Tuesday 30th July 2024
As explained in a recent blog about Arriva’s exit from High Wycombe (enacted at the weekend), Carousel Buses and Reading Buses began providing their competitive replacement bus routes between Henley and Reading on Sunday.
Carousel has replicated Arriva’s previous routes 800 and 850, each on an hourly frequency between High Wycombe, Henley and Reading. Both follow the same route on a combined half hour frequency as far south as Henley from where the 800 continues to Reading via Lower Shiplake and Shiplake, taking 40 minutes, while the 850 goes via Wargrave,Twyford and Charvil taking slightly longer at 50 minutes.
Reading Buses has explained it “previously received requests from customers asking us to introduce a more regular and reliable service to Henley” adding, back in June, “with the latest unfortunate news from Arriva, we thought this was a good time to test the water.”
Reading’s water test is a half hourly frequency via Lower Shiplake and Shiplake. As befits Reading’s modus operandi it’s branded new route 28 as “aqua” painting the gas powered buses running the service in a rather attractive two tone aqua marine colour and very smart they look too.
Aqua buses leave Henley at 15 and 45 minutes past each hour returning from Reading at 00 and 30. It’s a forty minute journey with three buses needed to run the route.
Carousel’s buses come through from High Wycombe, leaving Henley for Reading at 20 and 50 minutes past each hour – ie five minutes after Reading Buses – with the 800 the 20 minutes past, following the same route via Shiplake.
In the northbound direction Carousel leave Reading at 10 and 50. The former is 10 minutes after Reading Buses (and is the 850 via Wargrave) while the latter leaves 10 minutes before Reading Buses and is the 800 following the same route via Shiplake.
On Sundays both Carousel and Reading Buses operate hourly frquencies between Henley and Reading with an even half hour gap from Reading to Henley (Reading Buses leave Reading at 00 and Carousel at 30) but unfortunately it’s not possible to make it work in the other dfirection as from Henley to Reading, Reading Buses leave at 40 and Carousel at 50. That’s because Reading Buses operates two buses on a slack timetable with 45 minutes layover in Reading.
Overall there’s good spacing between respective departures giving passengers a more frequent service and with the £2 fare there’s no issue over acceptance of return tickets as it’s cheaper to buy the £2 single.
I wandered over to Reading yesterday to see how the new competitive situation was panning out and whether it’s likely to prove sustainable, as well as, later on, taking a look at the new Carousel dominated High Wycombe now Arriva has left the scene.
My preconceived thoughts had been four buses an hour between Reading and Henley may not be sustainable, recalling competition on the corridor between Arriva and Carousel a few years ago didn’t last the course. If the market could sustain four buses an hour you’d think that competitive situation would have continued.
However, having travelled up and down the corridor a few times yesterday I was impressed with the numbers travelling and I’m more optimistic this may work out for everyone – passengers and the bus companies.
Most journeys I travelled on (and the ones I observed passing the other way) had between a dozen and 20 passengers, although a lovely sunny day in the school holidays may have been a factor.
As you’d expect, Reading Buses had pulled out all the stops with free give-aways on the buses…
… a timetable leaflet including route map and it was noticeable all bus stops within the Reading Council area had been updated with details of both operators’ services.
Inside the buses information is attractively presented on the cove panels including a route diagram and town centre maps.
There was even a smart looking supervisor on hand at the bus stop in Hart Street, Henley helping with enquiries and giving explanations about the new arrangements while CEO Robert Williams and two colleagues were keeping an eye on things strategically positioned in the town’s Starbucks – it was good to meet them as I passed through in between journeys.
Carousel had a mixture of single and double deck buses out on the 800/850 which interwork at both ends of the route to make for an even overall timetable needing seven buses as it had with Arriva.
It was good to see these were also equipped with a supply of updated timetable leaflets for the 800/850 complete with route map as has the Reading Buses leaflet.
The route offers some lovely rural views…
… with glimpses of the River Thames.
Some sections – particularly between Henley and Wargrave on the 850 and north of Henley to Marlow on the 800/850 are quite narrow and require skillful driving.
After observing the routes south of Henley I headed on via Marlow to High Wycombe to see how the post Arriva arrangements were settling in.
