A RADICAL overhaul of Rail services on the Great Western Main Line between Oxfordshire and London is needed to cope with rising passenger demand, says Network Rail.

The number of commuters heading into London Paddington at the height of the morning rush-hour on services from Oxfordshire and other places west of Reading is forecast to jump by 51 per cent over the next 20 years.

Services into Paddington are already the most overcrowded around London, and the number of people going by rail from Oxford has grown by 65 per cent over the past 10 years, with many heading for the capital.

Network Rail’s London and South East Route Utilisation Strategy says the “only realistically viable” way to provide extra capacity is to restructure the entire timetable and scrap the Heathrow Express airport service; to allow 20 medium and long-distance services per hour to reach London; and to run 12-coach trains on many trains to and from Oxford.

The airport would instead be served by trains from the Crossrail tunnel under central London, which is due to open in 2018.

Without making this change, there will be 5,800 more passengers wanting to travel from the outer Thames Valley to reach London between 8am and 9am than existing services could handle.

Network Rail is already implementing a £5bn programme over the next decade to improve routes from Paddington, including electrification of the line to Didcot and Oxford by 2016 and the Cotswold Line redoubling project between Oxford and Worcester, due for completion later this month.

Commuter trains transferred from London’s Thameslink line and a new fleet of InterCity Express Programme (IEP) trains built by UK-based consortium Agility Trains, are due to enter service in the Great Western area from 2016.

However, the strategy says that no extra peak services are currently planned and even with the extra seats offered by these trains, they will only provide sufficient capacity for growth up to 2019.

Chris Bates, of the Cherwell Rail Users’ Group, said: “Paddington will be operating at full capacity by 2019. The Government will need to invest in more IEP trains to handle that demand and take further steps post-2019.

“There’s also the question of there being enough capacity at Paddington’s Underground station to cope with the extra passengers.

“In the long term, they may have to look at things such as a new station at Old Oak Common, west of Paddington, perhaps in conjunction with the High Speed 2 proposals, to provide extra capacity.”

A Network Rail spokesman said: “As the number of people travelling by train between London and Oxford continues to grow, so we need to look at how the railway can cater for increased demand in the future.

“Even with the electrification of the line from London to Oxford and the introduction of new, longer trains, significant overcrowding is predicted into London Paddington by 2031 if no further improvements are put in place.

“The solution put forward will see a complete overhaul of the existing timetable, enabling significant extra capacity to be provided for the Thames Valley in response to predicted passenger numbers.”

The strategy adds that the current investment programme on the Chiltern Line – to speed up services between London, Banbury and Birmingham – and Chiltern Railways’ plan for a second route between Oxford and London, will provide adequate capacity into London Marylebone up to 2031, provided longer trains with extra seats are used.