Wednesday 21st August 2019
I sampled zeelo’s new commuter coach service between Newport and Bristol back in the Spring and wrote about the company and my travel experience on 24th May. Now the enterprising entrepreneurs based at zeelo’s London Shoreditch HQ have started another new venture, also aimed at commuters, this time connecting part of Crawley with Gatwick Airport.
You might be thinking “isn’t Crawley already well linked to Gatwick Airport by the award winning Metrobus company, part of the Go-Ahead Group” and you’d be bang on the runway with that thought. Frequent buses operating round the clock on a comprehensive network of routes aided by smart bus priority measures including Fastway branded segregated guided bus lanes whizzing buses straight across roundabouts and gliding passed traffic queues. It’s impressive.
Aspiring bus companies have given the Crawley bus market a competitive try over the years, but none have survived; the well regarded Metrobus has proved unassailable against all upstart new entrants.
So it was a bit of a surprise to read zeelo fancied their chances in this already well served market. I’m guessing they reckon they’ll win over bus wary employees at Gatwick Airport by offering their unique “personalised bus service” business model necessitating pre-booking using smart technology on a less frequent but targetted service with cheaper fares.
According to the news release heralding this initiative, zeelo reckon their “new shared bus service targets areas where Gatwick Airport employees are currently poorly served by public transport”. Indeed, they’ve been canny in finding four bus stops (from which Metrobus don’t run a direct bus to Gatwick Airport) along a route on the Horsham Road originating at Breezehurst Roundabout between the well served Bewbush and Broadfield residential areas continuing via Southgate towards Crawley town centre (but avoiding stopping there) and instead taking in three more bus stops in London Road from where the bus runs non-stop to Gatwick’s South and North Terminal buildings.
End to end journey time is scheduled for 27 minutes which compares to Metrobus route 10 taking 29 minutes for early morning journeys from Broadfield Barton to Gatwick’s North Terminal, as well as serving Crawley bus station, for the town centre, along the way.
It’s also noteworthy that Metrobus route 10 runs 24/7 (half hourly between midnight and 03:30) increasing to an impressive every 6-7 minutes between around 06:30 and 18:30. The new zeelo commuter service offers just eight journeys running half hourly between 05:10 and 08:40 with a similar service pattern in the afternoon between 15:10 and 18:40 only on Mondays to Fridays. Interestingly buses run in service “against the commuter flow” in both the morning and evening peaks, presumably because of shift workers, making for quite a tight schedule with three minutes stand time at the end of each journey for the two buses needed to run the service.
Whereas on Metrobus you just turn up and board their frequent service at any bus stop, zeelo’s “personalised service” means you pre-book your journey either online or via their App and be committed to that particular departure time.
Zeelo offer various bulk buying options for this new service as they do with Newport/Bristol and their other bespoke commuter services for specific employers around the country (eg Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin in Warwickshire and Ocado in Hertfordshire ). For the Crawley to Gatwick market their best offer is 100 rides for £87.99 through deals covering 50, 30 and 10 rides down to a return ticket for £3.50 and a single trip for £2.50.
Metrobus also charge £2.50 for a single Bewbush/Broadfield to Gatwick ride reduced to £2.40 if bought on their App. A week’s travel is £19.20 on the Metrobus App which for a five-day-ten-journeys-a-week commuter works out at £1.92 per journey compared to zeelo’s £1.39 for the ten ride package; but you have “weekend” travel on Metrobus free as a bonus when not commuting. Zeelo’s 50 ride package at £52.99 is the same price as the Metrobus 25 journey package on their smartcard (£53) therefore offering a fifty per cent discount.
Zeelo are offering free travel for the first two weeks of operation (normal prices begin next Tuesday) so I downloaded my bundle of twenty free trips and headed to Crawley this afternoon to road test this latest market entrant to the world of ‘smarter travel’.
I decided to book myself on the first journey of the afternoon, at 15:10 from the first stop on the Gatwick bound route at the roundabout near Bewbush/Broadfield. I tried logging on to zeelo’s website last night to get this all sorted but for some odd reason my email address had got corrupted by one letter in the zeelo database and it couldn’t log me in nor send me a ‘forgotten your password’ link. I tried re-registering with a different email address but got stumped by having to add my mobile number which it understandably told me had “already been registered with another account”. So I was stuck; locked out.