The town is now noticeably dominated by red buses. I can imagine it must have been a huge challenge to get everything ready for an overnight switchover for the newly configured cross-town services with pre September 2023 route numbers largely restored.
Despite this and a plentiful supply of timetable leaflets and booklets with an updated network map available in the bus station as well as updated departure stand displays…
… I saw passengers obviously confused by it all, and I was a bit surprised no supervisor was to be seen to reassure and help either on the concourse or in the office.
I overheard comments like “I was expecting some initial teething problems but I see it’s the same delays as usual” and “nothing’s changed then!”.
Plenty of high-viz wearing drivers who looked as though they were under the care of a mentor were around …
… and one or two non Carousel liveried buses had inevitably been shipped in including a former First liveried specimen….
… which just to add to the confusion was parked alongside the First Bus X74 route to Slough.
Others had obviously been repainted already, and very smart they looked too.
It was also noticeable how THE WYCOMBE BUS COMPANY brand name is making a comeback. This was last used for operations inherited from the Berks-Bucks Company (formerly part of Alder Valley, formerly Thames Valley) during the previous period of Go-Ahead ownership before it sold the business to Arriva but subsequently, after buying Carousel Buses, the wheel has turned full circle with Arriva’s departure and THE WYCOMBE BUS COMPANY making a comeback.
It looks as though this brand is being used for local High Wycombe based town routes as I also noticed the 800/850 (as well as the 102/103/104/106/107) are branded as “Carousel Country” on the timetable leaflets with “the one” (routes 1, 1A, 1B, 1S) being just Carousel. Then again, the 102 is being branded as Flightline too. As someone observed on social media, it might be a case of brand overload although it looks as though “Chiltern Hundreds” has been ditched.
Buckinghamshire Council has been busy updating bus stop departure displays but confusingly some information boards in High Wycombe bus station were out of date (the one on the left in the photo below), alongside other posters that were up to date (the one on the right).
Once again, as I found on my previous visit, it was good to see the bus station busy yesterday afternoon, and I’m sure things will soon settle down in High Wycombe and the updated network will hopefully become stable for a considerable time ahead.
The competitive situation south of Henley also looks like it might just work. But I wonder if it would be even better if Carousel ran all its journeys as an 850 giving residents of Wargrave, Twyford and Charvil the same half hourly service as those in Caversham, Shiplake and Lower Shiplake would also enjoy if that section of route was left exclusively to the 28. The additional running time on the 850 may cause a problem to make for an integrated end-to-end timetable though, and I appreciate those on the 28 route wanting to travel north of Henley, which I understand includes students during term time, will be inconvenienced by having to change buses in Henley.
On the other hand I hear Carousel has aspirations to double the frequency of both routes 800 and 850.
The Henley-Reading corridor is certainly going to be an interesting one to keep a watch on in the coming months.
Roger French
Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS with Summer Su extras.
Comments on today’s blog are welcome but please keep them relevant to the blog topic, avoid personal insults and add your name (or an identifier). Thank you.
BusAndTrainUser 
A very interesting situation between Henley and Reading. I was in HW on Friday and found the new timetables. I travelled back on an Arriva Citaro, which was fine. I hope Reading Buses is not going to do a spoiler on the longer-distance buses, as they have effectively between Reading and Fleet, where, by running to Riseley, half-way, they have stopped any other operator having a chance of serving the Reading to Fleet axis. Thus Fleet and Hartley Wintney residents can no longer access Reading. Meanwhile good luck to Carousel.
malcolm chase, Fleet
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I can’t decide whether using Aqua as the brand colour for the 28 is a smart move or not. On the plus side it will clearly look a lot like what went before and was familiar, but then again, was Arriva’s offering well thought of? Then there is using the 28 number, clearly a nod to the 328 number used before it was the 800. It’s probably better than using a random number, but maybe not as smart as using actual 328, just to counter the fact that the 800 number is what people now are used to.
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The 28 number fits well with all the other Caversham services which are numbered in the 2x series.
Dave Harrison, Oxford
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Good point – I hadn’t thought of that angle.
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although you’d imagine that they’d want to use a pink colour in that case to identify it as a caversham route – blue colours have always been buses out towards West Reading and Tilehurst so I think using aqua here is quite confusing
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A bit naughty to be running buses in full First livery with not even so much as a Carousel fleet name. Looks to be quite a few of them, and a lot spending their time on routes down to Slough as well.
