Charlbury Station

Sat 26 Nov 2022, 09:36

What about the Museum taking over the station office for regular exhibitions?

Thu 24 Nov 2022, 10:41 (last edited on Thu 24 Nov 2022, 11:16)

Network Rail and GWR are both government controlled. Franchises are now under the direct instruction of the Department for Transport who have given very strict instructions on reducing costs. Same reason why there’s now only one train per hour from Oxford to Birmingham rather than two, and why the GWR HST fleet in the south-west is about to be withdrawn with no additional trains to replace them. I won’t bore the forum with the details (especially as this is verging into Debate territory!) but the cost savings required by DfT, which total £1.5bn a year, are all in publicly available documents.

Thu 24 Nov 2022, 10:29

How is the closure of ticket offices 'government policy'? Charlbury station is owned by GWR and as such, maintenance of the station is the responsibility of GWR/ Network Rail. They built a tin shack station at Hanborough which I don't think has ever been open?

Automated machines are a sign of the times, nothing to do with government. People change habits and businesses track these changes and adapt to them. I haven't used the ticket office or machine at the station for years - I use the very convenient GWR app which saves scanning tickets for expense claims. It's also friendlier on the environment.

I'm surprised the Coop hasn't introduced self checkouts yet...?

Thu 24 Nov 2022, 09:01

As Richard says, there are absolutely no plans for the station itself to close, but I will try to find out what the plans are for the ticket office through my contacts at GWR

Thu 24 Nov 2022, 07:30 (last edited on Thu 24 Nov 2022, 07:33)

I’m more concerned with the punctuality of the train. Last night the 20:45 did not leave Oxford until 21:30! The old “overhanging wire” was once again cited as the reason. Not much fun when you have a cold and want to get home to go to bed! 

Yet another strike on Saturday! People are being told not to travel. 

Wed 23 Nov 2022, 23:22

It’s clear that closing station ticket offices is Government policy.

I have questioned GWR on what is happening, as has Hugo.  The answers are less than promising.

There are visible signs that the maintenance of the unique, listed station building is suffering - coincidence that this has got worse in the last few months.  It will need to be maintained.

Is there any community desire to challenge what is going on?

Wed 23 Nov 2022, 15:03

A great example of the importance of being specific. We are talking about the manned ticket office. Closing down Charlbury station is not the news, thank goodness. This news on www.charlbury.info News page nearly gave a few commuters a heart attack! 

Let's hope that the external toilet becomes unisex or there will be quite a few women crossing their legs on the platform! 

Wed 23 Nov 2022, 15:01

Oxford Parkway has some really useful assistants, generally happy to be of help, including with refunds or ticket changes! Charlbury has nobody at all ... Oxford Parkway also has excellent ladies toilets which can be accessed via the ticket barrier. The same is not true of Charlbury. I hope we can resist calls for the ticket office/building closure. 

Yesterday I met a passenger on the platform who asked me who was responsible for the station as he had wanted to make a complaint. When I said GWR, he explained that he had already phoned GWR (from the platform and answered by somebody in India, I think) and had been told that GWR was not responsible for the station. Not good enough! 

Wed 23 Nov 2022, 14:33

There is not a snowball in a supernova’s chance that the station itself will be closed, fortunately! I suspect the ticket office might be nearing its end days, but that’s going to be the case for most stations – Oxford Parkway doesn’t even have one, just machines.

Wed 23 Nov 2022, 14:19

Thank you Hugo for the news item.

Is this a precursor to more cuts or even a closure?

I know of many acquaintances whose prime reason for moving here was the station.