Tuesday 30th August 2022
Cornwall is the country’s luckiest county; being first in the queue to receive oodles of Government cash to splash on additional bus routes, improved frequencies, new buses and cheaper fares – the way things are promised for 31 other areas fortunate to draw a winning ticket in the Government’s Bus Service Improvement Plan lottery with funding due to start appearing any time soon.
So as ‘Catch the Bus Month’ gets underway on Thursday – it used to be ‘Catch the Bus Week’ and that was seven days too long for me – I just don’t see the point of a promotional campaign that implies it’s OK to not catch a bus for the rest of your time – welcome to a two part blog featuring two routes about to be chopped from Cornwall’s super-funded rural bus network.
Things only started happening big time in Cornwall as recently as March 2020 just as the pandemic hit so it’s not been a typical bedding-in period to trial the Council’s exciting new bus routes for which it has optimistic aspirations. Generating passengers for brand new bus routes is hard enough at the best of times, but to attempt it in a deep rural area in the aftershock of a “don’t use public transport” pandemic is a heroic challenge few would attempt. Furthermore, the county’s much heralded fare reductions which aim to increase passengers only kicked in earlier this year.
Consequently, even though the county is awash with cash for buses it’s not been all sweetness and light here either and things are about to change as an update from the Go Cornwall Bus website about alterations from this weekend explains …..
There are some routes which although have seen growth in passengers are still not generating enough money to run them at the current frequency. We have agreed to give these routes more time to grow passenger numbers and revenue. These routes are:
- Service 21 from St Austell to Newquay
- Service 22 between Truro, St Dennis and St Austell
- Service 25 between Fowey, St Austell and Newquay
- Service 26 from Bodmin to St Austell
These routes will be reviewed again in January 2023, and may need to be revised if the number of passengers does not increase.
The local services around Redruth and Cambourne have been reworked with new route numbers being introduced. Frogpool will no longer have a direct link to Redruth, but Stithians will gain an increased frequency. The section of route between St Day and Truro will be reduced to two hourly. All other destinations are still served to the same level as today.
A table lists all the changes route by route with two routes destined for withdrawal – which interestingly don’t get a mention in the aforementioned introduction. One route for the chop on Saturday is the five journeys a day (Monday to Saturday) route 76 which runs between Bodmin and Launceston.
Go Cornwall explains “this route was introduced in 2020 as a trial, and due to low passenger numbers will be withdrawn.”
As the helpful and colourful network map below indicates, route 76 (shown in purple) ploughs a lonely furrow between Bodmin and Launceston with just one small deviation to serve the hamlet of Altarnun as well as three other minor stops off the A30 to serve hamlets that at one time were on the main road until by-passed by the dual carriageway many years ago.
There’s not much else for route 76 to do. It’s basically been serving Bodmin Moor for the past two years; and there’s not a lot to serve on Bodmin Moor.
Thanks to blog reader Peter for alerting me to the route’s imminent demise I popped down to Cornwall last Wednesday to take one last ride across the Moor.
The journey is timed to take 50 minutes for the 21 miles. Google’s journey planner reckons a car can do it in 26 minutes and as most of the journey finds the bus thrashing along the A30 with not a bus stop in sight those extra 24 minutes come from the minor deviations to serve the small hamlets, as I found. And lucky too as it was the only way to pick up the few passengers travelling.
I caught the first northbound journey of the day – the 09:52 from Bodmin. Well, actually it’s 10:04 as the first 12 minutes are spent on a short circuit of the south east corner of the town, which you might not realise from a cursory reading of the timetable. The bus leaves from one side of the road at a bus stop called Shire House and arrives back directly opposite it on the other side of the road at a bus stop called Shire Hall 12 minutes later.
It’s a bit confusing to a stranger especially as the otherwise very helpful large real time display by the bus stop called Shire Hall, which you can peer at through the end of an old style rusting bus shelter, shows buses departing from both sides of the road but calls them SW-bound or NE-bound. Knowing your geography in Bodmin is a bonus when catching buses.
Sadly the other side of the sign was experiencing ‘Error-113’ preventing it displaying train departures from Bodmin Parkway which is a short bus ride away on route 10.
