Did GWR ever form the intention to quadruple track Oxford to Didcot? I'm thinking of the way that line increasingly sat at the centre of a set of converging lines - at first, to the south, from two directions on the GW main line itself - and the Didcot Newbury and Southampton line then came onto the scene - and then to the north, the lines to Rugby Birmingham and then to Worcester and to Wolverhampton - and later to Fairford, and also the Banbury to Woodford Halse link. This collection joined by a double track railway.

Perhaps the relief of this stretch by the building of the 1910 line via Bicester took the focus elsewhere from any ambition to quadruple the track south to Didcot.

Was there an intention though? Plans, or perhaps an early intention to route the Great Western Main Line itself via Oxford?

Turning to the present day: the relieving line via Thame long closed, a busier network ... and there's Oxford, still connected to Didcot by a double track railway with three 'Inconvenient' intermediate stations, no offence intended. There must be a ghost of the 'If only' here, and also, how those stations avoided being zapped I don't know.

Mark

 
It was suggested in the Westminster Gazette of 12 April 1910 that the construction of the Ashendon to Aynho line, together with the Great Central and Great Western Joint Line, gave GWR the same extra capacity as quadrupling through Oxford almost to Banbury. Thus it is unlikely they would do it later than that, or before they had done the main line into Didcot (1892). By then the possibility of the GW/GCR route was presumably already known about, so the window for ever quadrupling Didcot-Oxford narrows to little or nothing.

 
Thanks for this.

Mark

 
It has sometimes struck me that this would have been (and might still be) a good idea. Being no civil engineer, sitting in a train between the two it strikes me that it might not be too much of a challenge, as there does not seem too much built development hard up to the boundary of the current running lines. Having the intermediate stations on one pair of lines only, freeing up the other pair for through trains?

Another bottleneck not too far away to open out (but I think more of a challenge) would be to quadruple Reading West triangle (or however the revised shape is now named!) to Southcote junction. What do forum members who have more "real" knowledge think?

 

Many years ago, I made a proposal for this with grade separation that was largely dismissed, which followed on from a Didcot grade separation that received a more favourable approval.  I have tried Deep Search on this platform to no avail.

Maybe Chris From Nailsea could be of assistance with finding my old post.

 

Chris - I suspect you may be looking for https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/r18093.html

 

Widening the Thames bridges?.....

 

Easier than double tracking St Bureaux to Saltash 

 

Here's another comment from 1910, this time Railway Times of 13 August 1910 reporting "the 150th half-yearly general meeting of the proprietors" of GWR. The chairman (Viscount Churchill GCVO), in his address summarising the report of accounts and activities for the half year said, of the Ashendon to Aynho Railway: "This, as you know, generally improves our facilities for dealing with the large volume of our northern traffic. In fact, had this line not been made, it would have been necessary for us to have quadrupled our line via Oxford, at a far greater cost."

So GWR assessed the cost of land for a whole new railway (18 miles through nothing much) as less than the amount needed to widen an existing one, plus civils.  Even then Oxford was an expensive place to build!

 
Given the number of both passenger (limited stop expresses & stoppers) and freight services using this line some quad tracking would probably be a 'nice to have' and make timetabling easier but I think completion of the electrification to at least Oxford and preferably onwards to Banbury should be a higher priority so that the PAD<>BAN service can fully utilise the Class 387's.

 

Agreed.

Three tracks to Radley are likely to form part of the Oxford<>Cowley reinstatement AIUI.  There is available width within the existing boundary.

South of there?  Costly to say the least.  Three stations and two Thames crossings within a few short miles to deal with for starters!

Grade separation at Didcot East (and DID<>OXF electrification) would be much higher on the priority list IMHO.

 
The line east of Didcot was quadrupled (and remains 4 track), there was a short section west of Didcot.   

Money was clearly tight, as never managed to extend 4 tracks throughout west and north of Didcot, although did quadruple Challow to Wantage Road (1932-34) including the stations, so fast trains could overtake stoppers and freight.  And was a section with 4 tracks approaching Swindon.

It would be relatively easy to reinstate lifted freight loops Didcot-Oxford.   Of course it's unclear if actually need 4 tracks, or if 3 tracks with a reversible slow in the centre would be sufficient

Near Oxford the (partly former) freight yards make doing section north of Crowley Bridge easy to have 4 running tracks.   The layout of Oxford station suggests would be better to have freight on centre tracks with outside ones as fast, off top of my head can't think of any passenger tracks that pass the station non stop.

The big problem really is flat junction at Didcot, the fast line from London has to cross everything on flat due to lack of flyover, really need to be able to segregate to avoid conflicting moves.     Obviously really need any flyover lines and how it arranges fast-slow etc to be consistent with layout nearer Oxford.

I do wonder if a new line diverging south of Radley, passing between Abingdon and Sutton Courtenay, passing north of Sutton Wick, crossing A34, then heading direct to near Challow is better option.  But I am thinking big, with a Bristol - Bath - Corsham - Swindon - Abingdon (new station) - Oxford - Bicester - onwards East West route

 
John, in reply No. 5, Graham linked to my post back in 2017 on the subject of grade separation at Didcot East but I could not see the link to the original diagram I posted in the search result. So below is the diagram and the text is in the link found by Graham above.

 

While correcting grahame's typo in the above quote, I'll also question Isambard Kingdom Brunel's lack of foresight in not future-proofing that particular length of the GWR: whatever was he thinking of?