 

[backontrack]

So Charlbury for Northleach, Lechlade, Burford and Fairford traffic then, as well as possibly Tewkesbury.

 

[VisualAcid]

Worcester needs a better service to Birmingham first anyway, it's slower and less frequent than from Cheltenham.

 

[jimm]

So Charlbury for Northleach, Lechlade, Burford and Fairford traffic then, as well as possibly Tewkesbury.

Hardly. If you're in Fairford or Lechlade, Swindon is the obvious place to go, with a four trains per hour walk-up service. And if you're in Tewkesbury and don't fancy trundling round via Gloucester and Stroud, driving to Evesham straight up the A46 is a more straightforward exercise than attempting to cross the Cotswolds on less than brilliant roads.
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Worcester needs a better service to Birmingham first anyway, it's slower and less frequent than from Cheltenham.

The hourly Birmingham-Worcester-Hereford service is a fairly recent innovation, so the service is better than just a few years ago anyway, and it is going to continue to make three intermediate stops en route, including a standing start at the bottom of the Lickey incline, and has to wind its way along in between CrossCity services in the south west of Birmingham, so how exactly do you propose to speed it up?

The XC service is a higher frequency because there are the places the size of Bristol and Cardiff down the line, not Worcester, Malvern and Hereford. The same factor that applies to the London-Worcester service via the Cotswold Line.

 

[VisualAcid]

Hardly. If you're in Fairford or Lechlade, Swindon is the obvious place to go, with a four trains per hour walk-up service. And if you're in Tewkesbury and don't fancy trundling round via Gloucester and Stroud, driving to Evesham straight up the A46 is a more straightforward exercise than attempting to cross the Cotswolds on less than brilliant roads.
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The hourly Birmingham-Worcester-Hereford service is a fairly recent innovation, so the service is better than just a few years ago anyway, and it is going to continue to make three intermediate stops en route, including a standing start at the bottom of the Lickey incline, and has to wind its way along in between CrossCity services in the south west of Birmingham, so how exactly do you propose to speed it up?

The XC service is a higher frequency because there are the places the size of Bristol and Cardiff down the line, not Worcester, Malvern and Hereford. The same factor that applies to the London-Worcester service via the Cotswold Line.

I don't would probably require electrification. Just with the relative proximity and the size of Worcester it isn't great (compared to the Worcester-London issue anyway).

 

[Taunton]

I recently went down on the supposed crack service of the day, the evening peak "Cathedrals 'Express' ".

Handborough and Charlbury both were surprisingly busy. Don't know how many from Oxford and how many from Paddington.

Remaining intermediate stops less so. As a supposed express, stops every 10 miles or less are a bit contradictory.

Worcester Shrub Hill was the surprise. Maybe a dozen passengers alighted. Outside there were no taxis at all. A few dmus thrummed away stabled in adjacent platforms. Otherwise it was deserted. I didn't notice if the ticket office was still open or the station was unstaffed.