Reference the comments about delays, Arriva had said that the splitting of the routes did a lot to improve punctuality. Their poor vehicle availability and general apathy contained to let them down, however.
Carousel have made a lot of noise about going back to the old cross-town routes but it remains to be seen if they can actually run them punctually.
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I expect the lack of a Supervisor in the bus station was because every available hand was out driving! Carousel do have a chance now with a proper network, rather than infilling the bits Arriva, and First around Slough either didn’t want or gave up. Most of the vehicles are cascades from the parent Oxford Bus Co, London and now even Birmingham, and have seen better days after yeoman service in both locations. All new vehicles soon become old, but I think some more updated stock would not go amiss once everything has settled.
I am always slightly amused that as Enthusiasts we have to go to great pains to study service changes, particularly if operated by another company and certainly if involving change of route number. But usually, although Roger found differently at least in the bus station, the “locals” somehow manage to discover all this from Day One, hence Reading Buses entirely new service 28 carrying good loads from the start, a situation so often replicated elsewhere.
Terence Uden
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It’s worth noting that some 800 journeys operate via the villages between Caversham and Shiplake, whereas the 28 sticks rigidly to the main A4155. Also the evening joureys on the 28 operate directly via Reading Bridge to save time, although a rather uneven 65-minute frequency results. I guess that the Sunday service interworks with another route and the buses and drivers do a rounder on something else during that 45-minute layover.
All in all, plenty of room for future tweaking. I imagine that if Carousel does cut back the 800, student travel across Henley could be catered for by a dedicated school/college route.
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Dedicated school/college routes is not the way forward. We need to be integrating schools into normal service more and more to improve viability and make public funding for transport go further.
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I can’t agree with this more. Hiving off school traffic to dedicated routes is making some marginal service routes unviable. This can’t continue.
from Delenn
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As in many things, it depends! Certainly for rural routes combining school journeys with other purposes helps to keep a route viable, but in other scenarios like town services making the timetable fit school times and locations can play havoc with clockface timetables and if the patronage supports a bespoke school journey more the better
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So now 4 buses an hour between Henley and Reading. Meanwhile just 3 buses a day between Henley and Maidenhead by Thames Valley, a Reading Bus subsidiary and none on Tuesdays or Thursdays! Not much chance you’ll be leaving the car at home if you live in Maidenhead.
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…but there are two trains per hour between Henley and Maidenhead (by connection at Twyford). The journey generally takes slightly under 30 minutes. Is there much housing (i.e. potential sources of revenue) on the direct road between Henley and Maidenhead? From a quick glance on the Google map, there does not appear to be.
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That’s a council contract and the timetable is mostly dictated by them. There are plans to slightly improve the Henley to Maidenhead service in the current tender round for the council contracts..
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The Aqua Livery looks very smart. I’m sure Carousel will serve High Wycombe better than Arriva ever did.
Peter Brown
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It’s not Go Ahead’s first time in Wycombe, though; it was them who sold out to Arriva in the first place because “The Wycombe Bus Company” wasn’t making enough money for them back in the 90s. Maybe this time will be more successful for them?
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If I remember correctly the nail that did for Wycombe Bus was that they lost their depot (the old Bee Line one) which was part of the old bus station and was compulsory purchased for a new shopping centre though you are probably right that it was as much that it wasn’t making enough money to fund a replacement depot so it was sold to Arriva who had an existing depot (the old London Country one) in the town so could accommodate all the vehicles for no extra cost.
Dwarfer
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What goes around comes around especially if the company is called Carousel! A very early ENCTS jaunt between Walton-on-Thames (my home) and Henley on Thames was on 14/11/2017. Out via Staines, then a First 8 to Slough, X74 to High Wycombe then the Carousel X80 to Henley. Just one drink – Wetherspoon in Henley has much higher prices than in Surbiton! Back home on 800 (Arriva) to HW, 740 to Uxbridge, 607 to Ealing, 65 to a meal in Kingston upon Thames before a late 461 home! Nice day out but the ticket machine on the Arriva 800 did not acknowledge my card yet I still travelled anyway!! Carousel back in Henley! Not really news with Arriva collapsing all over the place.