Aside from those two minor quibbles, things are looking very good in Cornwall with lots of attractive marketing literature and information available. I found compressive timetable books on display in St Austell railway station …
…. and these include network maps and times. Maps, static and real times are displayed at the well organised bus station immediately outside, although it’s a shame Go Cornwall departures are now in the form of listings rather than full timetables as First Kernow’s still are.
The new cheaper ticket deals are promoted on real time signs in between departure information as well as posters at bus stops.
I mention these positives so it doesn’t appear I’m always carping about things, because when the bus arrived I just couldn’t believe what I saw.
Four promotional posters for the reduced ticket prices were covering two of the five windows either side of the bus including the all important rear nearside windows, directly in line with the seats.
What on earth possesses bus company staff to obliterate windows like this is beyond me.
A nice scenic bus ride across Bodmin Moor completely ruined by such thoughtlessness. Why not go the whole hog and put some seats in vans with lots of space to promote tickets all over the outside of the vehicle?
Windows are for seeing out of. End of.
Rant over; and the driver agreed with me but optimistically thought they might be taken down after the school holidays. I don’t see why that would be the case as the reduced prices continue for the next four years. Hopefully they’ll be taken down having publicly shamed Go Cornwall staff into acting.
The ride across to Launceston was everything I expected. A fast pace along the dual carriageway A30 until we reached the first deviation to serve the Jamaica Inn at Bolventor.
And it was worthwhile too, as we picked up our first passenger travelling to Launceston.
The deviation involves a reverse turn opposite the pub and retracing our way back to the junction (see map above) that we’d left four minutes earlier.
But a passenger was now on board.
Next turn off is for Trewint, continuing on to Five Lanes where another passenger boarded and intriguingly bought a weekly ticket.
We then turned left to make our way to the delightful hamlet of Altarnun ….
…. before another reverse turn and retraced our route back to Five Lanes then forward to the A30 which we rejoined seven minutes after leaving it.
But a second passenger was on board.
Our third and final deviation was to serve Tregadillet where we used the old A30 for a stretch which gained us three passengers before rejoining the A30 five minutes after leaving it.
But now we’d grown to five on board.
The bus route then involves a circuit around southern Launceston where we picked up two passengers and dropped two off with the five left on board alighting at the town’s main bus stops in Westgate Street on time at 10:55.
I should add that the little tour of Bodmin’s south east corner resulted in two passengers making a short hop into town so that makes nine passengers in total, albeit four were locals at either end.
As the bus had pulled into Bodmin from its first journey of the day (09:00 from Launceston) two had alighted.
So you can see it’s not carrying nearly enough people as I suspect my experience (even at peak August holiday time) is fairly typical. Peter took a trip on the route on Tuesday with a friend and there was just one other end-to-end passenger on board.
I’m not sure where it was expected more passengers would come from for the route.
Whereas the adventurous team at First Kernow under Marc Morgan-Huws has made a commercial success of tourist routes across Exmoor and Dartmoor these last couple of years, Bodmin Moor just doesn’t cut it with a fast dual carriageway all the way and not much else.
I’m sure the scenery is pretty awesome though.
It’s just I couldn’t really appreciate it other than through the front windscreen.
As you may have spotted from the bus network map extract shown earlier there’s also bus route 425 shown serving Five Lanes and Alternun. There’s a new timetable for this meandering route from next week which includes four journeys from Launceston down to this point on the A30 thus ensuring passengers other than the woman who boarded at the Jamaica Inn are catered for.
So that’s good.
But it’s goodbye to Bodmin Moor for buses. No more.
After an hour or so’s break in Launceston with time to explore this lovely town my next journey was on Cornwall’s other about-to-be-withdrawn-from-this-weekend bus route – the three journeys a day (Monday to Friday) route 235 from Launceston to Callington. I’ll tell you about that in Thursday’s blog.
Roger French
Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThSSu
BusAndTrainUser 
It’s good to see that some monitoring is happening but we have yet to see any reports about how the Cornwall ‘ Experiment’ is progressing. As the expanded network has been running for two and a half years it’s a serious omission that no detailed reports have been published to help guide the rest of England to highlight what’s worked, not worked or needed a rethink. Perhaps reports have been produced, but like the criteria for allocating BSIP funds, they are state secrets?
Roger has highlighted two routes to be withdrawn, and from his trip there are few passengers, but against what criteria have these two been picked as ‘the worst’? Have the poor residents of these isolated villages been conned into thinking they have public transport only for it to be whisked away a a few weeks notice. Where is the consultation with the users?