I sent an email through to the “contact us” helpline explaining my dilemma, and within a couple of minutes, if that, Simon replied and he soon resolved the problem by correcting the corrupted email address and we were back in business. Highly impressive to have access to personal service sorting out a techy problem at about 20:30 in the evening, so full marks to the zeelo team and Simon in particular for that great service.
Another issue was finding the Gatwick service on the zeelo website. It doesn’t appear on the home page of their zeelo.co site nor through any links I could find; instead you need to visit the alternative travel.zeelo.co website which has news releases about the company, and from where you can click on news of the Gatwick service launch and land at the booking page.
When you book your journey on line, if it’s a return journey you’re after, for each journey inbound to Gatwick, an option is listed of a return on each of the individual journeys back from the Airport on that day, including the very next departure, three minutes after you’ve arrived. This seems a bit unnecessary and it might be better to just list all the journeys once with passengers ticking the journey on which they wish to travel.
I decided to return back from Gatwick Airport’s North Terminal at 16:10 which would be the second departure after my 15:37 arrival.
The vehicles and drivers are provided by Ashford (Middlesex) based Passenger Plus+. The two mini-coaches used are based closer to Gatwick Airport though, at Pfizer’s UK headquarters in Tadworth – I’m guessing Passenger Plus+ do some contract work for Pfizer, so have a parking facility there.
The two vehicles branded for zeelo are a ’16’ plate Mercedes 19 seater and a brand new very smart ’19’ plate Indcar (a Spanish manufacturer) 29 seater. Neither mini-coaches are accessible for wheelchairs and I noticed there’s not much room for luggage – the wheelie type compact suitcases beloved of flight crews. Not a problem in the early stages of the operation when passenger loadings are likely to be small, but it could be an issue if the buses get busy, especially the 19 seater.
I arrived at the Breezehurst Roundabout bus stop on the Horsham Road in good time for my 15:10 departure this afternoon and was pleasantly surprised to be joined soon after by another passenger. She was a student working as an intern at Gatwick Airport for a month and had seen the minibuses on the road over the last few days so booked herself a journey to work “especially as it’s free at the moment”.
This bit of Horsham Road is unserved by Metrobus and the bus stop pole is flag-less but specific stop information available in the zeelo App as well as online reassures that this is exactly the correct place to be waiting, and sure enough, on the dot of 15:10, Peter arrives to pick us up.
There’s no need to show him an electronic copy of the ticket as Peter simply checks our names which he is aware of and we set off. I’d been sceptical about whether we’d pick anyone else up at this time of the day, but sure enough as the journey continued we picked up two more passengers – both easyJet cabin crew going to work for a late shift – one at the Orchard Street stop in Peglar Way (near the town centre) and another on London Road.
The Mercedes mini-coach has a ‘luxurious’ feel to it with comfortable seats, wi-fi and usb sockets. Peter gave us a smooth ride to the Airport. No-one on board alighted at Atlantic House at the South Terminal and we all continued to the bus stop by Jubilee House at the North Terminal – just two to three minutes walk from the Terminal building itself – where we arrived at 15:30. An impressive twenty minute ride. At this time of the day, Metrobus’s route 10 would have taken around thirty minutes travelling through Broadfield and the town centre as well as Manor Royal.
My fellow ‘intern’ passenger told me she was impressed with the quickness of the journey compared to route 10 which she had been using.
Peter didn’t wait until the next departure time of 15:40 back to Crawley but drove off after just a few minutes, presumably because no-one had booked for a ride so there was no need to wait.
My return journey was the next departure at 16:10 and my driver Tembi again arrived on the dot of that time – it turned out no-one had booked on the incoming journey so he’d started this part of his shift from the North Terminal.
This was the very impressive brand new Indcar 29 seater. Again, nice comfortable seats and a smooth ride; and this time it was just me travelling.
We had a bit of a delay leaving the North Terminal being stuck behind a trio of National Express coaches loading up and there was a hold up by the level crossing in Horsham Road where a badly parked taxi led to alternate working.
Despite this we arrived back at the Breezehurst Roundabout (this time marked with a flag for only the first journey on route 24!) at 16:34 taking just 24 minutes.
