New EntryWitney to Oxford

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New EntryWitney to Oxford

My Blog was prompted after reading a news clip on the BBC app on my phone. The article was about the viability of reinstating a rail link from Witney to Oxford. I remember when I worked at oxford Instruments in Osney being taken to Osselli Engineering in Eyensham on a motorbike one lunchtime. I remember going over the Rail bridge at Eyensham then over the crossing by the Station. Many years later I
was driving along a new road where the railine went to the new Oxford Instruments building where the station used to be to install the infrastructure we would be using there no trace of it's former use could be seen untill you went out the back were a footpath went along the old rail line

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Both of these articles had photos taken by Ben Brooksbank.I feel Ben left us with a wealth of photos he took over the years of long lost stations and it helped me with what I was looking into.
Would it be possible to reinstate the link, no! the original line ran from Oxford to Fairford and after the lack of foresight and the thought that road transport was the way to go lines like the one in question were closed. What happened then was a land grab by local landowners and councils who saw profit. This can be seen in Wallinford where the station closed and a new estate was built.
The old station at Witney is now occupied by an industrial estate.
The next place along at South Leigh a house now sits there

Oxford Instruments built a factory on the site at Eyensham before it was sold off, a roundabout is where the level crossing used to be and a road no runs where the line used to be

Further along Siemens building is beside the old rail line

The next place you would come to would be Cassington Halt and near the junction is you will find the Severn Trent Green Power Cassington AD Facility

Reinstating a line from Witney to Oxford would require it being built on a new route which the costing show around 900 million ATM, would it relive the A40 traffic which is a big problem, the councils seem to think it would help it is just a shame that when the government back then did not have any tought about what would happen in the future