Could extending the hourly GWR Oxford fast to Banbury ease capacity off XC (and would it work)?

[RailWonderer]

GWR extending the xx:20 off Paddington to Banbury and possibly even limited extensions to Leamington Spa could help to uncrowd XC services between Reading and Banbury. They seem to be full all day, even with some 8 car formations.

The only problem is that GWR as I am aware are stretching their IETs to replace some Castle HST sets, so how many more units would this require, one or two? Would this work?

 

[The Planner]

GWR extending the xx:20 off Paddington to Banbury and possibly even limited extensions to Leamington Spa could help to uncrowd XC services between Reading and Banbury. They seem to be full all day, even with some 8 car formations.

The only problem is that GWR as I am aware are stretching their IETs to replace some Castle HST sets, so how many more units would this require, one or two? Would this work?

Is Oxford to Banbury the real issue?

 

[Fermiboson]

Has a Chiltern run Oxford - Banbury - Leamington Spa - Solihul - Bham Moor St shuttle ever been seriously considered? I feel like most XC traffic on the Oxford Canal line comes from traffic to Birmingham and Chiltern would provide a cheaper alternative, if slower.

 

[cle]

Has a Chiltern run Oxford - Banbury - Leamington Spa - Solihul - Bham Moor St shuttle ever been seriously considered? I feel like most XC traffic on the Oxford Canal line comes from traffic to Birmingham and Chiltern would provide a cheaper alternative, if slower.

I has been mentioned a lot - also as a replacement frequency for Solihull if XC moved both via Cov - but I don't think ever got off the ground.

 

[Fermiboson]

I has been mentioned a lot - also as a replacement frequency for Solihull if XC moved both via Cov - but I don't think ever got off the ground.

Is there a practical reason it cannot be done? The single track at Coventry - Leamington appears to be the main bottleneck for XC capacity, and the Chiltern Main Line is operating below its historical maximum capacity. There’s also space between Oxford and Banbury. Is platform capacity at Oxford a concern?

 

[The Planner]

I has been mentioned a lot - also as a replacement frequency for Solihull if XC moved both via Cov - but I don't think ever got off the ground.

Is there a practical reason it cannot be done? The single track at Coventry - Leamington appears to be the main bottleneck for XC capacity, and the Chiltern Main Line is operating below its historical maximum capacity. There’s also space between Oxford and Banbury. Is platform capacity at Oxford a concern?

Its still the plan if XC go 2tph via Cov. It won't happen before.

 

[swt_passenger]

Is there a practical reason it cannot be done? The single track at Coventry - Leamington appears to be the main bottleneck for XC capacity, and the Chiltern Main Line is operating below its historical maximum capacity. There’s also space between Oxford and Banbury. Is platform capacity at Oxford a concern?

Platform capacity at Oxford in the context of 4 more EWR services is already a concern - although a new down loop platform is under way. But such a service as you propose will be well behind EWR in the queue for platforming.

 

[Energy]

There already is a London Pad - Banbury, only stops at Reading and Oxford and runs once a day on weekdays before doing the return trip. It'll arrive in Banbury at 19:30!

Some interesting food for thought would be running XC on East West Rail, missing Banbury and Leamington and running GWR London - Oxford - Moor St to replace XC at Leamington Spa and Banbury. Then use the spare capacity on Coventry - Leamington for a better local service.

 

[swt_passenger]

Some interesting food for thought would be running XC on East West Rail, missing Banbury and Leamington and running GWR London - Oxford - Moor St to replace XC at Leamington Spa and Banbury. Then use the spare capacity on Coventry - Leamington for a better local service.

XC running on EWR only makes sense if it doesn’t run via Birmingham, and we know from many previous discussions it’ll never happen, mainly because XC is defined as a Birmingham New St centred network. DfT have already explicitly stated there’s to be no spare capacity provided on the EWR route for cross country style passenger service…

 

[LittleRedTrain]

Banbury-Oxford-Reading is a key commuter flow and really ought to have a proper, decent frequency 'commuter' service without
having to rely on the mostly-hourly XC service and the 2-hourly (ish) GWR stoppers.

