On May 6, 9:16*am, D DB 90001 wrote:

On May 6, 1:13*am, Mizter T wrote:

On May 6, 12:21*am, D DB 90001
wrote:

[snip]

Incidently the Oxford tube also stops at Hillingdon very close to the
tube station, so if the tube is misbehaving then it's not too late to
switch to coach there.

Though I'm not sure that you can use it for journeys from Hillingdon
into central London and v.v., though the website doesn't say this -
but the website is a bit shabby at providing the more esoteric
information (e.g. about the stop at Lewknor) so I wouldn't take what
it says (and doesn't say) as being definitive.

I can confirm that it is possible because I've done the journey
before, iirc, the fares were very reasonable as well, I think it was
about £2/3 for a single to central London.

Thanks for the info, that's certainly useful to know. Coming into
central London it's obviously dependent on whether or not there's any
free seats on board but as both Oxford Tube and Oxford Espress stop
there then you'd not have to wait long before another coach came
along.

Obviously similar considerations apply to coaches heading from London
to Oxford, but I imagine it might be a bit more complicated for
journeys in this direction - I can imagine that drivers would be
rather wary of selling a ticket to Hillingdon *from* central London
(especially at busy times) in case that meant a seat was taken up that
could potentially be sold to a passenger at the next stop who wanted
to travel all the way to Oxford. Perhaps you'd only reliably be able
to do this at the last central London stop (FSVO 'central London') -
for Oxford Tube this is Shepherd's Bush, for Oxford Espress it's Baker
Street.

I'm also curious now as to whether Hillingdon area folks ever try and
use the Oxford Tube/Espress as a nifty 'express' night bus to get from
central London back to Hillingdon.

Perhaps 'local' passengers are only really welcome to travel from
Hillingdon into central London, rather than the other way round.

This reminds me of someone telling me about how they used to travel
into town from their home in the London suburbs back in the 70's - the
normal way was on a regular London bus route, but if they were feeling
flush then they might opt for the quicker Green Line coach instead
(regarded as a somewhat cut-above way of doing things!). I can't
really think of anywhere where this might still be possible - bus
routes are a lot shorter these days of course, and long distance
coaches don't really stop at that many places (though the Bexleyheath
coach stop on the side of the A2 does come to mind).