BSIP funds have been allocated for a 30 month period, exactly the length of time that these routes have been running in Cornwall.
Will the majority of new routes vanish as these two have, because in the rest of England it’s unlikely there will be follow on funds due to the rapidly deteriorating Government finances.
And how much longer has Cornwall before it’s £35m pot runs out?
Do we know?
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Has anyone found any BSIP plans that have been firmed up into real actions with a Project Plan and actions?
The ones I have read are just vague aspiration’s with no detail and no plan and no budget
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Because of the ludicrously tight timescale for producing them, BSIPs were basically wish lists with very approximate costings.
Once the DfT had decided that the EP I am involved with deserved some funding (about 15% of what was asked for), they then required a spreadsheet explaining, in broad terms, what would be spent on what. This hasn’t been made public. I assume that this applies elsewhere.
The funding is still “indicative”. Given the current rate of inflation, it’s a bit pointless going into detail until we can formally set up contracts.
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Thought you may have done those routes from your tweets last week we did them last Monday.
These were GoCornwall routes so well identified on their app. I was caught out on another route where their app said there were no buses and there were. I thought it was just an error until someone told me it was a First Kernow bus and their app doesn’t show these!!!. Fortunately First Kernow is more integrated and their app will show ALL journeys. You couldn’t mKe it up.
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One would have thought they would have a project plan with milestones and deliverables and a budget and would be measuring progress against the plan
With most councils though they seem to just muddle along and any information they might have is regarded as a state secret
Some other routes appear to being cut this are the D1 toD5. I have found no trace of any timetables for them. They are shown as being discontinued from the 5th September. They all serve the Eden Project so my guess is they are seasonal services being withdrawn for the winter
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Bob – the D1 to D5 are the Daytripper services that were introduced by First Kernow. They were supposed to utilise vehicles in the off-peak outside schools/college workings in June/July and then throughout August – Roger sampled them last year and mentioned it in this post https://busandtrainuser.com/2021/05/26/adventures-by-bus-in-cornwall/#more-20081
Sadly, the notes of caution of 2021 were well founded. Difficult to manage the timings, and exacerbated by driver shortages (through Covid in 2021) and the product was not as appealing, being constrained by the need to get back for the workings upon which it is built. The D1 was supposed to come back but never appeared and I suspect the changes you’re seeing are a tidying-up exercise.
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There is a major gap in Cornwall’s plans for better public transport. Trains are to be half-hourly – excellent! – but what about the connections to towns not served by train – e.g. Launceston? The 76 certainly gives a life-line to the villages of Bodmin Moor, as well as access for tourists (given the windows are cleared up) but five journeys a day is not ‘every half-hour’ – nor does the timetable allow workers to get to either end by 9am, or allow an evening out. Nor is nearly an hour’s journey time going to get people out of their cars.
Cornwall’s plans (and those of other counties – e.g. Rutland) need express buses, as near car times as practicable, running every half-hour, and co-ordinated with the half-hourly trains, with through-ticketing. Heaven knows, they might need no more funding than the half-hourly trains, or even maybe make money … no one has tried it, not even our innovative, entrepreneurial commercial bus companies.
Given useful connections to and from fast services at each end of the 76, they might bring more custom to the local buses of Bodmin Moor, and to other regular buses. I really do not agree that express services would take custom from ‘ordinary’ bus services.
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Whilst the question as to the data behind these withdrawals is a very valid point, an even more intriguing one is what was the research/data that prompted the introduction of such a service across Bodmin Moor! It seemed a very curious initiative (much like the TrawsCymru T12 that Roger has also enjoyed) where a bus is sent across a sparsely inhabited patch of imposing scenery that isn’t especially “touristy”. In the case of rail passengers, the run to Bodmin is more curious in that it is quicker to get the more regular bus to Plymouth and access the network there except for the limited numbers who will be wanting to travel West to Truro and Penzance.
It wasn’t the only curious service that appeared seemingly from nowhere. This is perhaps the failing of the Cornwall scheme, and apologies for getting all existential about it. What is the objective of the funding and changes? Is it to provide access to virtually every resident of every corner of the county?