The XC services tend to be overcrowded and unreliable, regularly suffering delays due to issues north of Birmingham.
XC also have a nasty habit of just cancelling trains in the evenings due to crew shortage, and the Reading-Newcastle services also seem to regularly get canned south of Birmingham.

Pre-Covid, Banbury did have a couple of 'fast' GWR IET services to Paddington via Oxford in both morning and evening peaks, but they've been reduced to the one token trip in the evening, and this seems to be first to be cancelled if GWR are suffering disruption or are short of stock.

They were a handy backup for times when the Chiltern Line was disrupted, and would have been very welcome during the recent landslip closures!

 

[SynthD]

Its still the plan if XC go 2tph via Cov. It won't happen before.

What’s the reason there?

 

[The Planner]

What’s the reason there?

Single line between Cov and Leamington and you need to recast the Cov corridor to get it through, which won't happen until post HS2

 

[Ridercross]

Having been raised a Banbarian and still having family in the town, I can confirm that there is a lot of rail traffic between the town and Oxford for commuting, shopping, college students, hospital appointments etc.

The bus service (S4) is hourly, but obviously takes a lot longer than the train, so inevitably the passenger traffic is concentrated on the Cross Country trains, which as we know is not really there for such local traffic as in numerous other flows discussed on these pages, so additional GWR trains would in my mind help spread the demand across the two operators.

 

[BanburyBlue]

There already is a London Pad - Banbury, only stops at Reading and Oxford and runs once a day on weekdays before doing the return trip. It'll arrive in Banbury at 19:30!

Some interesting food for thought would be running XC on East West Rail, missing Banbury and Leamington and running GWR London - Oxford - Moor St to replace XC at Leamington Spa and Banbury. Then use the spare capacity on Coventry - Leamington for a better local service.

It's a shame post covid, that they never reinstated the morning train. Left Banbury at 07.45 i think. When they introduced these two services, it did sound like GWR were looking into providing more fast trains to Banbury. I guess covid killed all that.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

There is a specific problem with Oxford–Banbury peak and shoulder-peak journeys since XC dropped down to (mostly) hourly. It's tolerable off-peak, by XC standards anyway.

In particular, there are no Oxford–Banbury services between 1653 and 1739. The 1739 Voyager is not pretty - I see it fairly often while waiting for the 1746 to the Cotswolds.

I guess potentially GWR could extend the 1623 from Paddington (arr Oxford 1713) to Banbury, then run it back to Oxford in place of the 1733 stopper, retimed slightly and continuing onto Paddington. Timings would be a bit tight, though, and it does leave you with a Turbo + crew to get back to Oxford somehow!

 

[BanburyBlue]

There is a specific problem with Oxford–Banbury peak and shoulder-peak journeys since XC dropped down to (mostly) hourly. It's tolerable off-peak, by XC standards anyway.

In particular, there are no Oxford–Banbury services between 1653 and 1739. The 1739 Voyager is not pretty - I see it fairly often while waiting for the 1746 to the Cotswolds.

I guess potentially GWR could extend the 1623 from Paddington (arr Oxford 1713) to Banbury, then run it back to Oxford in place of the 1733 stopper, retimed slightly and continuing onto Paddington. Timings would be a bit tight, though, and it does leave you with a Turbo + crew to get back to Oxford somehow!

Not helped by the fact that the double voyagers introduced with the reduced 'covid' timetable seem to have gong missing.

 

[Rich McLean]

Wouldn't make much difference unless the GWR was extended to New Street via Solihull & Bordersly Jn. Never going to happen

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

I has been mentioned a lot - also as a replacement frequency for Solihull if XC moved both via Cov - but I don't think ever got off the ground.

Replacing what? The CrossCountry service via Solihull has never called there all the while Arriva have provided it. Solihull loses nothing by XC diverting the Reading Newcastle service.

There already is a London Pad - Banbury, only stops at Reading and Oxford and runs once a day on weekdays before doing the return trip. It'll arrive in Banbury at 19:30!

Such a shame this isn't an all day thing. I'd take that over Chiltern any day of the week.