It made me wonder though, whether the 27 minute journey time over the next couple of hours of Crawley’s heavy peak hour late afternoon traffic might be a bit tight, especially as the mini-coaches don’t use Crawley’s bus lanes.
Tembi was very friendly and was naturally hoping this new zeelo venture would be a success. He’s been with Passenger Plus+ for some time, having previously worked with Metrobus, and explained that his duty involved working on other contract work Passenger Plus+ have in their portfolio in the Crawley area in the morning switching to the zeelo work in the afternoon. It looks as though zeelo is a perfect fit for Passenger Plus+ and being a quality operator, they’re a perfect fit for zeelo.
Whether this new venture is a success will simply come down to if zeelo have found a big enough market served by the seven bus stops in Horsham Road and London Road to sustain eight journeys morning and afternoon to and from Gatwick Airport. I have my doubts, but I was very impressed that three passengers travelled on my outward journey after just a few days operation.
Travelling with zeelo offers a great customer experience and full marks for that, although in addition to the website confusion mentioned earlier, there were one or two other teething problems with the technology, for example not being able to track where the driver was (even though a link was provided by text to my phone) and pick up locations being duplicated rather than showing the drop off location.
Metrobus also has a well deserved excellent reputation for offering a great customer experience too; their Crawley garage has topped the UK Bus Awards Garage of the Year on a number of occasions and the company as a whole is a regular in the finalists’ short list. You might conclude that if there was a profitable market from those seven bus stops, then Metrobus would already be there.
Zeelo’s prices are excellent value, but it might need a build up in confidence among passengers before they’re prepared to outlay £88 for that bargain 88p a ride within the 100 ride package.
Metrobus have the benefit of serving a much wider area including penertrating residential areas and serving the town centre and Manor Royal. Those markets are unavilable on the zeelo service.
Comparing posters advertising departures at the North Terminal highlights the different options now on offer for Airport employees living on the edge of Bewbush and Broadfield. Frequency versus fast and cheap.
It’s certainly an interesting development in the expanding Gatwick and Crawley transport market and certainly one to watch in the coming months.
Roger French
TfL’s first foray into the new fangled world of App based Dial-A-Ride (aka Demand Responsive Transport) in Sutton is now in its twelfth week and yesterday a rather impersonal email popped into my inbox announcing an exciting extension of the area served by the swish exec style wishy-washy liveried Mercedes Sprinter minibuses.
A minibus was close by at IKEA dropping a passenger off so I was given a convenient pick up time just five minutes away and the little map showed me where driver Shane would be coming from after that drop off.
During the journey the SatNav gives explicit directions even where the route has the right of way at junctions; eg turn left… on a bend to the left in the main road, if there’s another road off to the right. And every instruction is given twice; once with a precise assessment in feet of how far ahead the manoeuvre is and then at the actual location. It can all get a bit annoying background noise when sitting in the front seats.
We set off on a diagonal route right across the area, avoiding the centre of Sutton and using a number of residential roads not used by standard bus routes.
It’s odd that you can only summon a minibus to appear on the far western side of Costco (at the bottom of the Google aerial shot below) rather than by the more logical and busy Colonnades on the eastern side of the A23 …….
…… as it has to use Purley Way to get to Costco so could easily pick up at the Colonnades too.
…..we headed north taking just fourteen minutes instead of the predicted sixteen and I was dropped off at the official TfL bus stop used by route 463 south of Beddington Lane tram stop – I’ve noticed the algorithm likes dropping you off at official bus stops.
Alexandru then headed off to await his next passenger.
And I wandered up to the tram stop and headed back to East Croydon and home.
It was a gorgeous hot sunny Monday afternoon at the end of last month as I got off the train at Carshalton station and fired up the GoSutton App to order a minibus to take me over to the Royal Marsden Hospital in the south-western corner of the original operating area.
Not only that but I became intrigued as the journey continued that we weren’t deviating from the expected route to the Royal Marsden to drop her off somewhere. It turned out my fellow passenger was also travelling to the Hospital, where she works, and had boarded just a couple of minutes before me up the road in Carshalton.
It was the first time she’d used GoSutton and was understandably impressed with the convenience of only a short wait and then a ten minute direct journey; and what’s more she couldn’t believe as a Freedom Pass holder it had been a completely free ride for her.
Having travelled up to Cape Wrath last month to visit mainland Britain’s most northerly bus terminus I thought it was time to take a look at the most southerly bus stop.
