Seen Around

Thursday 1st May 2025

Before May gets into its stride here’s a look back at some of the things I spotted during April’s travels, but didn’t get round to blogging about.

DRT developments

First up a couple of DRT updates. Go-Coach Hire have three Sigma electric buses in the fleet on evaluation. A Sigma 10 (being used on routes 3 and 429) and two Sigma 7s on route GC1. It was one of the latter that caught my eye as I passed through Ebbsfleet last week. There it was sitting outside Ebbsfleet (International) railway station and I realised it was working the off-peak demand responsive element of route GC1 (Ebbsfleet/Castle Hill/Swanscombe to Bluewater/Derwent Valley Hospital and Greenhithe).

It’s a smart looking bus with a comfortable interior and very pleasant (and quiet) to ride in.

Simataa kindly let me have a ride even though I couldn’t get the Go2 app to work and book one. Along with Tom, who he was mentoring, they were off to pick up a passenger making a local journey in the Swanscombe area then heading over to nearby Castle Hill to take another passenger to Darent Valley Hospital. It made for an interesting ride and see the effectiveness of this off-peak DRT element of the route which is being funded as a gross cost contract for at least two years by the property developer, Henley Camland.

During those journeys I managed to delete the non-working app from my phone and download it again and thankfully it began working so booked a ride from Darent Valley Hospital to Bluewater which offered me the very bus I was on (that was the idea!) which was good, bearing in mind Fastrack B also links these two locations. Arriving at Bluewater I saw the second bus allocated to the GC1 parked up, which the Sigma then joined, also waiting for any more custom. But at least my bus had seen two passengers travel in 35 minutes, so not bad for DRT.

Go-Coach’s Austin Blackburn tells me the Sigma is charged up using a public charging facility at Castle Hill by arrangement with Henley Camland making for a unique situation of a bus using a public facility to charge. He also tells me Go-Coach are receiving three Rightech RB6 electric buses later this month, or maybe delayed until June, also for use on route GC1. These are being funded by Highways England as part of the Lower Thames Crossing sustainable travel options which, together with property developers is seeing a lot of money allocated to this part of Kent. They’ll be interesting vehicles to take a look at when they arrive.

Meanwhile in other DRT news, I see another scheme bit the dust in April when the last route under the Arriva Click banner ceased in Speke. Readers may recall in 2019 Merseytravel initiated this DRT replacement for its funded fixed bus route 211 which had linked the residential areas of Speke with Morrisons and other retailers located in the centre of the estate.

I blogged at the time how crazy this was, and my subsequent blogged travel experiences bore this assessment out.

Now, thankfully, after six years of ridiculousness, at last, good sense has prevailed and we’re back to a fixed timetable route 211, albeit now operating hourly instead of every 40 minutes, as previously.

I had to smile reading Arriva’s website hailing the “new 211 bus service” not least it claiming the new fixed route “will provide better connectivity for customers”. That’s not what they said six years ago when Click was all the rage!

Fastrack gets a split

While I was in Ebbsfleet I took a look at the changes recently made to Fastrack route B. This has transferred the double run/loop from Bluewater to serve Ingress Park, west of Greenhithe (which buses on the B used to serve on their way to Ebbsfleet) over to a new separate shuttle route, lettered F.

The continued ‘long term temporary closure’ of Galley Hill Road has meant the inconvenient double running on route B, as experienced when I wrote and blogged about the Go-Ahead take over of Fastrack last November, is no longer tenable. The new arrangements save 12 minutes over that previous convoluted route pattern and are obviously much welcomed by everyone, aside from ingress Park residents. It was good to see an updated route diagram on display inside the buses too, although I didn’t see any explanations of the changes in Bluewater or at Gravesend, but they did commence three weeks ago, so maybe everyone is now familiar with them.

It was also interesting to see Go-Ahead’s fleet of Mercedes Citaros, once used on TfL route 108 through the Blackwell Tunnel, are now transferred to Fastrack while the arrival of the Irizar ieTram buses is still awaited. These are now said to be ready for routes B and E in “late Spring” and for routes A and AZ in “early Summer upon the completion of charging infrastructure in Dartford”.

Charging equipment is ready and waiting at Gravesend for route B, and from August, route A will be extended there too, through a new section of busway and serve Castle Hill, thereby removing the need for route C. Finally, I see route A’s frequency was reduced to every 15 minutes from the changes earlier last month indicating passenger numbers must be below expectations. Hopefully the August changes will give the route a boost with a direct service between Castle Hill and Bluewater.

TfL route 434 finally gets rerouted

The long postponed diversion of TfL’s route 434 between Purley and Whyteleafe finally took effect from the end of March with buses using Higher Drive as shown on Mike Harris’s latest edition of his Greater London Bus Map below. Back in time, buses went via Northwood Avenue and Valley Road, but this was ceded to new route 439 in the March 2024 Croydon and Sutton changes with buses on the 434 temporarily using Godstone Road with the 407 until they could access the new route.

I popped over to Caterham on the first Thursday of the new arrangements to see if anyone was using the new route – which continues to run half hourly.