Perhaps it might have been better to use the £100k or so employed on the Bodmin Moor route (and funds from similar initiatives) to turbocharge growth on those key corridors where real passenger growth could be achieved. Or to perhaps look to develop those local services such as Truro where the city routes are a single minibus running around a schools contract (and so nothing before 0900).
As for the marketing of bus services in Cornwall… First do a great job (though not perfect by any means) whilst the Go Ahead/TfC approach is frankly amateurish – hence the windows!
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Bodmin to Launceston was one of a few completely new routes introduced in 2020 to fill gaps in the Cornish network and link places that had not had a direct service for a long time, if ever. (Newquay-Redruth and St Austell-Tregony were others).
Altarnun and neighbouring villages always had a service to nearby Launceston, and when introduced the 76 was virtually direct between the two towns and indeed extended to Bodmin Parkway station (for connections to West Cornwall presumably).
In April 2022 the 76 was diverted to include the Altarnun locals but is apparent that the citizens of Bodmin and Launceston have no great desire to visit each other’s town and there are no particular historic links between the two so the service really is unsustainable. (Altarnun etc will still retain it’s local service).
One could argue though that it was a brave experiment to see if traffic materialises – it can happen with a new route occasionally!
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Many of the places services have very small populations. Bodmin seems to have rather a lot of services for a very small place
Whether you could have more frequent town services with faster inter town services who know. In that part of Cornwall there are few places of any size.
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I don’t know the area but looking on the map there is nothing really between Bodmin and Launceston there is nothing very much and Bodmin only has a population of about 15,000
The only way I think it could work is target it as a Tourist service, Perhaps only running during the summer school holidays or even just on Saturdays during that period
The bus company neds to work with local tourist attractions. There is a Steam Railway in Bodmin. They could do a deal with them to sell a combined bus and train ticket. They would probably get a 10% cut of the normal rail ticket price
There is a narrow gauge railway in Launceston another opportunity . Plenty of other place they could do deals with
The difficulty i bus companies do not really understand tourism or its needs
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I do know the area albeit not a native. Launceston is lovely little town with a castle but not much more. Bodmin is a similarly small town and has a historic jail. Neither is particularly touristy, and aside from Jamaica Inn (vastly over-rated), there really isn’t that much to sustain a tourist service.
As for bus companies not really understanding tourism or its needs… I’d suggest you back through Roger’s posts relating to First South West? See what they have done to unashamedly attract the tourist pound.
On the hitherto abandoned Exmoor coast, they introduced an open-top service last year from Watchet to Lynton. That was increased this year to hourly and gained a supplementary single deck service from Ilfracombe to Lynton. With superb marketing, brilliant and enthusiastic staff and real commitment to (roadside publicity, roadside advanced ticket sales points), they are now making the whole route open top from Ilfracombe to Watchet.
Many of the same methods were employed on the Lands End and Atlantic (Padstow) Coasters. That’s not to say that First have got it all right. In 2021 and 2022, they kissed a lot of frogs – not all of them turned into princes.
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Especially as the bus is,or was, following a scenic route.It is very unfair that those without motor vehicles are denied these areas of the country while thugs in cars and motorbikes roar through our Moors and mountains destroying any peace and harmony.
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Some more cuts but not to bus or train
Loganair are cancelling all flights from Newquay for this year nd next year
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There really needs to be a major nationwide Campaign for Clear Bus Windows!
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Sad, but not surprising. I remember in the mid 90s buying a day ticket, which in those days allowed travel on National Express within Cornwall, and there was a daily service from Penzance to London, via Launceston. This allowed for a visit to the Launceston Steam Railway, ideal for me. Then it became summer Saturdays only, and now I think it has totally gone.
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I think we need a Regulator for Bus Services . The Traffic Commsioners are in my view pretty useless
Bus companies should not be making cuts to service due to staff shortages. THats under their control
Bus Companies should not be making cuts due to breakddowns or unanmed operation regions thats under theire contol
Bus companies should not use loh term road works as an excuse. THey shoud adgust the timetable
A goo exmple of bad Practice is First Norfolk and Suffolk. THey had problems with delays and camcellation due to long term roadworks
So what do the managment do they reduced the timetable. THe roadworks are still there but there are now fewer buses with more passengers ont hem so the delays are worse which to most normal people is predicatable but not to First Bus managment
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That doesn’t make sense – you say “Bus companies should not use loh term road works as an excuse. THey shoud adgust the timetable” (sic) and then in next breath, you say “So what do the managment do they reduced the timetable. THe roadworks are still there but there are now fewer buses with more passengers ont hem so the delays are worse which to most normal people is predicatable but not to First Bus managment” – they adjust the timetable but that’s not enough?