Route L1 runs almost hourly from Helston down to The Lizard (there are a couple of two-hour gaps in the morning timetable) with most journeys projected back to start from Redruth Station’s Platform 3.
That’s where I began my travels, having taken GWR’s Night Riviera sleeper from Paddington on Monday evening.
….. and admire the signs directing passengers to the bus stop outside the station ‘for Helston & Culdrose’, quaintly called Platform 3 complete with a ‘3’ in former BR corporate style.
This is from the time the innovative Truronian bus company branded the route The Helston Branch Line in the 1990s which is still displayed on the bus stop.
There are ambitious plans to extend the line further south but it’s going to take a long time and much more hard work.
There’s the usual shop and cafe in a former DMU located at Prospidnick…..
….which is a twenty minute walk from Crowntown (along an overgrown footpath and country lane) where the two hourly route 38 passes on its run between Helston and Camborne so careful planning is needed to visit the railway by bus and fit in with both bus and train times. I think I was the only one yesterday morning.
The Helston branch left the mainline just west of Camborne; it closed to passengers in 1962 so for the past 57 years the bus has been the only way of reaching Helston and south on to The Lizard peninsula.
Journey time from Redruth to The Lizard on the L1 is 83 minutes including eight minutes stand time in Helston. The 08:00 journey took eight of us from Redruth as far as Helston and a similar number south from there with most alighting in the village of Mullion.
…. but only one other passenger joined me all the way down to The Lizard. I’m sure the journey is much busier on a schoolday and I noticed a double deck in Lizard branding on another journey indicating school children are a key market for this route.
Britain’s most southerly bus stop is next to The Green with surrounding gift shops and eateries. The arrangements for where buses stand and wait seemed confused with the driver of my incoming journey stopping alongside The Green (photographed below) but the driver of the next journey reversing alongside the stop itself as photgraphed above.
I had just enough time for breakfast and a brisk walk down to the lighthouse and Lizard Point itself before returning to catch the next bus back which operates via the hamlets of Ruan Minor and Kuggar (with nice seating in the shelter) …
… and then the outward route in reverse to Helston and Redruth. It became a very busy journey with all seats taken and we arrived back in Helston fifteen minutes late necessitating a change to my original planned itinerary – this happens a lot in Cornwall – experience has taught me to allow at least a 15 minute buffer for late running across Kernow land but I still ignore my own advice sometimes with the consequential need to replan on the hoof.
Camborne bus station is adjacent to First Kernow’s main offices and bus garage for Cornwall.
It’s pretty basic with lots of signs telling passengers to stand behind the barriers, and there’s staff coming and going through a door marked PRIVATE, but otherwise not much to report.
I also noticed the low flour easy access arrangement from the bus station saw-tooth layout doesn’t allow for the door behind the front wheels layout on the smart new Optare Solos.
First Kernow have done a fantastic job displaying maps and timetables in the shelter… 
… and the Council have included electronically displayed upcoming train and bus departures.
It’s a shame the dedicated First Bus Travel Shop has closed …
…. but it probably made financial sense to utilise the adjacent Visitor Information Centre which has a great display of timetables and yet another helpful network map.
The A2 continues to St Ives where it morphs into an A3 around the coast to Lands End changing again there into an A1 to complete the circuit back to Penzance. The full circular ride takes 3 hours, 40 minutes and many people make a day of it breaking the round journey up into bite sized chunks.
I’m pleased to have ticked off St Michael’s Mount which was very busy during the period when low tide allows access and despite the excellent bus service there were all too many cars parked in fields on the edge of Marazion.
Marazion is also served by the hourly route U4 one of four routes First Kernow run for the University of Exeter’s campus at Penryn just north of Falmouth.
And commendably these run during college holidays and are popular with tourists and locals.
… and St Keverne. We took about half a dozen workers home and brought back about the same number of tourists on the return journey. The bus arrived about 15 minutes late into Helston – and didn’t make the time up during the journey or back again. It was an incorrectly Atlantic Coaster branded bus.
There are only six journeys a day on the L2 four of which continue to or start from Truro.
