Sir - It's not only the commuters of Oxford and Didcot who have been seriously adversely affected by the new First Great Western timetable (Report, December 15).
Some passengers from local stations between Oxford and Banbury have been placed in a position of being unable to use the trains because of these changes.
To take the example of Tackley, there has, for several years, been a disparity in that there was no train to Oxford, Didcot or Paddington between 0752 and 0954 on weekdays, but this problem has been exacerbated by advancing the early train to 0743. This is much too early for travel to work in Oxford or Didcot and the 0952 is much too late. Unless we are prepared to travel very early it is now impossible to reach Didcot until after 10am or Paddington until 11.15am, the latter involving change of trains at Oxford and Reading. In the reverse direction, similar changes have made the service even less convenient. On Saturdays, the very useful 0853 up train has been retimed to 10.17am, which renders it useless for my purposes and I suspect most other people's. These changes mean that I may now have to travel by road, and perhaps that is the intention.
There was surprise in some areas that First GW was awarded the amended franchise for rail services out of Paddington and these developments demonstrate that this reaction was not unjustified.
Is it too much to expect that local MPs will raise with the Department for Transport an early cancellation of that award and a new public-orientated service put in place?
L. A. Summers, Tackley
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