In my Inbox

Thursday 28th May 2026

Time for another quick delve into my in-box and pull out a few of the many emails readers kindly send me with news, updates and comments.

It’s been all Go in Cumberland

First up is from Matthew Sutton, Strategic Lead, Bus Operations with Cumberland Council who contacted me with some interesting background to the ‘Cumberland Go’ network improvements I featured in a blog a couple of weeks ago.

Matthew explained….

“… firstly, as you know Cumbria hadn’t supported services since the early 2010’s. Most of the existing Public Transport staff provision transferred to Westmorland and Furness Council following Local Government Reorganisation in April 2023 which left us with antiquated systems and processes with no extra staff to get BSIP services started. We have been steadily building this up, but it has meant we have been on the backfoot with BSIP money to spend quickly.

“A large survey was undertaken regarding bus provision over Nov/Dec 2024  and was extended into Jan 2025 and we had nearly 2,900 responses. WSP ranked and analysed them, leaving us with a list of suggestions. Many we combined, putting them together and routes went out to tender. Stagecoach & Reays were both helpful at getting some services on the ground at short notice, but buses and drivers were needed overall into both companies, hence the staggered start dates when services could be resourced. Reays also had an order in for 3 small low floor buses with Ilesbus UK that strung them along since December. These buses still haven’t arrived, and they have recently had two further low floors off the road requiring engines. Hence, we have had find a temporary solution with Reays around the issue as you found recently. Absolutely not ideal but keeps the service operating.

“The HW1 numbers have increased in the last month and we are confident for a solid summer. Embarrassingly for me, a promotional video came out two weeks ago promoting the HW1 Cumberland Go #HW1 bus route. Two more have been filmed – Maryport services and also for the X7. The final video is being filmed this week regards the 600 and some other NHS related services. These are being edited and will be out in the next few weeks. The Cumberland Go bus seen in the film are for the buses for the Rural Mobility Fund DRT (launching later this year).

“Numbers are increasing steadily on all the services, although some still have a high subsidy per passenger trip. The 600 has been the standout, reaching 16k passenger trips in April (although 1/4 of this number was initially a Stagecoach commercial service between Carlisle & Cockermouth – we doubled the frequency and extended to Whitehaven). We are at about 34k passenger trips for April for all the new services and there is an upward trend to these as the first-year progresses. The other standout is the 22/22A service. It had been operating a timetable within schools at about 300 pax trips per month for the year before (previous BSIP). We changed the timetable to start earlier & finish later, visits to the hospital & Whitehaven and alternates the circuit of Cleator Moor & Egremont and is now 3,600 trips per month.

“We are struggling with roadside timetable publicity as the systems are old and complicated to maintain and use to get accurate timetables out. Just adding one NaPtan is quite the process and we are working on procuring software solutions to make sure we are fully accurate with all services in Cumberland. Having smaller operators not on EBSR also doesn’t help as manual excel timetables must be created to get them digitised. Our Contractor for timetables has also been down, leaving us struggling to cobble together a working system. Many digital bus stops needed switching on and creating for the new routes to be reinstated since they haven’t been used for years. Lots of the physical bus stops/flags etc have disappeared as well requiring replacements.

“We are also working at replacing 160 bus shelters and introducing RTPI, initially in high traffic areas and then cascading along the largest bus routes in Cumberland.

“We hope to start operating the Rural Mobility Fund DRT project in September – that has also been quite a slog to get going. I have modified our proposed DRT offering, creating regular timetables that the DRT element can divert off the main route by a maximum of 7 minutes one way (so the bus, with a 1 min boarding time, should only be a maximum of 15 minutes late to its next stops (if a DRT request is booked by 1600hrs the day before). I hope the timetabled routes will be of great benefit to the communities they serve where there has been no bus provision for many years.

“Anyway, I hope this helps fill in any gaps to your article.”

Many thanks to Matthew for reaching out and providing all this background and I look forward to a return visit to Cumberland later in the year to try out the interesting sounding DRT operation.

Is the HERT ‘Trackless Tram’ coming to Herts?

Regular correspondent John kindly sent me a report and photos from his visit to one of Hertfordshire County Council’s recent roadshows to promote its HERT (Hertfordshire Essex Rapid Transit) branded “trackless tram” which will criss-cross the County improving east-west links from Hemel Hempstead and Croxley/Watford with St Albans, Hatfield, Hertford and Harlow (in neighbouring Essex).

An image of the proposed route together with a sample Irizar ie-tram went on tour across the area. Cabinet Member for Transport, Councillor Paul Zukowskyj, says the scheme “could include separated busways, bus lanes, or traffic lights programmed to prioritise public transport” and be delivered in stages with an overall cost “in excess of £2 billion” adding “this vision isn’t something that’s going to be on the ground tomorrow. I would anticipate the full entirety of that might not be on the ground until 2040.”

Centre stage of the events was the Irizar vehicle which Cllr Zukowskyj describes “as feeling like a mix of bus, train and tram” but that the specific vehicles for HERT won’t be chosen until a later stage in the project.

Calling a bus a “trackless tram” is certainly a novel way of overcoming perceptions some people may have about a bus, but personally, for a journey across from Hemel Hempstead to Harlow, give me a double deck bus any day.

SWR – one year of Nationalisation

The DfT sent out a press release on Monday celebrating one year of public ownership of South Western Railways. It was almost all about the fact there’s 45 Class 701 Arterio trains in service. You know the ones – the fleet of 90 trains originally due into service back in 2019 so quite why we’re celebrating getting just half the fleet up and running when many have been languishing in sidings at great expense for years is beyond me. It’s a national embarrassment more than a celebration.

All the more so as this month’s inbox has featured blog readers encouraging me to take a few rides on the South Western network and sample the awful service for myself. Here’s one from Don…

“I don’t know if you’ve been following what has been going on with SW Trains but they’ve just had what must be their worst ever week. This  must be set in the context of a big feature in MR which boasts of improvement and how it will be maintained. My daughter travels daily to London by SW rail and my son twice a week to Winchester to College. It’s not just the last week but over many weeks. When things go wrong whatever the cause they simply cannot recover. Last week was an absolute disgrace. The causes may not have not have always down to them but what a total shambles.”

Then a couple of days later came a follow up…

“Tuesday was also bad due to power supply problems. Also not down to SW Trains but once again how they dealt with it. They simply cannot cope and recover from problems whereas Southern down here can and do even can Worse Late Western. My son was an hour late back from Winchester. But it’s on going. Hardly a day without issues. Daughter has had 17 delay repay claims this year. It is disrupting home and work life. This all suggests fundamental underlying problems with timetable and crew management.” 

Then, one more the next day….

“It continues. Daughter caught  a later train today, the 0738 Southampton Parkway. It was 38 late making extra stops. And so it goes on and on…….. it’s easier for her to get to her office in Chennai than London.”

I haven’t heard again from Don, but I have no reason to believe everything’s suddenly sorted.

MOORSBUZZ AT 45

Concluding this mini round up of inbox topics is some good news from the hard working people who oversee the wonderful Moorbus network. They kindly sent me their latest newsletter which reminds everyone the network organised entirely by volunteers is marking its 45th Anniversary this summer.

Now that is something to celebrate.

Roger French

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