Trains to Bicester Town - Station Details and further Information on Bicester Town Train Services
Bicester Town is one of two railway stations serving the town of Bicester in Oxfordshire; the other being Bicester North. The station is located 12 miles northeast of Oxford, and is operated by First Great Western.
The station was called "Bicester London Road" until its closure, along with the rest of the Oxford-Bletchley section of the Varsity Line, in December 1968. The station was used by several excursion trains through the 1970s and 1980s, before being reopened by Network SouthEast in 1987, as the terminus of theOxford to Bicester Line. From May 2009, First Great Western and Oxfordshire County Council have branded the line as The Bicester Link.
From December 2008, the service on Mondays to Saturdays was improved with an evening service and a doubling of the service on Saturdays. There are now 11 trains (12 on Fridays) on weekdays and 13 on Saturdays. From May 2009, further improvements saw extra trains during the daytime on Mondays to Fridays and a new all-year round Sunday service, with trains every 90 minutes.
The station has one platform, with a covered waiting area, seats, a clock, help point and public address. There are plenty of cycle stands but no ticket facilities (passengers buy these on the train instead).
The line to the east is used only by freight. There are plans, in particular by the East West Rail Consortium, to extend the Oxford-Bicester service to Winslow and Bletchley in the future.
There is another track in front of the platform, aside from the passenger/freight running line. This is in fact the very long reversing siding for the Bicester Military Railway, serving the local MOD depot. In August 2008, Chiltern Railways announced a proposal to construct a quarter-of-a-mile link between the East-West line and the Chiltern Main Line, to allow a new Oxford to London service via High Wycombe. The single line between Bicester Town and Oxford will be doubled and a new station will be constructed at Water Eaton Park-and-Ride. It is hoped that, if approval is granted for the scheme, services will start in May 2013. |