The OBRAG Website » First Great Western

Oxfordshire Rail Strategy & Delivery Plan – Jan 2012 draft for consultation

OBRAG admin — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 14:58:28 +0000

OBRAG members may be interested to read this document from Oxfordshire County Council as it contains several sections about the Bicester Link service.

OBRAG AGM 2011

OBRAG admin — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 21:44:23 +0000

The OBRAG AGM will be held at the Bicester Town Council Chamber at 18.30-19.45 on Thu 24th February 2011. The full address is The Garth, Launton Road, Bicester, Oxon OX26 6PS and a map can be found by clicking here.

The agenda is as follows:

Chairman’s Report
A summary of news and upcoming issues affecting the Oxford-Islip-Bicester service arising from both FGW and Chiltern Railways.

Election of Committee
A chance to volunteer, if you think you’d like to contribute to the running or development of OBRAG.

Update by Chiltern Railways on May Handover
Bevis Thomas, Head of Train Planning at Chiltern, will present an update of what we may expect come May, and will do his best to answer your questions and concerns.

Discussion
A chance for you to air views or put forward ideas regarding changes you would like to see, which we can put to either operator.

OBRAG AGM 2011 poster

FGW Customer Liaison Panel

OBRAG admin — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:29:21 +0000

Our First Great Western Customer Liaison Panel member is now Chris Bates.

If you have any issues to take up with FGW directly, you can contact the Customer Liaison Panel using the email address customer.panel@firstgroup.com. It would be useful if you could also cc OBRAG using one of our contact addresses.

Timetable changes Oct 2010

OBRAG admin — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 15:20:40 +0000

On Saturday 9 and Saturday 16 October 2010 a revised timetable will be in operation between Oxford and Bicester Town due to changes to main line services in the Oxford area.

Click on the following link to see the revised timetable:
Bicester-Oxford timetable changes 2010-10-09 & 2010-10-16

Changes may be made to weekend services for most of the weekends until Christmas to allow Chiltern trains to run into Oxford, whilst its mainline is closed for Evergreen 3 work.

Council wins top national rail award

OBRAG admin — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:25:48 +0000

Oxfordshire County Council has scooped a top prize at the national Community Rail Awards held by the Association of Community Rail Partnerships. The authority and train operator First Great Western took the coveted top prize in the ‘Best Community Rail Event’ for the launch of the Bicester Link in May 2009.

For more details click this link.

To see photos from this event, click here.

New parking at Bicester Village

OBRAG admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 08:27:07 +0000

Bicester Villlage have now completed their new car park next to Bicester Town station. This area will be available from Monday 26 July for rail users travelling on the Bicester Link line. More details can be found in this press release from FGW.

OBRAG members may also be interested to know that our chairman, Ian East, has recently published a book called The Cost of the Car: Human, Environmental and Economic. It is available in hardback and paperback from Amazon.co.uk.

The Cost of the Car by Ian East

Outcome from recent vandalism at Islip

OBRAG admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 10:51:40 +0000

Regular rail users at Islip will be aware that the shelter was recently vandalised. We have the following report from Geoff Capes, FGW Station Manager at Oxford, on the outcome of the police investigation.

“Our neighbour at Islip heard the vandalism and called the police, and also took some camcorder images. The miscreants had left by the time the police arrived.

Apparently, some of the miscreants heard about the images and decided to hand themselves in, before the police came
calling. I am told that six teenagers were involved, some of whom have been interviewed by BTP and the rest to follow. I understand that, as first time offenders, they will be dealt with under police caution.

Repairs have been authorised today, at a cost of £1,500. We shall be looking at ways of recouping our costs.”

This is an good example of British Transport Police working with the local community and FGW to get a great result with tackling anti-social behaviour on the rail network.

Oxfordshire train journey figures

OBRAG admin — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 13:07:26 +0000

Figures released show growing numbers using the Oxford-Bicester line, highlighting the need to continue the extra train services introduced recently. Dr Ian East, chairman of the Oxford-Bicester Rail Action Group quoted here.

Meeting with Chiltern Railways

OBRAG admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:47:18 +0000

Updated, as date of meeting has changed:

The OBRAG committee will be meeting with Chiltern Railways on 19 April 2010. The purpose is to talk about concerns that we have, as a group, about the proposed service level after Chiltern take over from FGW on the Bicester Link line.

Currently on the agenda are: loss of enhanced service, fares, bikes, station facilities, car parking. If you have any specific queries or additional areas for discussion, please contact us or comment here.

Customer Information Systems

OBRAG admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:46:38 +0000

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.”