We followed a recently departed route 407 so not surprisingly the road through Whyteleafe was clear although one passenger did join us.

And then I was impressed to see at the bus stop by Kenley station, just before we turned left to follow the new routing the driver got out of the cab to let that passenger and myself know of the new route and suggested if we wanted Purley it would be quicker to alight there and wait for the next 407, which the lady did, but I stayed on board.

And I was then impressed to see a passenger waiting for us on the new hail and ride section of route – which means there are no bus stops to promote this new public transport offer for residents of the many bungalows up the top of the steep hill where this residential area has languished without buses for so long.

Not surprisingly most had cars in the drives but hopefully the 434 will gain more custom as people get used to their new bus route.

Press here

I had another try out of one of those giant electronic information boards (as featured last month at Kings Cross), but this time at London Bridge.

I’m sceptical whether passengers ever use these monstrosities in numbers to justify their purchase. Totem info points like this don’t have a very long shelf life as many local authorities will testify. These ones are far too big meaning you have to back away from the screen to read what it’s saying, and then walk forward to press the icon you want.

I hit the Live departures icon (see above) and got the following screen…

… so then hit the ‘TfL bus journey planner & Tube maps’…

… only to receive the following Warning!

And pressing the ‘Close’ icon didn’t close it, despite trying for ages and pressing very hard.

So I walked away leaving the screen in that state and passengers continuing to ignore it.

A complete waste of money. I wonder if it’s the same person who decided to install these in London’s rail termini who was also responsible for the Euston mega advert debacle?

Meet here

Meanwhile nearby to that totem sign in London Bridge is an interesting new take on the standard rail industry Meeting Point artwork.

There’s a plate attached to it giving an explanation.

Fun seating at Farringdon but not Braintree

Over at Farringdon station (and maybe others on the Elizabeth line) I noticed the seats have gained colourful artwork behind them, presumably to stop the walls from getting dirty from people leaning back on to them.

Meanwhile, over in Braintree bus interchange…

…it’s not the backs of the well signed stands that are at risk, but this rather uncomfortable looking seat in one of them caught my eye. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait too long for my bus to Stansted which departed from there.

New timetable booklets

Now for a couple of shout-outs to the many bus companies that understand good marketing and the need to encourage passengers to make journeys on their services. First up is Lynx in West Norfolk where the highly experienced Julian Patterson continues to succeed where First and Stagecoach struggled to provide an attractive network.

Thanks to Ron (as well as Paul) who sent me the latest timetable with its enticing information about places to visit and easy to read maps, it really is a great booklet – and available from the Information Office in Kings Lynn and on board buses, and, I’m sure, many other outlets too.

Secondly, well done to Arriva for its excellent booklet promoting the bus networks across North Wales.

I saw these on display in a rack at Llandudno Junction railway station during my visit to North Wales last month and was very impressed to see such an excellent booklet…

…the likes of which I thought Arriva had given up on.

Like the Lynx booklet, this one highlights the many popular destinations in the region accessible by bus and has some very helpful maps.

Sadly it doesn’t have any timetables, but I’m so pleased to see a promotional printed booklet from Arriva, I won’t add any criticism for that omission on this occasion.

Well done Arriva in North Wales. Other regions please follow suit.

Travel choices from Imperial Wharf

Imperial Wharf station has a straightforward service provided by London Overground and Southern. Passing through the other day I was impressed to see the old poster style alphabetical listing of departures listed by each station served on display – all the more so as the departure times were identical for many of the stations served. This seems to be a common feature at London Overground stations. Nice to see TfL’s attention to detail here.

Meanwhile blog reader John sent me this rather curious result from National Rail’s journey planner for a trip from Watford Junction to Euston during that latter station’s Easter shutdown.

A two hour, 17 minute wander on the London Overground and Victoria Line, but at least it kept you on the tracks.

Delay Repay finally sorted

And finally for this month, a follow up to last time’s description of my struggle to get a Delay Repay out of Avanti West Coast for a couple of journeys over the weekend of 22/23 March. In short, after two more email exchanges and two telephone calls the matter was sorted and the company agreed to pay the refund I was entitled to, although at the time of writing I’ve still not actually received it.

This was after Adam in Customer Relations asked me to send proof of purchase of the tickets – including for the Standard Premium upgrade (ie credit card receipts in addition to the rail tickets) which I protested about, saying I don’t keep such things. I’m sure it was just another rouse to put me off.

What I did find out from my interactions is if you call Avanti’s Customer Resolutions department they talk to you on the phone but despite their name, they are unable to ‘resolve’ anything as they’re not decision makers. They pass your details on to the Customer Relations department. Customer Relations will review your case and send you an email with their response but they won’t talk to you on the phone; only Customer Resolutions will do that.

And the people in the Delay Repay department will neither talk to you or write to you – that can only be done through Customer Resolutions or Customer Relations, respectively. And just to confuse you, when you receive an email from Cutsomer Relations it will say it’s from Customer resolutions, but it isn’t.

More miscellany at the end of this month.

Roger French

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