Chiltern Are Being Very Serious
This article in the Oxford Mail is entitled Train timetable released for new Oxford to London Marylebone route.
This is said.
The new timetable shows services running every 30 minutes, starting at 6.02am from Oxford and returning at 23.10pm.
The line will open on Monday, December 12.
That is certainly a passenger magnet of a timetable.
Looking at the timetable of both Chiltern and Great Western,
- Both services run at least two trains per hour (tph) all day.
- Both services run fairly late in the evening.
- Great Western has the fastest trains, with some doing the journey in under an hour.
It will certainly be interesting to see how these two heavyweights slug it out.
But this is only Round 1One.
Consider.
- In December 2018, Crossrail services between Paddington and Abbey Wood, via Liverpool Street and Canary Wharf start.
- In May 2019, Crossrail services between Paddington and Shenfield start.
- In December 2019, full Crossrail services start.
- The East West Rail Link will open.
- Oxford to Didcot should be electrified, allowing electric trains to Oxford.
These developments may appear to favour Great Western services over Chiltern, but I doubt that Chiltern will sit back and do nothing.
So what will Chiltern do?
Consider.
- Will the Marylebone to Oxford route be improved to allow services to run faster and more frequent services? There are certainly some possible plans for this on Wikipedia.
- Will the West Hampstead Interchange be created?
- I doubt that it would be easy to shoehorn more services between High Wycombe and Marylebone, so this route will probably be limited to 2 tph.
- The Oxford to Marylebone trains will go to Class 68 locomotives and rakes of Mark 3 coaches, as Chiltern use to Birmingham at the present time.
- Greater Anglia could be releasing some high-quality Mark 3 coaches in 2019-2020.
- There has been speculation that Chiltern could open a second London terminus at Old Oak Common for Crossrail. I wrote about it in Will Chiltern Railways Get A Second London Terminus At Old Oak Common?.
- Will electrification come to the Chiltern Line? Or at least enough to run modern bi-mode or battery-electreic trains.
- The Guardian says that Bicester Village is one of the top tourist destinations in the UK.
What is needed is a comprehensive plan for Chiltern’s future.
I can’t believe that they’re not working on one!
It could include the following.
- Line improvements to reduce journey times between Marylebone and Oxford.
- Improvements to allow the longest possible locomotive-hauled sets to run the route.
- Development of West Hampstead Interchange.
- Creation of a second terminus at Old Oak Common.
One or both of the last two options will have to be implemented, due to the lack of capacity at Marylebone and that station’s bad connectivity.
But what would I do?
The Southern end of the Chiltern Main Line needs better connectivity and the best way to do this would be to link it to Crossrail.
When Crossrail opens to Paddington in December 2018, the direct link I wrote about in Paddington Is Operational Again, will enable passengers taking the Bakerloo Line from Marylebone to change easily to Crossrail.
Together with line improvements and longer trains, this should handle the traffic for a few years.
It is interesting to look at a few journey times.
- Chiltern has trains scheduled between Marylebone and High Wycombe in around 24-28 minutes.
- Crossrail services from Paddington will take 27 minutes to Sloughbold step of creating a Crossrail .
- Crossrail services from Paddington will take 45 minutes to Reading.
I would take the bold step of creating a Crossrail branch to High Wycombe.
- High Wycombe would receive 4 tph from Crossrail.
- There could be cross-platform interchange between Crossrail and Chiltern services to Oxford and Birmingham.
- The Acton-Northolt Line would be double-tracked and electrified to connect Crossrail at Old Oak Common to the Chiltern Main Line at Northolt Junction.
- The Chiltern Main line would be electrified from Northolt Junction to High Wycombe.
- Chiltern’s Oxford and Birmingham services could use Class 88 electro-diesel locomotives, to take advantage of the limited electrification.
- Extra services could run from High Wycombe to Oxford and Birmingham, if traffic required more capacity.
Except for the electrification and some track layout changes, there is no substantial investment required in new lines and stations.
If this approach is taken, there will probably be eough eletrification on the Chiltern routes to use Aventra trains with an IPEMU-capability to provide the services out of Marylebone.
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