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So Go-Ahead picks up another town on what football fans would call a free. To add to Bournemouth and Southampton in the past year. And coming soon no doubt North Kent, once Arriva throws in the towel when it nolonger runs Fastrack. And these are not small markets, they are mid-sized depots running frequent town services. Really makes you wonder why their previous operators couldn’t make a go of them.
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The drivers in hi-viz were almost certainly agency staff. There have been adverts for temporary assignments in High Wycombe recently.
They need training over and above the norm as, besides learning routes, they also need to learn the local area, to answer passenger queries e.g. “Does this bus go to xxxxx?”.
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I popped over to High Wycombe for an hour today. Some random thoughts:
Plenty of timetables in the Bus Station . . . two displays at opposite ends of the concourse, PLUS relevent leaflets in racks at each gate . . . nice touch, that! The Library also had some on display.
All journeys seemed to be running, with several buses newly repainted into The Wycombe Bus Company branding. Vehicle allocation seemed to be rather mixed, but that’s to be expected just now.
Passengers were a tad confused with the new stand allocations . . . the X74 and 103 now depart from stands 1 and 2, although the e-displays still showed X74 at Stand 17!! TBF, one of the two Inspectors was wandering up to Stand 17 every 30 minutes to advise intending passengers, although they took some convincing!!
I spoke to a young Inspector, who admitted that it was still a work in progress, but they realised that, and were learning all the time! Certainly keen to get it right ASAP. I hope the buses last out . . . it was 30 degrees by lunchtime, and I well recall how low-floor buses can overheat in extreme temperatures!
The temporary buses in First livery had Carousel logos on the front, and several buses had “bear with us whilst we repaint our buses” (or something similar). There were a few Ensignbus vehicles around as well.
Several drivers were seen on route-learning duties, especially off to Reading . . . that’s a substantial route to learn. I suspect that the existing drivers are working at the beginning of this week, with the newbies at the end of the week.
It’s a huge chunk of work to absorb, but Carousel do seem to be trying hard.
The 1152 departure on First’s X74 failed to run, so the 103 at 1200 got a substantial load of passengers . . . indeed, the 800/850 buses were all well loaded, as were the 1/1A/1B buses . . . the town routes not so much, but they’re the routes that Arriva seemed to neglect.
As for Redline . . . they’re very much the poor relation now . . . some good loadings again, but timekeeping seemed a bit dodgy, and the buses were shabby, with dented / replaced panels. They’ll need to up their game!!
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After visiting the Bus Station, I called at the three Garage sites:
Arriva Cressex: still had around 15-20 buses on site, but the dead and dying row seemed to have gone. I guess we now know why Carousel didn’t use the garage . . . it would’ve needed Arriva to clear out a bit sharpish!!
Carousel Hughendon Road: much as it always has been, although there were several spare buses available, which surprised me slightly.
Carousel Bellfield Road: another dozen or so spare buses parked up . . . unfortunately there are six small industrial units between the two sites, so they can’t be joined up (although there is a walking route between the two). There were workers on site with jackhammers and the like, so it seems that they’re putting (maybe) a bus wash on site?
Carousel certainly seem to be putting the resources into Wycombe . . . I find it difficult to understand how Arriva couldn’t make a go of it, unless it was simply apathy??
I guess we’ll have to wait and see . . .
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I don’t know if it was apathy with Arriva in Aylesbury and Wycombe. Just that the local and regional management are/were so hamstrung with the financial and capex constraints from DB that they couldn’t invest and had mandated financial targets that were “challenging”.
Being uncompetitive with tenders and that lack of investment allowed Carousel initially to gain a foothold as well as then allowing the Red empire to get established. One thing losing a few tenders, or a local Aylesbury route, but once they started competing on the main Wycombe and Oxford routes, the gig was up in Aylesbury, and Wycombe to an extent.
Wycombe isn’t bad bus territory. It has its topographical challenges – hills can be punishing for vehicles (and fuel/maintenance costs) and the relative lack of bus priority is married to heavy congestion. However, with one main operator, I expect Carousel can make a fair fist of it.
I’m not quite certain what some posters expected of the revised fleet and the references to cast offs. With two operators sharing the town, there probably wasn’t enough profit to justify new vehicles (esp post Covid) and Go Ahead has had to source quite the vehicle uplift. A dozen five year old e200s seems a reasonable purchase and whilst newer deckers would be welcome, there’s only so much that they can do. I’d note that when Yellow Buses failed, there was a similar mobilisation of out of area vehicles and elderly cascades.
