London: Train Transfer question

Next train to Paddington in 18 min, 19:47

If the first train is on time, six minutes should be adequate connection time. If you miss the connection, your ticket should be good on the next train. Question #1: Train service is frequent between Oxford and London. Why not take a direct train? There are plenty of them. Question #2: On which site did you find your route?

Trains from Oxford arrive at Didcot on platforms 4 & 5. Fast trains from Didcot to London leave from platform 2. Recommended minimum connection time is 5 minutes. There are however plenty of trains between Oxford and London that do not require this change. You have picked a slow service between Oxford and London with many stops enroute, hence the suggestion to change into a faster service at Didcot. You could stay on the one train but the journey would take half an hour longer. However, there is a fast train leaving from Oxford only 4 minutes earlier that doesn't require a change (ie at 19:04). (This is looking at the regular weekday time table.)

Thanks everyone. Tim & Marco: the direct train leave 4 min earlier (19:04) is more expensive and the next direct train will leave at 20:01. The non-direct train is only slower than the direct train by 5-10 min.... We are not sure about taking the 8pm direct train as it is a bit late and won't get to London until 9pm... Also, because I'm buying advance non refundable ticket (that we can only get on the specific train); therefore I wasn't sure if we can take the next available train in case we missed the connection. I want to weight the pros & cons before I book the ticket :)

Jenny, I thought you might be intending to book a discount fare ticket good only for specific trains. I don't have any documentation to back me up on this, but I presume that so long as you get on the correct first train, the train company will have to honor your ticket on the next available train if you miss your connection because the first train is late.

I too would assume that would be the case. It happened to us in Germany, we were rebooked on the next connection when train was delayed and we could not make the connection (although I did have to point out to the ticket agent that the delay was due to DB delay). DB even bought us a cup of coffee when we boarded our new connection. (Yippee!)

If you are on an advance ticket and you miss the connection because the incoming service is late, you should be able to travel on the next service. However, depending on your circumstances other tickets may work out cheaper than an advance single, eg if you are in a group of 3 or more, you are on a leg of a return journey rather than a one way journey, or if you have other travel within the Network Card area.