Route 46 runs hourly and takes around an hour to reach Redruth having headed westwards first, then north and then south (repeating a few times) as it generally meanders eastwards. I reckon a detailed map of this and sister hourly route 47 would be a great help to demistify where the buses actually go – the network map isn’t much help as illustrated by an enlarged extract below. There are maps showing “where to catch your bus in Camborne” and maps showing limits of zone tickets, but there really needs to be a town bus map showing roads traversed. (Update….see PS at the end of the blog).
The 46 continues every two-hours beyond Redruth to Truro via a lovely rural route including Gwennap, Perranwell and Devoran.
The bus was already six minutes late leaving Carnon Downs and negotiating traffic on these narrow lanes meant twelve minutes late arriving into Helston just in time to see my planned connection on route 35A to Falmouth departing – will I never learn!
More positively the Penryn campus bus stops are well laid out with clear signs indicating where to catch the various bus routes.
The U4 branded route is a later addition to join the original U1 and U2 routes as can be seen from the outdated and updated maps on the sides of the latest buses now in service.
I headed back over to Redruth on a north westerly bound late running U2 which arrived into Redruth just as a T2 was leaving for Camborne and St Ives and despite two passengers jumping off the arriving U2 and frantically waving their arms at the T2 driver, he chose to ignore them and drive on.
Now travel truly has been transformed and after an incredible turnaround in vehicle investment a resurgent First Kernow are running an extremely modern fleet on which you feel proud to travel.
But much greater care is needed on vehicle allocation. As noted above, I saw an Atlantic Coaster on a Lizard L1 and another on an L2; as well as a red Tinner on a blue U4; a Lizard on a standard route 38. Because the brands are so high profile, these incorrect allocations cause confusion and undermine the whole branding.
There are plans to coordinate First Kernow’s bus timetables with the new improved regular half-hourly GWR train service on the main line from December. If integrated timetables are the name of the game it needs a rethink of whether bus schedules are currently realistic, otherwise passengers are going to miss connections.
The most flexible yet top-secret ticket is the ‘Ride Cornwall’ which gives bus as well as train travel throughout the County. This ticket has had a recent chequered history – at one time it was anomalously cheaper than the bus only day ticket but due to First Bus refusing to advertise its existence, very few people were aware of it. Matters came to a head at the beginning of this summer with First Kernow no longer accepting ‘Ride Cornwall’ tickets until GWR (and Cross Country) increased the price, which they’ve now done to £18 for a day; and in a stingy move withdrawn previously available one-third off discounts with Railcards. This is a great shame bearing in mind the desire to integrate bus and trains across the County. There’s still no mention of it at all on any First Kernow printed literature (including a leaflet entitled ‘price & ticket guide’. or online; nor can I find a reference to it on GWR or Criss Country’s websites but full marks to Go-Ahead’s Plymouth Citybus, who also accept and issue it, and at least reference it under Tickets; Day Tickets; Other Tickets on their website.
Poole bus station has a bright and welcoming ‘more shop’ where two helpful ‘Travel Advisors’ are on hand to help you and there’s a great selection of timetable books and leaflets to entice and encourage you to travel.
I particularly like the Purbeck Breezer booklet which promotes the growing band of brightly branded routes serving the Isle of Purbeck area operated by ‘more’ (nicely numbered 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70). No wonder all the buses I saw were extremely busy – this is how you successfully sell bus travel.
Online just doesn’t cut it in the same way (First Essex, First West Yorkshire, Arriva Leicester, TfL take note). The standard ‘more’ timetable book is also excellent with some great maps both by route and for the whole network.
A shout out also to First Wessex who produce a similar excellent timetable book with some first class maps covering their routes and network in Dorset. And it was really good to see it available in the ‘more shop’ too. Pats on backs all round.
I caught the 11:50 route X8 from Poole to Blandford Forum. This ‘more’ operated double deck route runs hourly and pretty much operates north westerly the whole way via the A350 save for a small diversion around Sturminster Marshall. The journey takes 37 minutes to Blandford where the bus then does a circuit of this lovely market town’s northern residential area before arriving back at the Market Place 26 minutes later.
Sister Go South Coast company Damory operates a minibus on an X8A which as the number implies, operates an anti-clockwise circuit twice every hour so Blandford is pretty well served.
It’s a thing in this part of the country for bus routes to have an ‘X’ route number. South West Coaches operate a two-hourly X3 north to Shaftesbury, Damory operated a two-hourly X12 south to Dorchester and Weymouth and First Bus (Buses of Somerset) operate an X10 west to Yeovil (which was my next bus at 13:55). But none of these routes are limited stop in nature as is often implied by using an ‘X’.
