Cherwell Valley line

Cherwell Valley line
Cherwell Valley line
	Appleford railway station in 2009
Overview
Status	Operational
Owner	Network Rail
Locale	Oxfordshire,; South East England
Stations	7
Service
Type	Heavy rail
System	National Rail
Operator(s)	CrossCountry; Great Western Railway
Rolling stock	Class 165 "Networker Turbo"; Class 220 "Voyager"; Class 221 "Super Voyager"; Class 800 "Intercity Express Train" ; Class 802 "Intercity Express Train"
Technical
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Operating speed	110 mph (177 km/h) maximum
Route map
Route map
	; (Click to expand)

Legend

Chiltern Main Line

to Leamington Spa

34⅓

Banbury

Verney Junction branch

M40 motorway

30½

Kings Sutton

Banbury and Cheltenham

Direct Railway

M40 motorway

29⅓

Aynho Junction

Oxford Canal

23⅛

Heyford

19½

Tackley

Bletchington

Shipton cement works

Blenheim and Woodstock

branch line

Kidlington

Oxford Canal

Buckinghamshire Jn Rly

Cotswold Line to Worcester

13¼

Duke's Cut

A34

Oxford Western Bypass

(Wolvercote Viaduct)

Wolvercot Platform

Oxford–Bicester line

11⅜

Oxford North Junction

Sheepwash Channel

10⅜

Oxford

gas works

Osney Rail Bridge

over River Thames

Millstream Junction

A423

8⅓

Kennington Junction

Mini factory

Wycombe Railway

5¼

Radley

Abingdon Junction

Abingdon Railway

Nuneham Viaduct

over River Thames

Culham Cutting

3⅓

Culham

Appleford Railway Bridge

over River Thames

2⅓

Appleford

Gravel pits

⅞

Didcot North Junction

Didcot Railway Centre

0⅓

Didcot Parkway

Great Western Main Line

to Swindon | to Reading

The Cherwell Valley line is the railway line between Didcot and Banbury via Oxford. It links the Great Western Main Line and the south to the Chiltern Main Line and the Midlands. The line follows the River Cherwell for much of its route between Banbury and Oxford.

Current and former stations served

Banbury, formerly called Banbury Bridge Street
Kings Sutton
Former station at Aynho for Deddington
Former station at Fritwell & Somerton
Heyford, formerly called Lower Heyford
Tackley
Former station for Bletchington, previously called Kirtlington
Former station at Kidlington previously called Woodstock Road
Former halt at Wolvercot Platform
Oxford
Former halt at Hinksey
Former halt at Abingdon Road
Radley
Former station at Abingdon Junction
Culham, formerly called Abingdon Road
Appleford
Didcot Parkway, formerly called Didcot

The former station for Bletchingdon was always spelt "Bletchington", which is an alternative spelling for that village's toponym. The former halt at Wolvercote was called "Wolvercot Platform", with a deliberately different spelling of the village's name, to distinguish it from the London and North Western Railway's nearby Wolvercote Halt.

The line has a maximum speed of 110 mph (177 km/h).^[1]

Services

Passenger services are provided by CrossCountry and Great Western Railway. CrossCountry call only at Oxford and Banbury on their services south to Southampton and north to Birmingham New Street and beyond, while Great Western Railway operate both local and express services on the line, with express services typically continuing onto the Cotswold Line towards Worcester Foregate Street and Hereford, or the Great Western main line towards London Paddington.

The line carries a large and increasing volume of freight between the Port of Southampton and the Midlands, much of it container trains operated by Freightliner.

Tilting

With the exception of the West Coast Main Line, this route was the only route on which domestic UK trains could tilt, something of which Virgin CrossCountry took advantage, using Class 221 Super Voyagers from 2004.^[2] After Virgin CrossCountry's successor CrossCountry elected to remove the tilting equipment from its Class 221s to increase reliability and reduce costs, tilt running ceased in 2008.^[3]

River Thames

The line makes three crossings of the River Thames between Oxford and Didcot:

Electrification

In 1977 the Parliamentary Select Committee on Nationalised Industries recommended considering electrification of more of Britain's rail network, and by 1979 BR presented a range of options to do so by 2000.^[4] Some of these options would have included the whole Cherwell Valley line and the Banbury–Birmingham section of what is now the Chiltern Main Line plus the Coventry to Leamington line.^[4] The 1979–90 Conservative governments that succeeded the 1976–79 Labour government did not implement the proposal.

Under plans for the Great Western Electrification project announced in July 2009, the Cherwell Valley line was due to be electrified from Didcot as far as Oxford.^[5] However, delays and cost overruns elsewhere caused this to be deferred indefinitely in 2016.^[6]

References

^ "Western Route Sectional Appendix December 2021 Archived 21 December 2021 at the Wayback Machine" (PDF). Network Rail. 4 September 2021. Retrieved 21 December 2021.
^ "Debut trip for new tilting train". BBC News. 29 April 2004.
^ Miles, Tony (August 2008). "Cross Country stops Tilting". Modern Railways. Vol. 65, no. 719. Shepperton: Ian Allan. p. 71. ISSN 0026-8356.
^ ^a ^b Anonymous (Winter 1979). Railway Electrification. British Railways Board (Central Publicity Unit). pp. 0–2, 8.
^ "Rail Electrification" (PDF). Britain's Transport Infrastructure. Department for Transport. July 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 August 2009.
^ "Great Western electrification: Intercity line work 'deferred'". BBC News. 8 November 2016.