'That sweet city with her dreaming spires, she needs not June for beauty’s heightening.’ Poet Matthew Arnold had it right about the city of Oxford, but, with apologies to Oscar Wilde, la ville, c’est magnifique, mais pas la gare. For this city’s station, attracting over eight million passengers a year before the pandemic, has long been inadequate for the traffic on offer.
Steps are at last being taken to address the situation, with the Department for Transport announcing on 26 May that £69 million has been earmarked for further development of a capacity-boosting programme at the station. This follows on from substantial investment at Oxford in the past decade. Phase 0 of the Oxford Corridor Capacity Scheme saw restitution of the north-facing bays at the station for Chiltern’s new service to Marylebone in 2016. This was followed in 2018 by Phase 1, which further remodelled the station and resignalled Oxford, with the area coming under the control of the Thames Valley Signalling Centre in Didcot.
The Oxford Phase 2 project aims to provide an extra platform face and get the station ready for the arrival of East West Rail services from Milton Keynes at the end of 2024.
LEVEL CROSSINGS
Phase 2A covers two…