The X10 runs two-hourly and takes 1 hour 50 minutes for the journey to Yeovil with a four minute pause in Sturminster Newton after 43 minutes. From Stalbridge the more frequent hourly route 58 (Wincanton to Yeovil) joins the X10 for the final forty minutes of the journey on the A30 via Sherborne. This was the most used section of route particularly between Sherborne and Yeovil. Before that we had slim pickings and the route was distinctly rural in character passing through such delightful Dorset villages with unusual names such as Shillingstone, Okeford Fitzpaine and Child Okeford.
Over the border in Somerset, Yeovil has a busy little bus station with South West Coaches the dominant operator.
The old order when First Bus reigned supreme can still be seen from the legacy Travel Shop, now closed…
…..
… and I spotted a supply in the kiosk selling magazines and sweets as well as printed A4 timetables for the South West Coaches Services looking very prominent alongside copies of this week’s TV Choice magazine – great product association!
There was also a comprehensive timetable display for South West Coaches.
We left with about a dozen passengers a few travelling all the way to Yeovil. The busiest of the three journeys I travelled on. You get some great views for many miles across the Somerset scenery along the way too.
It had taken just over nine hours to reach Taunton after leaving Hassocks station including an enjoyable hours break in Blandford Forum for lunch and forty minutes to have a wander around both Poole and Yeovil. A very pleasant way to enjoy the scenery along the south coast and across Dorset and Somerset.
It can’t be easy running buses in Taunton especially with a disinterested County Council but hats off to First Bus for giving the network a boost in 2014 with the bright Buses of Somerset brand. These brand makeovers often flag after a few years but five years on I was impressed it’s still going strong and looks cared for. You can tell there’s someone in charge who’s on top of their job, and in this case it’s Aled Williams a young, bright, enthusiastic and energetic manager who looks after Buses in Somerset as Operations Manager.
…but also GWR timetables and Devon County Council bus timetable books for neighbouring areas, and even the full county bus map which is hard to obtain in Devon!
The waiting room seats all conveniently point towards the departure bays, but I noticed no one was sharing one of the rather cosy seats with a stranger!
Margins are tight in Somerset so buses are often cascaded from other areas served by First Bus meaning it’s a challenge to keep buses on brand but I received an explanation from Buses of Somerset’s Twitter feed that the Atlantic Coaster brand (from Cornwall) I saw on one bus would soon be adapted as one had already been done; and very smart it looked too when I saw it shortly after.
A rather tatty interior on another bus transferred from its former life on the Glasgow Airport shuttle route 500 would soon be refurbished I was told, which again was an impressive exercise in communications, and interestingly the layout included extensive luggage racks which are ideal for route 28 linking Taunton rail station with the popular Butlins holiday centre at Minehead.
All this shows what can be achieved if you have a dedicated locally based motivated manager with a passion to do a good job. I experienced one or two unreliability issues while travelling around over the weekend but overall I was impressed with what’s been done in challenging bus territory. Well done Aled.
Route 22 uses the A38 heading south west out of Taunton and makes good progress but picks up few passengers after Wellington. The route diverts off the main road to serve Uffculme using some very narrow lanes before reaching the outskirts of Cullompton where it’s joined by the more frequent Stagecoach route 1/1A from Exeter into Tiverton. Most passengers on this busier section of the route gravitate around the Stagecoach bus timings and probably aren’t aware of the 22’s sparse existence.
There are only three departures from Tiverton which go all the way to Dulverton, taking an hour. Three others go as far as Brampton, about half way along the route.
Dulverton is a beautiful village within the Exmoor National Park; sadly it’s off the beaten public transport track, but then this is subsidy-free Somerset.
It enjoys the three-journeys-a-day route 398 from Tiverton in the south, the six-journeys-a-day route 25 from Taunton in the east operated by Buses of Somerset and the bus I was next catching, on the three-journeys-a-day route 198 to Minehead to the north operated by Atwest, a Community Bus charity.
