Is there a direct train or bus route from Oxford to Cambridge?

The replacement to the much missed Varsity Line, a casualty of the Beeching cuts, will be East West Rail, some parts of which may be operating within the next 10 years or so.

In the meantime there is the X5 bus (Oxford <> Bicester <> Buckingham <> Milton Keynes <> Bedford <> Cambridge) operated by Stagecoach. You can enjoy leather seats, coach height views, free wifi and USB power. You may need that to keep you occupied, the journey is not short.

https://www.stagecoachbus.com/promos-and-offers/east/stagecoach-x5

I see on that page that they are replacing the traditional blue coaches with yellow double deckers, with similar amenities, and introducing a change of bus to the 905 in Bedford.

Train is either GWR from Oxford to Paddington, or Chiltern Trains to Marylebone, then tube, cab or bus to Kings Cross St Pancras; then fast train to Cambridge. Some trains will start at Kings Cross but now some come through St Pancras. You could take a train to Cambridge from Liverpool Street station, but although they originate there they are very much slower than those from KX St Pancras.

Neither is a great choice, but both work.

If you were to have a car you could drive in about an hour and three quarters, A34, M40, A43, A421, A428 (circle Bicester, turn onto the Buckingham road before Brackley, through Milton Keynes (mind the high speed roundabouts), bypass Bedford, bypass St Neots, and straight into Cambridge. Mind the bicycles in both university cities. Parking is awful in Oxford and not cheap in Cambridge. Mind the 20 mph urban speed limits.

Longer but easier - train Oxford to Birmingham New Street to Cambridge

easier maybe, true, but longer most certainly. Train via London including cross London (included with a through ticket) 2 and a half hours, around the houses via Birmingham an additional 2 hours. I used to work on those trains to Stansted, the bit between Birmingham and Cambridge, and it is not a fast bit of track, and not a straight line. Scenic, not fast.

always good to avoid the Great Wen

I had no idea that there were this many choices. Thanks to you all. It's looking like we're going to take the train into London and make the transfers to Cambridge. What have your experiences been with being able to make those transfers within the timeframe?

I didn't look at how much time they gave you, but here's my rule of thumb for getting around the Underground...

I just as a very rough measure allow 3 minutes for each station the tube stops at plus 3 minutes for a transfer.

So from Paddington it is Edgware Road, Baker St, Great Portland St, Euston Square, Kings Cross St Pancras. So I'd allow 15 minutes plus 5 minutes to get off the train and to the tube station (Paddington is a fairly large station) and 5 minutes down to the platform including a couple of minutes to wait for the next tube train, and a good 10 or 15 minutes to get up to the surface at KX and find and board the Cambridge train. So I'd loosley allow about 40 or 45 minutes train to train.

You don't need to buy a tube ticket if your train ticket from Oxford to Cambridge is on one ticket - it will be included and indicated on the ticket by a "+" in the route area. Just show it to the staff member on the gate line. It should go in and come out of the machine unattended but I don't trust it.

If you find much cheaper fares by splitting the train ticket Oxford - London and London - Cambridge you will have to have a valid tube ticket.

Thanks, Nigel. I'm printing your response and putting it into my paper file.

I'm not sure if it's been suggested already but National Express are really good for going around the different cities and have a couple of drop off locations if you are arriving in London afterwards.

https://www.nationalexpress.com/en is their website

Thanks, I'll check National, as well.