"Tom Anderson" wrote

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.

There is a plan, the Chiltern Evergreen project, which will end up with
trains from Marylebone to Oxford via Bicester Town. But fGW needed the
diversion now.

Alternative might-have-beens would have been to run Paddington to Oxford via
Princes Risborough and Thame (lifted between Thame and Cowley), or via
Princes Risborough, Aylesbury and Verney Junction (lifted between Quainton
Road, Verney Junction and Claydon), or via Ashendon, Grendon Underwood,
Calvery, and Claydon LNE Junction (reverse) (lifted between Ashendon and
Grendon Underwood, and very slow from there to Bicester)

Peter