Seen Around

Saturday 28th September 2024

Another month is reaching its last knockings so it’s time for another round up of miscellany that’s caught my eye over the last few weeks. And first this month is First and it’s brand new brand….

First launches new brand and vision

It’s been four years since Janette Bell arrived as Managing Director at First Bus so high time for a company rebrand and, of course, a new vision to go with it. Where would we be without a company vision? Thanks to an online video (click link) to explain to employees what it’s all about we can all join in the excitement. Norwich based bus driver and employee director at First East of England, Rachel Hurst, was picked to give Janette an in depth interview in the eight minute 20 second corporate love-in, Rachel manages four penetrating questions for Janette: “can you tell me a little about the changes?”, “the vision – how does it affect myself and my other colleagues?”. “how much is the rebrand costing the company?” and “uniforms – will we get a say in what we’re getting?”.

You can enjoy Janette’s explanations of how First Bus will be pursuing its newly established vision of providing reliable, safe, clean, friendly and ‘better everyday’ buses for us passengers as part of this rebrand. Revolutionary eh?

Can’t wait.

Euro Bus Expo is almost “hear”

I know I make some crass typos far too often on this blog so “pot and kettle” come to mind when I point out the howler on the above social media post for the upcoming EuroBus 2024 at the NEC in November. Here indeed.

Golders Green’s lack of information

When I took a ride on route 210 earlier this month I was taken aback at the complete absence of any helpful information to let passengers know where to catch a bus from the many bus stops immediately outside the Underground station in the bus parking area as well as surrounding streets.

Most bus stops, including the Underground station itself had zilch information. Still, at least the blank noticeboards are nicely illuminated at night.

One bus stop has received an updated ‘where to catch your bus’ poster but you have to hunt around to find it.

On the other hand it was great to see a full block of toilets available in the bus station….

… including opening times into the evening.

Except the doors are locked shut for the public and access is only for staff who know the combination code to unlock the door.

And in other toilet news I was very pleased to travel on a Thameslink Class 700 the other day to find, for the first time since the trains were introduced in 2015, a cubicle completely free from the awful graffiti which blights every other toilet on these trains. I’m surprised that nine years on, the offenders haven’t been caught what with the constant imploring that “if you see something suspicious or doesn’t look right, speak to staff or text the ….” you know the rest.

Early night for Shrewsbury

Passing through Shrewsbury bus station one early evening a few weeks ago it was noticeable how it was completely devoid of passengers and buses. The town seemed to be having an early night. Which went first – passengers deserting the buses or buses deserting the few passengers travelling? That’s why if you want good evening bus services, you need a vibrant evening and night time economy.

Safeway lives on in Bangor

It’s almost 20 years since Safeway sold most of its supermarkets to Morrisons but the bus stop outside the store in Bangor, just up from the railway station, hasn’t quite caught up with the name change. Nor with bus route developments over the past couple of decades. As the list in the timetable case below the flag on the pole confirms, only three of the 13 route numbers on display (42, 62 and 63) now exist with seven new numbers missing (4A, 5C, G8, S2, S3, T2, X43). Come on Gwynedd Council; keep up. It’s only 20 years.

Meanwhile the bus stop on the other side of the road, just up from the railway station, was renovated a couple of years ago and now sports a new bus stop flag without any route numbers. Which is probably just as well if there are no resources to keep them up to date.

Timetables on display

Over in Bangor railway station it was good to see a leaflet rack (with its own protective barrier) displaying a whole range of promotional leaflets and timetables for the heritage and narrow gauge railways in Wales….

… except every one was for last year…

… and therefore useless. Perhaps that’s why the display was ‘roped off’.

Helpful advice from Arriva

Arriva buses are renowned for their love of displaying notices inside on cove panels and behind the driver. Something I spotted recently was a range of warnings and the like to a new size meaning you can have different combinations of notices to keep people like me amused but I suspect 99.9% of passengers are completely oblivious to them.

Meanwhile in Derby, Arriva are using the rears of its buses as part of a big promotional campaign by Hilton Garage to encourage everyone to buy a car.

Presumably that’s because of all the “incidents” and suspicious bags passengers encountered when travelling inside the buses.

Two different X38 logos

The hotly contested route X38 between Derby and Burton upon Trent has a small number of bus stops either side of the non-stop section on the A38 and I spotted this bus stop plate sporting the two different logos being used by Arriva and trentbarton. If you’re into bus route logo spotting – that one gets bonus points.

No more information at Derby

I’ve commented before about the crazy waste of money local authorities expended on these totem type information pods that were all the rage in the last decade but never worked properly. I see the one in the bus shelter outside Derby railway station has now been turned off and is gradually losing its letters too. It’s not a good look.