Or are you suggesting that they should increase journey times and maintain the frequency?
Given that operators, seemingly all operators, are struggling to recruit and retain drivers and don’t have enough to cover their existing work, I doubt they’ll have any capability to cover anything extra.
I don’t think you appreciate how tough the labour market is at the moment.
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Managers are suposed to manage but they dont. Yes there are staffing issues. If you dont have the staff you cannot run the full service so they should either give up some routes and or reduce the frequencies to match the resource available and not just keep making short notice cancellatuions leaving customers stranded
With First bus if you have long term road works just cutting the service resolves nothing you need to allow extra time for the jouneys
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Bob – isn’t that what bus company managers are doing? You’re talking about firms running with 20% fewer drivers than they need and these aren’t just firms like First. It’s people like TrentBarton and Transdev who are shedding routes and widening headways just to get some semblance of service.
Take the 36 from Leeds. Transdev dropped the service headways from 6 and 4 buses per hour to Harrogate and Ripon to 4 and 2 respectively, and STILL lost journeys today. And they lost journeys on other routes (such as the 1 group) that are also on reduced frequencies.
All over the country, there are managers who every day are a) having to cut individual journeys as drivers go sick or b) are engaged in having to cut timetables on a temporary or permanent basis.
Arguably the most difficult set of circumstances since the 1970s against a backdrop of increased fuel prices and lower passenger numbers. There are no easy choices.
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The 235 is a fantastic ride around incredibly narrow lanes, but must have been timed in a sports car, as the running time is totally inadequate, even in the rare situation of not getting stuck passing other vehicles. This resulted in unreliability, not just because the bus will be late, but because duties are tied in with other routes, journeys on the 235 get missed completely in order to ensure those busier routes are not affected. It was a bold idea to put on a cometely new route, but worthless if you don’t give it a chance to provide a reliable service. The associated 236 (staying but being altered) is similarly impossibly timed, my one was well over half an hour late.
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One 76 was double deck (the morning jny that omitted Alternun) on college days. There are of course Bodmin and Truro college public bus services still running over the moor, some are double deck. But the real loss on Bodmin Moor with these changes is the superb 55 route through Wenfordbridge and St Breward, as well as further south, where St Neot looses its buses.
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One 76 was double deck (the morning jny that omitted Alternun) on college days. There are of course Bodmin and Truro college public bus services still running over the moor, some are double deck. But the real loss on Bodmin Moor with these changes is the superb 55 route through Wenfordbridge and St Breward, as well as further south, where St Neot looses its buses.
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That route across Bodmin Moor should’ve been set up as a flexible route, sticking to the main road with bookable diversions (by phone) to serve the villages as required.
To maximise tourist traffic there should be a rail connection no window obscurity, possibly bike racks, and maybe an open air section a la Sunseekers by First, and promotion in tourist guides.
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A few routes like that in Cornwall that go scraping lots of little villages for no passengers.
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Corlink did provide a flexible service in the area, but only to Bodmin / Wadebridge, not Launceston. I recall a great Sunday where I booked numerous trips on it in order to do a pub crawl. As there were no other passengers all day, the vehicle was effectively provided only for my use all day.
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Windows obscured by adverts are terrible. I first complained in Buses after a trip to Jersey in 2013 or 2014.. Thoughtless and absurd
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When I last travelled on it, it carried quite a number of Scholars from Bodmin, but clearly they are catered for separately now as the timetable shows. It is a very useful link in the network, and once you start breaking such links, history will repeat itself and Cornwall may yet become a series of isolated hubs. The problem for this particular service across the Moor, was that the link was broken so many years ago and the Residents of Bolventor had long forgotten what a bus looked like.
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Being Devil’s Advocate here, is it a very useful link in the network?
It always felt (to me) that it was a bit of an arbitrary filling in of a gap on the map with little obvious end-to-end demand, nor much in between.
