Tuesday 29th October 2019 It's good to see Stagecoach introducing another new commercial inter-urban bus route with the Group's Yorkshire company trailblazing a brand new service between Chesterfield and Nottingham this week. The new X1 provides an attractive alternative to the long standing Pronto branded route Stagecoach East Midlands operate jointly with TrentBarton running every... Continue Reading →
Saturday 26th October 2019 TfL's policy of redeploying buses from Zone 1 routes into the suburbs moved forward a couple more centimetres today with the launch of brand new route 335 linking the expanding residential development at Kidbrooke with Blackheath and North Greenwich for its 'Millennium Leisure Park' (basically posh looking sheds with retail, restaurants,... Continue Reading →
Friday 25th October 2019 Spoiler alert: the postman delivered a National Rail Voucher for £6.70 this morning. I wrote about the outrageous rip-off fares policy on the Gatwick Express back in May, but the other day I came across another pricing scandal from this past-its-sell-by-date train brand. I was buying a ticket in the Gatwick... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Small independently owned bus companies are a vital part of the industry. They serve small size towns and rural areas which other plc group companies cannot reach. They're becoming increasingly important as the Groups try and reverse falling margins. These small businesses are usually run by dedicated passionate individuals working very... Continue Reading →
Monday 21st October 2019 LNER's flagship AZUMA trains started running between Lincoln and London Kings Cross today. They're journeys which previously just ran between Newark North Gate and Kings Cross now projected back to start at Lincoln, so they're not new journeys on the actual East Coast Main Line (ECML). They provide a significant boost... Continue Reading →
Friday 18th October 2019 There's rightly a lot of discussion about the impact of travelling by plane in the context of our global climate emergency; it pangs my conscious whenever I take a flight, and I don't do it very often, and when I do it's between London and Scotland, the Scottish islands or across... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 16th October 2019 Xplore Dundee, the National Express owned bus company in Dundee, launched a brand new airport express coach service back in June linking the city directly with Edinburgh Airport via the A90 and M90. Four months on I thought it was a good time to take a look and see how it... Continue Reading →
Saturday 12th October 2019 GWR opted for a modest launch at Paddington and Bristol of their Hitachi Class 800 trains they call IET (Inter-city Express Train) two years ago; characteristically LNER went for the high profile with dry ice, Mallard, Flying Scotsman, bagpipes and more approach as they launched their Azuma branded version this spring... Continue Reading →
Friday 11th October 2019 TfL's next round of reductions to bus routes servIng central London begins tomorrow. This one is much less extensive than in June, involving changes to just a handful of routes, most significant of which is the complete withdrawal of route 48 between London Bridge and Walthamstow Central station. Introduced as part of... Continue Reading →
Thursday 11th October 2019 I spent an enjoyable couple of days this week helping to run the twice-a-year Young Bus Managers Network conference. It's always an inspiring event to attend with such encouraging positive energy and enthusiasm emenating from around 80 to 100 young people in their twenties and thirties; some fresh faced into the... Continue Reading →
Sunday 6th October 2019 I picked up an old Western National timetable book for Cornwall when visiting the Isle of Wight Bus Museum last weekend. It's always fascinating to see how bus routes have changed over the decades so as I was heading down to Cornwall over this weekend I took it with me to... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 2nd October I travelled on Britain's longest bus route from Glasgow to Skye at the beginning of last month so decided to give Britain's shortest bus route a ride today. That accolade goes to Rosso's route 13 between Rawtenstall bus station and the business and retail park in nearby New Hall Hey. An exchange... Continue Reading →
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