Bicester North railway station
railway station in Bicester North, Cherwell, Oxfordshire, England, UK
Bicester North ( BIST-ər) is a station on the Chiltern Main Line, one of two serving the market town of Bicester, in Oxfordshire, England; the other is Bicester Village. Services operated by Chiltern Railways run south to London Marylebone and north to Banbury, Birmingham Snow Hill and Stratford-upon-Avon.
History
The Bicester cut-off, between Ashendon Junction and Aynho Junction, was opened in 1910; it was the last main line stretch of route to be completed in Great Britain until the 1980s. This provided a shortening of the London-to-Birmingham Great Western Railway (GWR) railway line and gave Bicester a station with direct London trains for the first time.
The station was transferred from the Western Region of British Rail to the London Midland Region on 24 March 1974.
In 2010, the down northbound line through the station was realigned for higher speeds, as part of the Evergreen 3 project. In 2011, the up platform was widened, using the trackbed of the former through lines.
Improvements to the station's car park began in summer 2026, as part of a £3.8 million project.
Services
Services are operated by Chiltern Railways, which provides the following general Monday-to-Friday off-peak service in trains per hour (tph):
2 tph to London Marylebone, typically calling at Haddenham & Thame Parkway (once per hour) and High Wycombe only
1 tph to Birmingham Moor Street
1 tph to Banbury, with alternate services extending to Birmingham Snow Hill and at peak times.
References
Bibliography
MacDermot, E.T. (1931).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Bicester North railway station” as railway station in Bicester North, Cherwell, Oxfordshire, England, UK. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as railway station in Bicester North, Cherwell, Oxfordshire, England, UK. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2184930. Authority coordinates are 51.904, -1.150. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1910, 1974, 2010 and 2011.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Bicester North railway station”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Bicester North railway station primary sources, Bicester North railway station archive and Bicester research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Bicester North railway station” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.