Surely that money would have been better directed at routes where there is a clear, known demand? One noted example is the Tinner service west of Camborne that goes from a 15 min headway through Hayle to St Ives/Penzance but at night is two hourly to Penzance.
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I do recall that the Bodmin to Launceston direct route was served for a while on Tuesdays by the X3 of First Buses around 2013. Unfortunately, I don’t keep many old timetables, so can’t be more precise.
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Some very old Western National timetables for 1969
https://timetableworld.com/ttw-viewer.php?token=a1415fa5-1f88-416c-b797-9c1dcfbdaffa
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An interesting find, Bob. The 1969 map shows no local bus service between Bodmin and Launceston. Just the long distance Royal Blue coach service (probably not stopping intermediately), as you might expect.
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The 235 is a fantastic ride around incredibly narrow lanes, but must have been timed in a sports car, as the running time is totally inadequate, even in the rare situation of not getting stuck passing other vehicles. This resulted in unreliability, not just because the bus will be late, but because duties are tied in with other routes, journeys on the 235 get missed completely in order to ensure those busier routes are not affected. It was a bold idea to put on a cometely new route, but worthless if you don’t give it a chance to provide a reliable service. The associated 236 (staying but being altered) is similarly impossibly timed, my one was well over half an hour late.
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Re the adverts obscuring the view on the 76, at least on a long E200 you can mitigate part of the problem by moving to a seat with less obstruction. But on the shorter E200s you don’t even have that option, and to be honest they totally ruined my enjoyment of such incredible routes such as the 55, 235, 236 and many others. Totally idiotic.
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I don’t have a complete set of timetables, but I believe that the Bodmin – Launceston link was started by Western National in 1988 with two journeys on Tuesdays and one on Saturdays as part of a long distance X3 service from Bude – Launceston – Bodmin – Truro. It followed an earlier operation by Webbers Coaches. It was still operating in 1998, but that long, infrequent route had disappeared by the year 2000.
The introduction of the 5 hourneys a day between Bodmin and Launceston (as route no. 176) in 2020 was a bold move by Cornwall Council to fill the gap in the bus map. It certainly exceeded the number of journeys that had operated prior to the long period of absence.
Sadly, it doesn’t seem to have resulted in passengers appearing from the mists of the Moor, nor of the two towns’ occupants discovering any kindred spirit, worthy of travelling for.
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The introduction of a service between Launceston and Bodmin was indeed a bold move by Cornwall Council. Historically, I cannot remember there ever being a Western or Southern National bus depot at Bodmin. I think that the company may have outstationed some buses at Launceston.
A 1952 timetable in my collection, shows that Bolventor was served at that time by a route from Liskeard, where there was a depot, on four days a week (MTFS two return journeys with four on Saturdays) with the bus continuing to/from Bodmin on Fridays. Another route reached Bolventor from Launceston comprising two return journeys on Mondays, four on Tuesdays and five on Saturdays. It would seem that Bolventor lost its buses around 1960 with the Launceston route being cut back to Five Lanes and the Liskeard route abandoned altogether.
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It is difficuly bus territory but wiyj really good marketing and working with local attractions some Summer seasonal services could be put on during the school holidays
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I wonder whether some independent operator might have provided a bus service to Bolventor, after Southern/ Western National pulled out. I recall from my childhood that small villages sometimes had such a service perhaps provided by a local garage; maybe only one day a week. It is hard to dig out details of these as they seldom had any publicity or even printed timetables.
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The independents did have timetables and they where published by the local National Bus subsidiaries on the private companies behalf.I’ve seen these in the north east published by United on behalf of companies like TMS,Teesdale,OK,Weardale, Diamond,etc although after deregulation it all stopped.The municipal operations did their own timetables.
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Another loss is the service 11A, which serves St Neot, until this weekend. It enabled carless me and a friend to visit that pretty village with its church boasting many stained glass medieval windows. I had spotted just in time that it was about to be taken off.
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Don’t forget, John, that if you wish to visit another fine church, St Laluwys in the village of Menheniot, you’d better go there in the next day or two, as it’s another village about to become bus-less.
And, yes there is a railway station, but with a very poor level of service, and it’s a long, long walk to the village.
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Many thanks for that. I hadn’t realised that Menheniot was also losing its bus service. I agree that the railway station is not adequate for the village. Personally, I have already seen the church.
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