"Pred02" wrote in message
oups.com...
My friend most definantely will not obtain the car for purposes of
commuting, acknowleding the cons mentioned above. He will use the
train, however, he is interested in the overall experience of
commutting that I am sure many Londoners share that are working in
Oxford.

Again, he would like to live in London, however, he is trying to
evaluate if its worthwhile the commute, or just its better to move up
to Oxford and then go to London for the weekends.

OK. Oxford railway station is about 10 minutes' walk into the city centre
(taking the centre to be Carfax crossroads). If his office is in the centre,
there are buses from the station or from the bus stops nearby near the Jam
Factory / Said Business School. There may also be buses from here to other
parts of Oxford; failing that it may be necessary to change at Gloucester
Green bus station off George Street.

Looking at www.nationalrail.co.uk "Planning Your Journey", trains take about
an hour. Some are direct and others require a change at Reading or Didcot -
surprisingly changing doesn't seem to increase the journey time much. There
are several that would get him to Oxford between 08:30 and 09:00.

On Sun, 28 Aug 2005 20:33:56 +0100, "Martin Underwood" a@b wrote:

OK. Oxford railway station is about 10 minutes' walk into the city centre
(taking the centre to be Carfax crossroads). If his office is in the centre,
there are buses from the station or from the bus stops nearby near the Jam
Factory / Said Business School. There may also be buses from here to other
parts of Oxford; failing that it may be necessary to change at Gloucester
Green bus station off George Street.

Actually, if he takes the frequent No.5 bus from the station, the
easiest place to change to a northbound bus is below the castle, where
you can cross the road to the other stop. Gloucester Green is not a
lot of use. The 14 bus to JRH also goes up the Banbury Road, but is
less frequent.

Have a look at http://www.oxfordbus.co.uk/ for details of services,
and fare deals. A Freedom ticket will almost certainly be worth
having.
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org

On Sun, 28 Aug 2005 20:33:56 +0100, Martin Underwood wrote:

OK. Oxford railway station is about 10 minutes' walk into the city centre
(taking the centre to be Carfax crossroads). If his office is in the
centre, there are buses from the station or from the bus stops nearby near
the Jam Factory / Said Business School. There may also be buses from here
to other parts of Oxford; failing that it may be necessary to change at
Gloucester Green bus station off George Street.

Gloucester Green is easy walking distance from the station.

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 11:04:59 +0100, steve
wrote:

On Sun, 28 Aug 2005 20:33:56 +0100, Martin Underwood wrote:

OK. Oxford railway station is about 10 minutes' walk into the city centre
(taking the centre to be Carfax crossroads). If his office is in the
centre, there are buses from the station or from the bus stops nearby near
the Jam Factory / Said Business School. There may also be buses from here
to other parts of Oxford; failing that it may be necessary to change at
Gloucester Green bus station off George Street.

Gloucester Green is easy walking distance from the station.

Having looked at the latest Oxford Bus Co timetables, I see that only
the 14/14A, and 5/5A serve the station and any point west of Magdalen
Street or Queen Street nowadays. The Botley Road services, Park & Ride
and UniversityBus go past on the main road, of course. The 14 is a
half-hourly service, so in its absence a 5 to Carfax and a walk down
the Cornmarket to Magdalen Street is the best way of heading north.

Gloucester Green only gives you out-of-town buses.
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 23:35:27 +0100, Terry Harper wrote:

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 11:04:59 +0100, steve wrote:

On Sun, 28 Aug 2005 20:33:56 +0100, Martin Underwood wrote:

OK. Oxford railway station is about 10 minutes' walk into the city
centre (taking the centre to be Carfax crossroads). If his office is in
the centre, there are buses from the station or from the bus stops
nearby near the Jam Factory / Said Business School. There may also be
buses from here to other parts of Oxford; failing that it may be
necessary to change at Gloucester Green bus station off George Street.

Gloucester Green is easy walking distance from the station.

Having looked at the latest Oxford Bus Co timetables, I see that only the
14/14A, and 5/5A serve the station and any point west of Magdalen Street
or Queen Street nowadays. The Botley Road services, Park & Ride and
UniversityBus go past on the main road, of course. The 14 is a half-hourly
service, so in its absence a 5 to Carfax and a walk down the Cornmarket to
Magdalen Street is the best way of heading north.

Gloucester Green only gives you out-of-town buses.

I was more commenting on the suggestion of getting a bus to Gloucester
Green station from the rail station.

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 22:15:49 +0100, steve
wrote:

I was more commenting on the suggestion of getting a bus to Gloucester
Green station from the rail station.

The X5 twice an hour, though I don't know if they allow such short
journeys on what is basically a regional coach service.

That aside, it really isn't *that* far. Unless I had lots of luggage
(in which case there are plenty of taxis to hand) I'd walk.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

"Neil Williams" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 22:15:49 +0100, steve
wrote:

I was more commenting on the suggestion of getting a bus to Gloucester
Green station from the rail station.

The X5 twice an hour, though I don't know if they allow such short
journeys on what is basically a regional coach service.

That aside, it really isn't *that* far. Unless I had lots of luggage
(in which case there are plenty of taxis to hand) I'd walk.

Yes, it's not that far from the railway station to Gloucester Green. And
it's not as if you have to wait long to cross Hythe Bridge Street near the
Worcester Street car park: the pedestrian lights on the bend seem to spend
more time at green for pedestrians than green for cars :-(

I can walk right from Binsey Lane (free one hour parking or even 24 hour
parking if you're lucky) to the Library in about 15 minutes - but then I
walk fast!

Has Gloucester Green always been just for long-distance buses or did
all/most buses call there at one time. For some reason, the concept of
having one central place where you can guarantee all buses will stop seems
to have fallen out of favour in most towns these days.

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 22:40:08 +0100, "Martin Underwood" a@b wrote:

Has Gloucester Green always been just for long-distance buses or did
all/most buses call there at one time. For some reason, the concept of
having one central place where you can guarantee all buses will stop seems
to have fallen out of favour in most towns these days.

I don't really know, I'm not *that* familiar with buses in the Oxford
area other than the X5 and Oxford Tube. The bus station does appear
to be mainly (but not exclusively) Stagecoach, however...

As to why bus stations have fallen out of favour, I don't know. In
Milton Keynes' case there is a good reason in that the centre is so
dispersed that all buses run the length of it on a single route (which
is useful in itself), and it was decided that stopping in front of the
railway station was more sensible than in the bus station which is a
short walk away.

The MK bus station remains as a staff layover point/cafe, a skate park
and a handy place to use as a meeting place if you want to run your
own private coach to somewhere.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 22:40:08 +0100, "Martin Underwood" a@b wrote:

Has Gloucester Green always been just for long-distance buses or did
all/most buses call there at one time. For some reason, the concept of
having one central place where you can guarantee all buses will stop seems
to have fallen out of favour in most towns these days.

It never has been for city buses, only those going out-of-town and
long-distance coaches.

Back way back when, all the city routes were cross-city, and went
direct to Carfax and then on their route, so you had the Botley Road
services, 5, 6, 7 and 7A which all followed the same route west of
Carfax, but fanned out after they had passed St Clements. The No.1 was
the Station to Cowley route. From memory the Woodstock Road service 4
went off down Abingdon Road, while the Banbury Road service 2 carried
on to Headington. I can't recall what the Iffley Road service 3 did,
but it may have carried on up Walton Street.

The central change place was Carfax, with stops in Queen Street,
Cornmarket, St Aldates and the High. I've just been looking at my
photos of Oxford buses from the 1950s, and all those in Gloucester
Green were on country services.
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org