The 198 has all the hallmarks of once being a through service from Tiverton to Minehead straddling both Devon and Somerset council areas. An inevitable consequence of the divergent policies towards support for bus services between the two Counties has meant splitting the route with the southern end, numbered 398, largely in Devon, supported as a tendered bus route by that authority, whereas the northern end, numbered 198, in Somerset is left to a Community Bus charity to provide as best it can. The minibus used by Atwest is supplied by the County Council, albeit non wheelchair equipped, because priorities are elsewhere in Somerset.
For a bus service running three times a day, and the last journey of the day leaving Dulverton at 15:01 this was somewhat disconcerting and does nothing for reassuring visitors they’ve made the right decision to travel by bus.
As I had time on my hands and had explored Dulverton, ate my picnic lunch and it was starting to drizzle with rain I decided to catch the bus on its southbound journey from Dulverton to the village of Brushford at 14:45 and stay on the bus for the return journey through to Minehead and be sure of a seat.
It’s a ninety minute busy journey and passes Dunster, Watchet and Bishops Lydeard stations on the West Somerset Railway on its route into Minehead.
I’d been wanting to have a ride on the First West of England open top bus routes 20 from Burnham-on-Sea to Weston-Super-Mare and 1 from Weston-Super-Mare to Sand Bay for some time and never managed to fit it into a travel schedule so yesterday, Sunday, I caught the first departure on Buses of Somerset route 21 from Taunton to Burnham-on-Sea at 08:00 to connect with the first departure on route 20 at 09:20 to Weston-Super-Mare.
The timing connection worked superbly, but annoyingly not the ticketing. You can use a Buses of Somerset Day Ticket on the 21 to Burnham-on-Sea (as First Bus Buses of Somerset operate that route) but you can’t use it on the 20 (as First Bus West of England operate that route). This is confusing and could do with sorting by allowing the Somerset day ticket to include West of England’s network too. Burnham-on-Sea is in Somerset after all. Indeed over half the route of the 20 is within Somerset County Council with the northern end in North Somerset, a unitary authority. It’s bad enough having restrictions between operators let alone between subsidiaries with similar branding and names of the same overall company.
In Weston-Super-Mare I hopped on the shorter open-top route 1 which runs every half an hour to Sand Bay.
It wasn’t so long ago that this route was operated by the competitor called Crosville which expanded in Weston-Super-Mare taking advantage of the period when First Bus lost their way. But now, as in Cornwall, the tables have turned and a resurgent First West of England has seen off the smaller competitor and is back with a vengance in Sand Bay.
All that was left was to head back to the station and home with GWR.
South West Trains started the ‘run trains to link with heritage railways’ trend a couple of summers ago (before they handed the keys over to South Western Railway) by running a few trains on a summer Saturday on the connecting tracks from Wareham to the Swanage Railway at Corfe Castle. This summer on selected Saturdays GWR are doing the same thing between Taunton and the West Somerset Railway at Bishops Lydeard.
You can also buy through tickets to the West Somerset Railway (but not its individual stations) from any GWR station and this includes travel on the shuttle train.
Indeed, as well as GWR’s shuttle train, West Somerset Railway was running a few additional journeys with its DMU shuttling between Bishops Lydeard and Norton Fitwarren as has happened in previous years after the platform was built on its current sight ten years ago.
I travelled on the first shuttle train from Taunton at 09:35 this morning and our refurbished Class 150 two coach train left with a full seated load.
The deal with GWR seems to be they provide the driver and train with West Somerset Railway providing the ticket collecting staff and other staff to marshall and assist passengers. They were certainly doing a good job making sure everyone had tickets this morning and making us all feel welcome.
About two-thirds of the passengers on board alighted at Norton Fitzwarren (photographed above) for the Rally and the rest of us continued to Bishops Lydeard (photographed below) with most then continuing on to Minehead on a WSR steam train.
We pulled into Bishops Lydeard on time at 09:56 to find the platform heaving with excited Steam Fayre and Vintage Rally bound fans. Luckily everyone just about managed to cram themselves on and we left for the return journey to Taunton on time at 10:03 full and standing.
Most alighted at Norton Fitzwarren but a few of us continued back to Taunton and one or two, like me, were pleased to have ticked off this unusual extension to the national network rail map.
In the meantime here’s a lovely bus I spotted back in Taunton this morning also running a shuttle to the Rally at Norton Fitzwarren and this one was free.
