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.
Today’s Oxford Times and this week’s Bicester Advertiser both have articles about the proposed upgrade to the Oxford-Bicester service. The Oxford Times has comments from OBRAG chairman Ian East, in particular about services stopping at Islip – click here to read the article.
The article in the Bicester Advertiser urges users to have their say on the type of replacement services available while the line in closed. The text of this article can be found here:
Bicester Advertiser 2010-02-11
The Bicester Advertiser also has the following advance warning:
“Rail passengers are being warned that services from Oxford will be affected by engineering work over the weekend of February 20-21. The line north of Oxford will be closed both days, with buses replacing FGW trains to Islip and Bicester Town”
This is also on the FGW website (although this mentions engineering on Saturday only).
Our chairman (Ian East), who is also on the FGW customer panel, is meeting with FGW next Thursday (14 Jan 2010) and has the chance to talk about the new Bicester Link timetable and put forward possible changes. It would be great to get your input on this, so please vote on the top issues using our poll on the right hand side of the main homepage. Alternatively it would be great to hear your general comments on these or other issues – to do this use the “Leave a reply” section at the foot of this post.
Also, for reference, please click here for a version of the Dec 2009 Bicester-Oxford timetable in Microsoft Word format.
Just a reminder that off-peak rail fares are only £2 return from Bicester-Oxford (£1.80 Islip-Oxford). Compared to the bus (X5 is £4.50 Bicester-Oxford) or Park & Ride (at least £2.20 plus petrol costs and the chance of traffic jams on the A34), this represents excellent value for journeys into the centre of Oxford.
Parking is free all day to rail users in the Islip and Bicester Station Road car parks and also Bicester Village (Mon-Fri only bays marked for rail users).
The new First Great Western timetable started on 13 Dec 2009. If you have any comments to make about how it has affected your journey, including connections at Oxford, please post them here. We would also be interested to hear about any changes you would like FGW to consider for the next timetable for us to raise at the next Customer Panel meeting on 12 Jan 2010.
Following this morning’s leaflet drop advertising this website, we now have over 100 subscribers, so it would be great to get your feedback!
Update: For a summary of the timetable changes, click here.