The battle for route 38

Thursday 1st December 2022

There aren’t many instances of head to head competition between bus companies these days, particularly not on inter urban corridors.

So I was a bit surprised to see Arriva and D&G Bus are battling it out between Crewe and Macclesfield with each company running an hourly service numbered 38.

The route goes via Sandbach and Congleton with journey time scheduled to take around 80-85 minutes meaning each company is using three buses.

The current timetable has a 15/45 frequency split with D&G Bus running 15 minutes ahead of Arriva.

I took a ride up and down the route on Tuesday last week to see how things were going, catching the 11:15 departure from Crewe operated by D&G Bus, returning on the 13:00 from Macclesfield operated by Arriva to compare the two.

Cheshire East Council has displayed helpful information in bus stations in both Crewe (which is about to be demolished as part of a major town centre redevelopment) and Macclesfield.

These include reference to both Arriva and D&G Bus route 38s as well as departure times at the bus stands.

To my surprise I spotted a few Arriva timetable leaflets in the window of the office used by staff at Crewe bus station so grabbed one by slipping in through the unlocked door …

… and then spotted some timetable brochures in the driver’s cab of the D&G Bus on the stand so asked for one of those too once the driver appeared.

Interestingly this contains perhaps a ‘Freudian slip’ by erroneously showing departures 30 minutes away from Arriva (rather than 15) but there’s an addendum inside showing the correct times.

The 11:15 wasn’t a prompt departure by any means with the driver not appearing until 11:21 but he soon got the eight waiting passengers and myself on board and we left at 11:23. There didn’t seem to be anyone left waiting for the 11:30 Arriva departure nor was that driver present.

We picked three more passengers up as we left Crewe via the railway station.

The 38 is a route in three thirds with Sandbach and Congleton acting as key intermediate staging posts along the way.

I soon realised the timetable includes slack in the running time with a scheduled five minutes pause in Sandbach and a generous eight minutes in Congleton, perhaps explaining our driver’s laissez faire approach to departing Crewe.

In the event we were scheduled to arrive Sandbach at 11:41 and leave at 11:46 but actually arrived at 11:48 and left at 11:49 while at Congleton instead of a scheduled arrival at 12:07 and a 12:15 departure we did a 12:09 arrival and departed 12:15 with a final arrival into Macclesfield at 12:36, three minutes ahead of the timetabled 12:39.

If my traffic free flowing journey was typical (I doubt it is, especially at peak times) you could lob 19 minutes off the end to end journey time.

The section of route between Crewe and Sandbach was the busiest carrying 14 passengers of whom 12 only travelled within that section and the other two went all the way to Macclesfield. Seven more travelled exclusively in the Sandbach to Congleton section with another two from Sandbach through to Macclesfield and finally three travelled exclusively between Congleton and Macclesfield making for a total headcount of 26.

Having arrived into Macclesfield with seven on board, the bus left for Crewe having picked up six passengers for the return journey…

… and I took a short break wondering how many passengers would arrive on the Arriva bus due in at 12:52.

It didn’t put in an appearance until 13:06 which I subsequently found out was due to the driver coming into Crewe to start his shift on a late running bus from Chester.

Eight passengers alighted, so very similar to the D&G Bus arrival.

The Arriva driver did a quick turnaround and swiftly got the 12 waiting passengers on board and we were away at 13:08. I was expecting fewer passengers than 12 would wait for the Arriva departure after six had boarded the D&G bus 15 minutes earlier.

However two of those 12 soon alighted in Macclesfield and seven more got off in Congleton where we arrived and departed the bus station at 13:28 just one minute down on the 13:27 scheduled departure having made up seven of the eight minutes late leaving Macclesfield.

Leaving Congleton we picked up one passenger at the next three consecutive stops giving five on board but we lost those three boarders after just a short ride at the West Heath shopping centre on the edge of Congleton which we left one minute early.

At the next stop the two from Macclesfield alighted leaving just me on board for the next 14 minutes until we picked one, then three then one up as we approached Sandbach where all five alighted and the cheery driver took a well deserved four minute breather and cigarette and told me about his frustrating late start from Crewe.

Arriva brand route 38 as Sapphire, but you’d never know it from the exterior of the vehicles. Inside the seats have the Sapphire name in the headrests….

… but the whole image is looking tired and a bit grubby and lacks that sparkle it once had when first introduced.

Although one passenger did remark to me “I like these seats”.

We left Sandbach at 13:52 (one minute down) having picked up four new passengers as well as five students shortly after that who all had Arriva tickets/passes. As we headed back towards Crewe we lost five but gained six at various bus stops making for a total headcount on the journey of 35.

Looking at numbers on board buses passing in the other direction on both journeys indicated these experiences seemed typical of off peak middle of the weekday times.

Whether it’s enough to sustain two buses per hour is a moot point. From a passenger perspective it’s a shame there’s not a truly joint operation with a half hourly frequency.

But recent history probably makes that unlikely. Some time ago Arriva deregistered route 38’s evening and Sunday journeys regaining the former on tender while D&G ran Sundays – which had good custom – as a commercial venture. Arriva also deregistered a local service in Crewe which gave D&G another opportunity to replace it commercially only to find, with understandable frustration, that after about six months Arriva reappeared on about two-thirds of the route.

D&G decided that wasn’t playing fair and retaliated by registering journeys on route 38 half an hour away from Arriva’s. Covid led to D&G abandoning Sundays and haven’t yet felt able to reinstate that day’s timetable and then last November Arriva introduced a network review which included a new timetable for its 38 journeys now running five minutes in front of D&Gs leading D&G to change their times to the current timetable which is now 15 minutes ahead of Arriva.

Julian Peddle, a director of D&G Bus, tells me he recalls running Macclesfield depot in 1990 when route 38 (ran from an outstation in Congleton) was the best performing route among the 58 vehicles based at the depot, half of which were double deckers. How times change with Arriva Macclesfield’s depot now on a peak vehicle requirement of five.

It’ll be interesting to see the next development in the battle for route 38.

Roger French

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