Standard Premium or First Class

Following the snippet about LNER taking away all the antimacassars on its first class coaches on Azuma trains in last month’s round up, on a recent journey with Avanti West Coast I noticed the same problem with the covers denoting whether the coach has been redesignated from First to Standard Premium also have a tendency to fall off. And even more confusing, I didn’t know that on a Friday there’s no Standard Premium available on the 09:30, 10:30, 11:30, 12:30, 16:30 and 17:30 departures from Euston to Glasgow. All three coaches (H, J and K) are exclusively for first class on those journeys. On other departures on Fridays and all day on other weekdays coach H is Standard Premium while on Saturdays and Sundays coaches H and J are Standard Premium and only K is First. You have to have your wits about you when travelling with Avanti – and antimacassars that don’t fall off.

Keep your distance in Lichfield

As you can see (above) residents of Lichfield are still being encouraged to keep two metres apart when they’re out and about, especially in the bus station as you can also see (below) school children are having to move on to the bus manoeuvring area to achieve that. (They were actually having a game of football while waiting for the bus!)

Meanwhile in Tamworth it was nostalgic to see an old Midland Red bus garage still in active use by Arriva…

… but like many of the company’s garages it seems to have an aversion to carrying spare stocks of the company logo/name to affix to buses…

… but more positively a shout out to those responsible for producing a clear colourful route map for the Arriva Derby network which was actually being handed out in hard copy format in the bus station when I passed through following changes introduced at the beginning of the month. More of this please.

TfL likes to baffle

And, can we have less of this nonsense produced by TfL to explain its changes earlier this month to routes 549, W12, W13 and W14 in the Wanstead and Woodford areas. It’s been so long since TfL produced a bus map its staff are obviously completely inexperienced at compiling cartography that is helpful. It’s never a good idea to mix up maps of routes that have been withdrawn with new routes that have been introduced. Much better to do a before and after map. Presumably the same cartographers who are steadily ruining the Underground map are responsible for the above mess.

Another tip is to always try and avoid lots of coloured lines appearing together where routes converge in city centres as the result can send you cross-eyed trying to follow a particular colour coded route. For example, Brighton & Hove has just produced a new look network map with this rather challenging-on-the eye city centre section.

Stagecoach leads the way in the Lake District

Stagecoach never fails to impress with excellent information provision for its hugely successful operations in the Lake District with its excellent timetable booklets always available at key locations including Penrith railway Station (Above and below)…

… and Booths supermarket in Windermere…

… as well as in Windermere railway station.

They’re everywhere, and no wonder the buses are so well used. Passengers have the confidence to use them with a timetable book that has an end date, details of tickets and maps. No fumbling about trying to gather together a collection of individual route leaflets or going online and using up a mobile device’s battery power and relying on intermittent phone signals.

One of my favourite Lake District routes aside from the award winning 555 (Lancaster-Kendal-Keswick) is the 508 from Windermere to Penrith which I was pleased to take another journey on while in the area last weekend…

… and once again enjoyed the spectacular scenery as you climb up towards Kirkstone Pass..,

… with its amazing vista which a smartphone camera can never do justice to.

Stuart’s new station guide

As another new station – Ashley Down – opens near Bristol today, well done to Stuart who circulated the above very helpful map on social media last week setting out the anticipated approximate dates for 20 more new stations in the course of being built and due to open over the next couple of years. You can also see a copy on his excellent website. As you can see, i’s going to be a busy few years for new stations.

The North(ern) South(ern) Divide

A quick update on my Delay Repay claim experiences and as mentioned last month, Northern Rail found the vouchers they needed to send and these duly arrived in the post a few days after that blog was published. This month my problem is with Southern. Normally, I find GTR very good at quickly dealing with claims but my return home from Bangor on 3rd September found the Brighton Main Line once again in disarray due to a track circuit or signal failure near Gatwick Airport (can’t remember which) resulting in a half hour’s delay. Southern seem unable to expedite the claim in their usual prompt fashion – just marking it “referred” on my online claim history. I emailed them on Wednesday and advised I’ll be including a black mark against them in today’s blog to try and hurry their response along. So far nothing. More news next time.

Happy 30th Anniversary Compass

And finally for this month, a big shout out and congratulations to Chris Chatfield, Michael Bishop and all the team at Compass Travel.

The Worthing based company, which operates all over Sussex as well as into Surrey and Kent, has just celebrated its 30th anniversary marking it with a special livery on one of its latest Enviro200 MMC buses.

I’m also delighted to see two of the four new buses which have just joined the fleet are used and branded on my local bus route through Sussex. And very nice they look too.

With very comfortable seats too. Here’s to the next 30 years Chris!

More miscellany next month.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS. (The next route 100 blog, due for posting today, is running late and will now appear in due course. This is due to blog uploading congestion.)

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