Cotswold Line

Sat 14 Jun 2008, 16:36

This is a response to both the General Cotswold Line and the more specific Charlbury Railbus sections.
During the last week, the Office of Rail Regulation has published the "footfall" figures for all railway stations on the network. Although the figures relate to the March 2006/7 period, they do make interesting reading.
Charlbury attracted 249781 passenger journeys, an increase of 17741 (7.6%)and became the busiest station on the Cotswold Line, overtaking Evesham.
At the same time, Finstock's passenger numbers dropped to 1157 (-140) and Ascott-under-Wychwood dropped to 1769 (-1162). The figure for Finstock is surprising, indicating that an average of only about 2 passengers board, or alight from, each train. This is somewhat less that the 3 or 4 who are regularly seen there. This could possibly be explained by their asking for tickets from Charlbury, so that they can return there in the evening.

It is easy to draw the conclusion that passengers who could use Finstock or Ascott are travelling to Charlbury instead, thus adding to the car parking problems there.

Ideally, as it is unlikely that FGW will agree to provide more trains for them, the RailBus should provide a better service these two stations, but it cannot be in two places at once. If travelling from Ascott in the morning one is taken on a tour of Leafield and Finstock which takes about 25 minutes.

If the Railbus is carrying some 20 passengers to/from Charlbury station each day, how many of these will need to use a car instead, and where will they park it?

Incidentally, Combe, Finstock, Ascott and Shipton had their train service reduced to 2 trains to Oxford and 1 back in the late 1960s, after closure of them was refused. With the advent of Turbos in about 1994, they each lost their very early morning Oxford service, due to their short platforms. An experiment in December 2006 to reinstate the one at Shipton (where there are plenty of parking spaces) appears to have failed, as this was withdrawn from 19th May 2008.