On Wed, 29 Dec 2010, Graham Harrison wrote:

wrote in message
...

On bank holiday monday I saw a full length HST trundle through Barnes
station going north. What would it have been doing on Southern region?

Reading is closed. What you saw was a divert from the west country.
Normal route to Westbury then reverse and down to Salisbury,
Basingstoke, Addlestone, Brentford to get in to the "correct" side of
Waterloo. Going back they use Richmond instead of Barnes. From
Bristol/Swansea they route to Oxford, Banbury (reverse) then down
through High Wycombe to Paddington

I can confirm that - i did it this evening. In case it's not obvious (it
wasn't to me until we did it!) the High Wycombe to Paddington bit is via
the New North Main Line (ie past Northolt) and the Greenford Loop. About
two and a half hours from Swindon to London; might have been quite scenic
during daylight hours.

While we're vaguely on the subject, has there ever been a plan to connect
Bicester Town station to the Chiltern main line? It'd make for a much more
convenient diversionary route than Banbury.

tom

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