Seen around

Tuesday 27th December 2022

Another month; another potpourri of miscellany.

Another great Ensignbus running day

A big shout out to the Newman family (Peter, Steve and Ross) for organising another great running day based on Lakeside at the beginning of the month.

It’s proving to be one of the most popular events of its kind in the Running Day calendar.

We’re very fortunate to have the Newman family’s passion and a big thank you for that.

A shout out to John Till and colleagues at Southeastern

Head of Information Delivery at Southeastern, John Till, recently added a comment to my blogpost from August about useless announcements at Southern/Thameslink stations when there’s significant disruption on the railway. Southeastern use the same system and John reckoned I’d raised “some very interesting (and valid) points so I shared this with our CIS supplier back in September and we’re making some changes to our system as a result – which should be in place from the end of the year.” Highlights include if a train is delayed, but the previous train with the same calling pattern has not yet departed – and is expected to depart first – the late running announcement won’t be made and where the “next fastest train” to a group of calling points is also delayed, “we’ll make it clearer in the announcement as well as including the latest estimated time of departure”.

This is great news and a huge thanks to John for noting my feedback and more importantly, acting upon it, even if it is for a different company.

A shout out to TfL’s Rail Closure Planning Department

Thanks to one of the team at TfL involved in planning last week’s closure of the railway line north of Queens Park used by Overground and Bakerloo line trains for taking the trouble to contact me following last Thursday’s blog on the subject. He explained contrary to my comment about the week before Christmas might not be the best time for such works … “it is an eminently sensible time to do the closure. I only have access to TfL data, so I needed to make some proxies (TOCs have no idea how many people use their services). In the week before Christmas, demand at Euston LU is 20-70% less than average (it depends exactly where Christmas falls). I also checked Green Park, Oxford Circus and Leicester Square stations (all stations you’d expect to see high leisure demand) to confirm Euston was not an anomaly”. That was a statistic I hadn’t previously appreciated – my experience of bus use was always the week leading up to Christmas being the busiest of the year, but obviously the market is different here, so I’ve learnt something.

He also explained “the intention was all routes were set up in iBus, providing real time customer information. As ticket machines were in operation the first part of this clearly worked, but the data feed to both TfL systems and third party apps has failed somewhere” adding that this is being followed up “with our tech teams as to why this happened”.

Frustration about the roadworks was evident too as Harrow Borough Council’s highways team “were advised of this replacement bus operation months ago. The very point of the 720 going to Harrow rather than H&W was to connect to a fast train to Wembley/London.”

Two positives I didn’t draw out which were also commented on were the destination displays being used by Sullivan Buses and that London NorthWestern Railway were stopping their normally fast trains at Wembley Central to provide an alternative travel option from there. It was also explained that weekday running times on the 718 “particularly later in the day… will be addressed” and a positive to take from the map is “it shows the wide variety of alternative buses and rail lines in this area”, which is definitely the case.

I’m pleased to add these balancing points to the previous blog and many thanks for getting in touch.

The best ‘bookstall’

I always enjoy visiting Crewe station not only for the variety of locomotives and carriages to be seen in sidings on the approaches but my favourite W H Smith bookstall. It’s just so nostalgic seeing all the magazines laid out along the front, and I’m so pleased it reopened after being closed through the pandemic and lockdowns.

It’s also the one place where you can easily access magazines about the railways rather than hidden on the bottom shelf near the floor, as often is the case,

Heart of the Community

On a recent visit to Witney I spotted a bus run by West Oxfordshire Community Transport. What struck me aside from the nice Witney Weaver branding was just how lovely and clean the minibus was on a day when most other buses I saw run by much better resourced bus companies were covered in dirt splashed up from roads. So well done to Team WOCT which runs six bus routes across the district including three town services in Witney.

Another Community Bus showing the way

I’ve perviously featured Cuckmere Buses excellent timetable book in these round ups and on a ride on one of the community bus company’s routes in East Sussex recently I was also impressed by the availability of information at bus stops …

… as well as seeing the timetable booklet for all routes available on board the bus together with hand sanitisers which were filled with sanitiser too.

Bus stop gone missing

As I passed through Guildford recently I noticed the new double deck cycle racks outside the railway station …

…. but where has the bus stop for RailAir 2 to Heathrow Airport gone?

It was there when the Google camera car passed by.

