The Rail Future AGM will be held at 10:30 on Saturday 20th March 2009 at West Oxford Community Centre, Osney, Botley Road, Oxford (5 mins from Oxford Station). Click here for details.
The meeting is open to all, guests are welcome. It is hoped there will be an update of the East-West Rail project, which may interest OBRAG members.
FGW are planning to replace the existing help points and Customer Information System (CIS) at Islip and Bicester with a new system. Details are in the following communication from FGW:
“At Islip and Bicester we are removing the current Help Points and CIS and replacing them with a WebCIS unit.
These act as Help Points and will have two buttons – one to contact National Rail and the other for Emergencies.
Additionally the Help Point has a screen that reflects the current train service from its location – as the information on the screen will be fed directly from our new CIS server it will reflect the very latest available information.
That is to say should we replace a train service between Oxford and Bicester and return by bus this will show on the Help Point screen.
Furthermore the new style help points will have the ability to rung up from either a staffed station or the control centre and a broadcast live annoucement made to customers.
The date of install at Islip and Bicester has not been finalised yet but hopefully these Help Points will appear shortly after April.”
FGW have revised their Customer Panel representation and are rolling Islip and Bicester in with 8 other stations, including Oxford. Therefore as from April our representative, Ian East, will cease to be on the Customer Panel.
If anyone is interested in becoming part of the new panel, please contact Ian or leave a message here and we’ll pass on your details. There are 3 evening meetings per year and four first class return rail tickets in return for your input.
Unfortunately the Rail User Group notice board at Bicester Town station was vandalised at the weekend. If anyone has any information about this incident, please contact us.
Click the following link to read this article about Chiltern’s plans for the new Oxford-London route from Rail Magazine:
Rail Magazine 27 Jan 2010
At the AGM, Chiltern Railways confirmed that the Bicester-Oxford line will need to be closed for a period of 9-12 months, beginning mid 2011, in order for the track improvements for Evergreen 3 to be carried out. This will obviously be a great inconvenience to users of the service. Unfortunately this work is necessary due to the position of the existing line and the poor condition of the foundations beneath it.
In the meantime a replacement service will operate. There was some discussion at the AGM about the options for replacement services and Chiltern seem open to discussion about this. Please vote in the following poll to express your preference(s) or add a comment if you have a suggestion that is not listed:
Loading ...Minutes from the OBRAG AGM last week are now available here:
OBRAG AGM 2010 Minutes
Also, there have been more articles in the press recently about Chiltern Railways’ Evergreen 3 proposals for the Bicester-Oxford service:
Bicester Review 2010-02-01
Bicester Advertiser 2010-01-28
Oxford Mail 2010-01-28
In a series of features on Radio Oxford today about Chiltern’s recent TWA application for a new Oxford to London service via Islip and Bicester, OBRAG’s Ian East was interviewed by Wesley Smith at 17:30 on the Bill Heine show. A recording of the interview can be heard by clicking this link to BBC iPlayer. The interview starts around 1h23m40s in. Other mentions are made at 47m45s and 2h19h50s.
The new service is also detailed in this news report on BBC Oxford TV. You may find this easier to view by clicking the ‘open in standalone player’ link.
These links on iPlayer are likely to last only for a limited time.