Rush Hour Trains at: Oxford, CVL, 04/10/24, Feat. Loads of freight

An excellent evening spent at Oxford railway station on the Cherwell Valley Line and branch heading to the Great Western Mainline where we see no end of services from Great Western Railway, Chiltern Railways, Cross Country and freight from GBRF, Freightliner and DB Cargo UK.

The station itself whilst not very big plays a vital role in the railway network as it is the line for trains running from London Paddington to the likes of Hereford and Worcester Shrub Hill, the starting point for local trains running to London Paddington and London Marylebone, shuttle services for Reading and Banbury as well as serving the north/south Cross Country Route for trains from Manchester Piccadilly and Newcastle to then go via Birmingham New Street towards Southampton, Reading and Bournemouth.

Oxford station was built in 1852 by the Great Western Railway and was intended to be used as a starting point for their line towards Rugby, however because of the gauging issues this never took place. The station was first known as Oxford General, this was done so not to Claus confusion to the London and Northwestern Railways Oxford Rewley Station that formed the terminus of their Varsity Line that went to Cambridge. Of course this line is now in the processor being rebuilt as the East-West Rail Link.

This wasn't the first station however as in 1844 a terminus station was constructed from London Paddington on what is now the Western Road.

The only real big changes for the line came in 1872 when the GWR Broad Gauge 7ft tracks were removed to make way for the traditional standard Guage railway lines that we all see today on every part of the country. This then stayed the same roughly until the mid 1970's when the Western region of British Railways managed to get the station eyed up for improvements. This actually involved completely rebuilding the station to essentially what you see today. Then in 1974 the station was given a new travel centre which would make passenger lives easier when getting out of the station to connect to local buses or even just to walk around the city centre. The current station building and footbridge were introduced in 1990 by Network Southeast.

The station then stayed this way right up until 2016 when Chiltern Railways wee finally allowed to launch their services from London Marylebone to Oxford. This saw the introduction of 2 new bay platforms to accommodate the terminating services. During the same year track work was taking place south of the station to raise the height of the tracks so that they wouldn't be flooded by the Thames River, all they had to do was raise the line by an extra 2 metres. But because of this it meant that no trains could run in or out of the station. So for a period between July and August local buses would act as rail replacement services ferrying to and from Didcot Parkway.

My next rush hour film will be from Stevenage on the East Coast Mainline.

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Joining me today was Kenzies Loco Chase.