Keep your distance in Crewe bus station

Crewe bus station will soon be knocked down and rebuilt as part of a major redevelopment of the current site so perhaps that explains why it’s still promoting the need for social distancing.

It was good to see a clear explanation of the work involved across four stages to demolish and rebuild the bus station on display.

With the former Crosville bus garage now demolished ……

…. it looks like Stage 1 is well underway.

What bus stops there?

When I was in Ealing Broadway recently work was still in hand beautifying the public realm outside the newly refurbished and expanded station meaning bus top F (used by routes E2, E7 and E8) was out of action. As a visitor trying to work out where to catch a bus I spotted this Dolly Stop but you’d have to be a mind reader to know what bus routes stopped there – there was absolutely no information at all.

Still, at least there was a temporary stop – too often these days TfL just remove stops without temporary replacements.

Not a good welcome

Gatwick Airport station’s refurbished platforms 5 and 6 are due to open shortly as well as finishing touches to the enlarged ticket hall for passengers changing from plane to train. Except surely there’s got to be a better way to welcome passengers than this long queue. Could it have something to do with the complexity of tickets for travel to London with passengers having to get their heads round so many options when using the ticket vending machines.

This was the scene I encountered on a recent visit around 09:30.

I couldn’t see any ticket office windows – maybe they’re behind the hoardings? There were just a couple of desks, which weren’t quite ready on my visit.

Confusing ticket retailing at Victoria

Work has begun to relieve congestion at London Victoria’s gateline with plans to increase the number of ticket gates from 86 to 125 with a newly expanded concourse area for Sussex trains leaving from platforms 15-19. As part of this the ticket office that used to be sited by platforms 13 and 14 for Gatwick Express trains has been relocated to windows in the main ticket office.

But what are passengers to make of this? Do those windows only sell the over-priced tickets for Gatwick Express or can you buy any ticket? Or do you have to queue up at the adjacent windows for that.

Expanded Ealing Broadway ticket office

With the future of station ticket offices under a cloud as hints keep being dropped about closing them all, or most of them, I was impressed to see the newly expanded ticket office at Ealing Broadway not only has a bank of eight ticket vending machines but also four windows from which tickets can be sold.

Contrasting recruitment campaigns

I couldn’t help but notice the different approaches to making it known new recruits to become bus drivers are welcome by the two main bus companies in Guildford on a recent visit.

I don’t blame the local supervisors at Stagecoach who I’m sure are doing their best in challenging circumstances but why aren’t managers giving them better resources to convey a more professional image?

A biodiversity bus shelter

I know there’s a thing where grass is grown on the roofs of bus shelters in the name of encouraging biodiversity but I was a bit taken aback by the bus shelter at bus stop Z alongside Harrow-on-the-Hill bus station which seemed to be taking the idea to a new level.

And it’s not as though anyone waits at the bus stop as it seems to only be for laying over buses although the flag declares it’s for Harrow Community Transport….

… but judging by the panel in the case below, there hasn’t been much cause to wait since the last trip ran over five years ago in September 2017.

Not very helpful

There’s only one thing more frustrating than a bus shelter timetable case without any timetable information…

… such as this one in Inverness. And that’s a crooked notice.

It’s when I see things like that I just wish I had the requisite tool/s to open up the case and straighten things out ,,,,

Pointing in the right direction

…. as I was able to do in West Ealing where I noticed the arrow pointing to the station’s new entrance was heading the wrong way…

… and it was relatively easy to switch it round to point the right way. Job done.

Keep it clean

I appreciate how difficult it is to keep buses clean during the winter season but it’s a hostage to fortune to use the slogan about being clean in relation to the vehicles emission levels, but can be misconstrued as referring to the actual bodywork’s cleanliness.

Failed connection

And talking of messages on the sides of buses, this bus I spotted in Wembley was on Rail Replacement service last week rather than going connecting to “the new Elizabeth line”.

More luggage

Here’s this month’s photo of passengers with more than the usual amount of luggage.

Most Inappropriate Tweet Of The Year Award – a late entry

And finally, something that was too late for this year’s BusAndTrainUser Awards but undoubtedly would have been a Gold Award winner …. TransPennine Express tweeted out on Tuesday 20th December how excited they were at a new menu for food on board its trains – the Tweet has since been deleted as being a totally inappropriate and naff thing to shout about, not least when your service is so bad you have to advise passengers not to travel …. as the company did the very next day.

Roger French

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