Monday 31st August 2020 I last took a ride on the Hayling Ferry in November 2018. This cute little passenger ferry crosses Langstone Harbour connecting the eastern tip of Portsea Island with the extreme western tip of Hayling Island. It only takes three minutes to make the 400 yard crossing and saves a long detour... Continue Reading →
Saturday 29th August 2020 Readers may recall my ride on route 404 earlier this month highlighting TfL’s penchant for circuitous bus routes wandering around the back streets of London's suburbs making sure everyone lives within 400 metres of a bus stop. But up in Barnet, it's all change for circuitous route 384. From today it's... Continue Reading →
Thursday 27th August 2020 It only takes 44 minutes on the train. But that’s far too easy a way to make the journey. How about taking the bus instead? I set off yesterday on the 08:13 route 270 from Brighton to East Grinstead operated by Metrobus. I joined the bus by Preston Park with two... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 26th August 2020 It's been trailed on social media as making "it easier than ever to connect with the people and places that matter to you". Arriva'smuch vaunted new website and app were launched yesterday. It gets a one star rating from me, and that's being generous. Bring back the previous website famed for... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 25th August 2020 The London Transport Museum has been running a series of Hidden London branded tours for a number of years. There's even a book recently published which features the tours and history of the locations and a dedicated exhibition was added to the Museum in Covent Garden prior to lockdown featuring highlights... Continue Reading →
Saturday 22nd August 2020 Continuing my Covid curtailed summer open top bus rides, I popped down to the New Forest today to sample Bluestar's colour coded circular tours around the National Park. There are three circular routes with the Blue and Green routes running anti-clockwise while the Red route goes clockwise. I last travelled on... Continue Reading →
Thursday 20 August 2020 The last time I took a ride on East Yorkshire's open top bus service along Scarborough's seafront was in May last year, just before the lovely bright new Beachcomber brand was rolled out, so it was nice to make a return visit on Tuesday and see the Best Impressions designed makeover... Continue Reading →
Monday 16th August 2020 Heritage Railways have had it tough these last few months. No 'Emergency Measures Agreements' for them, nor any help for charter train companies either. So it was a surprise a few weeks ago when I saw news a new charter train service would be starting up from Monday 20th July running... Continue Reading →
Saturday 15th August 2020 A brand new station at Horden opened quietly without any ceremonial ribbon cutting, balloons or cup cakes during the Covid-19 'essential travel only’ lockdown era on Monday 29th June. I wrote about it on 5th May as part of a review of ’50 new stations’ but to recap ….... Continue Reading →
Thursday 13th August 2020I had high hopes for fflecsi (it’s Welsh for flex) - the Welsh version of DRT (Demand Responsive Transport).Transport for Wales (TfW) are replacing existing fixed-timetable small-scale bus routes with a bookable flexible bus running along the route and its environs according to demand. It’s a bit like how Go Coach Hire... Continue Reading →
Monday 10th August 2020 When First West of England managing director James Freeman announced a few weeks ago he was going to trial the idea of allowing passengers to pre-book a seat on the network of frequent city bus routes in Bath and Bristol I thought he was joking. Then I heard West of England... Continue Reading →
Saturday 8th August 2020 Thames Clippers’ six year partnership with credit card company MBNA came to an end on Monday when the naming rights of the company’s twenty boats was taken over by Uber, a company that's no stranger to transport in the Capital. Unsurprisingly details of the deal are not public but Uber gets... Continue Reading →
Thursday 6th August 2020 London's bus route 404 is interesting for a number of reasons. It’s one of TfL's short meandering routes that doesn’t really go anywhere. It wanders around well-heeled leafy residential roads lying either side of Coulsdon Road which links Coulsdon (in the London Borough of Croydon) with Caterham-on-the-Hill (just over the border... Continue Reading →
Monday 3rd August 2020 It was pats on the backs all round at Network Rail and GoVia Thameslink Railway (GTR) this morning as although operational problems a plenty caused by damaged overhead lines near Farringdon meant disruption for Thameslink services across the network, the opening of Stevenage’s new ‘turnback’ platform 5 was rightly being celebrated... Continue Reading →
Saturday 1st August 2020 It’s a shorter summer season this year for obvious reasons, so this past week I've been out and about giving three bus companies running seafront open top bus routes in the south-east a bit of much needed custom and support. First up on a lovely sunshine filled day last Sunday was... Continue Reading →
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