Would this allow Old Oak Common terminators once the line is extended to Euston?
Yes, but not sure you would do it.
I guess you could call it Wormwood Scrubs if you really wanted something a bit more known...
With a few blue plaques around to celebrate those who spent many years in the area?
There's Crossrail, but other than that only the GW suburban service , Heathrow and various Overground routes and the Central line involving a walk of several hundred metres through the streets (unless the ideas for better integration actually happen). Passengers for central London have a different selection of onward connections from Euston, which also provides better links north and south. Old Oak on its own has far less connectivity than Old Oak plus Euston.
Why do you think the connections would be well used? Are there that number of people travelling from Birmingham or Manchester who want to go to Hanwell or Iver? Some passengers may want to get to Heathrow but I note that both these cities also have their own airports.
Personally, I would. I’m just saying there are connections so in response to the poster that likened it to LNER terminating at Finsbury Park, I’m simply pointing out I think there would be more merit or logic in terminating at Old Oak Common than LNER at Finsbury Park. Assuming GWR stop some long distance stuff there (I don’t know the details), you’ll have people getting on to crossrail, services to Reading, Bristol, Exeter etc. Enough that if for whatever reason there was a path to OOC that couldn’t continue to Euston, I don’t think the train would be 100% empty.
It’s been said in the Western route strategies that all GWR services will call, which is why they are getting an 8 platform station, 4 main and 4 relief.
If you assume Oxford to Glasgow via OOC will be a permitted route? It’s not going to be that direct.
I’m sure there‘ll have to be something to deal with questionable routes, even if it’s just the guard‘s opinion. Pre-privatisation BR had the concept of ‘reasonable routes’ didn’t they?
Oxford to Paddington is about 20min less than Oxford to Birmingham, so OOC will be about 25min less. OOC to Birmingham is 38min. Assuming they make the Curzon Street to New Street transfer reasonably slick, the only reason Oxford to Glasgow might be much quicker is by catching a London-Glasgow train with fewer stops than a Birmingham-Glasgow. Even then that might be possible at Birmingham Interchange.
The HS2 and WCML sections of Euston are at very different vertical levels, and the platforms are different lengths. I therefore think it is very unlikely that a useful emergency connection could be provided. Much more likely is simply terminating a few trains short at OOC when they are so far out of sequence that they can't recover in time to go back out again. Considering how frequent trains will be from OOC to Euston, and that it should be pretty unusual for them to be that delayed, I don't think that it will cause a monstrous inconvenience to passengers or staff, and in fact should work much better than an 11th platform to help HS2 as a whole recover from delays, as the 11th platform only solves what to do with a delayed inbound train, not how to sort its return journey. As I recall OOC has 6 platforms for HS2, of which only 4 are needed for the regular service. Personally I would keep a spare train in one of the other platforms, which could run into Euston in the path of any badly delayed train, ready to take up the northbound journey, with the delayed train terminating at OOC and taking over the spare train slot.
I reckon (as others have suggested in previous threads) there’ll be no time advantage going from Oxford via OOC to an HS2 destination compared to going via Birmingham international and Interchange.