BW2
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| Arriva … the local and regional management are/were so
| hamstrung with the financial and capex constraints from DB
| that they couldn’t invest and had mandated financial targets
| that were “challenging”.
A lot of commentators, especially the more ‘enthusiast’ element don’t or won’t understand this.
In the same way that DfT have been a dead hand on the UK passenger railway, DB have been a dead hand on all its subsidiaries including Arriva UK Bus. That was partly because DB has been (and is) subject to significant constraints from the German government, but also because DB is a hyper-centralised organisation that really doesn’t like giving up control of anything to local managers. The idea of Corporate level being a guiding mind and leaving lower levels to produce results is absolutely anathema to DB.
I suspect that we will continue to see rationalisation under Arriva’s new owners, who will after all have set financial targets of their own for Arriva to reach, but with less restrictive attitudes as to how targets are met. If investing £100 will earn £110, then I suspect “new Arriva” will be allowed to do it, which was never the case under DB ownership.
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My comment wasn’t a criticism of the situation, and as you rightly say, the territory and competition most certainly didn’t allow for new vehicles. I actually get quite irritated when people clamour for “new vehicles”, somehow thinking it will bring the hordes back to bus travel. Which is why I said “new vehicles don’t stay new for long”.
Carousel have done quite a good job with the network and having to use the tools they have….but my wish is that they may get slightly better cast-offs (double-deck E400MMC from Oxford are arriving for the 102 for example), when the network has settled.
Terence Uden
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“Wycombe isn’t bad bus territory. It has its topographical challenges – hills can be punishing for vehicles (and fuel/maintenance costs)”
I’ve only been to Wycombe once years ago, my Austin Metro with 4 in really struggled on the hills 😀
The topography is ideal for electric buses, able to benefit from regenerative braking on the descents, perhaps supplemented by opportunity charges at outer termini or the bus station. I am thinking about Schaffhausen in Switzerland which also has challenging topography and has flash charging points at the central railway where all services wait for train connections.
Peter Brown
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Apparently there are 60 Agency drivers at High Wycombe.
Historically the 800 was Thames Valley Reading depot Service 8 , approx every 30 mins and via Binfield Heath and 850 was High Wycombe depot 28, then hourly between Marlow and Reading, and not via Twyford as that was served by Service 1/1A
Never really understood where 800/850 came from
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| Never really understood where 800/850 came from
Somebody’s bright idea, I expect.
New manager making their mark by changing things ‘because they can’ instead of leaving well alone is a pattern with a long history in all business sectors, after all!
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I think it was a pre-X routes numbering system:
100 Aylesbury to Milton Keynes.
300 Aylesbury to High Wycombe.
500 Aylesbury to Hemel Hempstead (and on to Watford), {which sort of fitted in with the LCBS system}.
800 High Wycombe to Reading, with 850 as the alternate route.
Perhaps someone else could fill in the blanks?
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I’d go for that as a valid suggestion, but to me it’s still a case of “New manager making their mark by changing things ‘because they can’ instead of leaving well alone”.
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Carousel have now announced they are dropping the 800, instead running everything as an 850. That will leave the 800’s southern leg to Reading Buses, but longer journey times for any through passengers (if many travel from say Marlow to Reading). https://www.carouselbuses.co.uk/service-changes-1st-september-2024
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In October 1997 the services were numbered 328/9, and operation jointly between Reading Buses and Wycombe Bus, then owned by Go Ahead. Each operator provided three buses and it was e30 throughout.
Evenings and Sundays was a tendered 325 which extended to Aylesbury in the evenings and Milton Keynes on Sundays. It was every 2 hours with one bus from Reading, one Wycombe and one Aylesbury Bus then owned by Arriva I think, or possibly still Luton and District. Reading buses reached Milton Keynes twice.
So at some stage Reading must have relinquished their part of the operation.
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Whoopee, all those hard working normal people who try and make do in Wycombe without a car or indeed have no choice, will be thinking as their threadbare but precious local services face yet more upheaval. I apologise for the sarcasm but the chaos of bus deregulation can’t end soon enough.
MikeC.
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