I hear the bus is owned by one of the Directors of the West Somerset Railway so good to see modal integration on heritage railways even if mainstream rail struggles with it sometimes!
LNER know all about high profile launches. I guess it helps being in the public sector with a generous marketing budget rather than being a cash strapped TOC with unattainable winning franchise pledges submitted to the DfT in misplaced optimism a few years back.
The media dealt with it was time to get the public on board especially with expectations raised through huge billboards around central Edinburgh; a bit overkill at the moment as it’s only the 05:40 southbound departure that’s so far been allocated an Azuma train!
Unsurprisingly LNER staff were in abundance handing out breakfast boxes, juice and water on the platform in front of especially commissioned back drops ….
…..standing sentry style at each coach door to welcome everyone on board…
….posing for photographs with an especially commissioned LNER Tartan in the background….
….doing pieces to cameras for the PR records ….
….and generally getting excited and looking important.
It was impressive to see LNER managing director David Horne come round to shake everyone’s hand and stop and chat.
The journey south made very good time and as we approached the stretch of line near Grantham where Mallard set its world speed record of 126mph for steam locomotives in 1938 we were three minutes early as we sped along hovering around 125mph.
A brief slow down as we neared Grantham itself where the Azuma on the LNER southbound working from Hull was just leaving still kept us ahead of time and we reached Kings Cross to a stop in an impressive 3 hours and 59 minutes to be met with more cameras and yet another bagpipe player.
Goodness knows what LNER’s PR and marketing people have got up their sleeves for the upcoming launch in Inverness and Aberdeen when Azumas reach that far north, but whatever it is, you can be sure it’ll be full of razzmatazz. A helicopter hovering over the Forth Bridge will be a must surely.
Meanwhile back in Edinburgh I missed another launch of a great new initiative on Monday of this week ….. because there wasn’t one. As Greater Anglia were soft launching their 
…as well as a glass fronted booth for customers to discuss matters in a little more privacy (on the left) and a waiting area for passengers waiting to board the next Airlink 100 bus to Edinburgh Airport – even though it’s a frequent ‘every 10 minutes’.
On the right side of the front entrance is a well apportioned coffee shop which looks like it’s aiming to compete with an upmarket Costa and others providing a good selection of snacks as well as the usual coffees and other hot drinks (I was told there are three varieties of hot chocolate available alone).
There’s a very generous selection of different seating arrangements in the coffee shop area, many close to sockets for dealing with the ever prevalent battery anxiety phenomenon.
There’s even a glass cabinet displaying Lothian ‘merch’ for sale on the travel shop side and a high definition TV screen playing promotional videos.
My visit on Wednesday was only the third day after the ‘Travel Hub’ opened on Monday so the staff were still getting used to the new arrangements and receiving training but one thing that was noticeably missing was any timetable leaflets or literature of any kind on display.
I began at Edinburgh airport by taking First Bus route 600 which takes a circuitous route to Livingston and Whitburn. This has recently seen a frequency increase from hourly to half hourly and received eye catching branding.
There’s a prominent bus stop immediately outside the terminal building dressed in promotional branding for the service despite it being shared with Xplore Dundee’s recently introduced Airport Xpress running every ninety minutes.
A branded double decker arrived from its previous journey about ten minutes before departure time.
Only three or four passengers alighted and I was told by the driver as I boarded through the open door he wasn’t ready for me to board and wandered off into the terminal building closing the doors behind him. At the 10:40 departure time he reappeared.
I’d tried researching the best tickets to buy for my travels online at home. I never find the First Bus website easy to navigate but under the Tickets tab found some options for day tickets available for purchase on the smartphone app. It looked like I needed a Zone L and M day ticket which by reference to a map under the map tab showed me it would cover the geographic area I’d be in. At £7 this seemed good value so I bought one ready for use.
I wasn’t convinced but went along with his unhelpful approach to customer service and we set off with just me on board. As the journey progressed and the 600 took on the characteristics of a rural route through West Lothian my frustration increased as I found the promised usb sockets not working and Wi-fi not connecting.
The next bus to arrive was the Lothian half hourly X18 (stopping bus Edinburgh to Bathgate and Whitburn) so I jumped on board and activated my Lothian £9 Day Network Ticket on their App which I’d also bought last night and headed off to Bathgate.
I wanted to try out Lothian’s latest competitive strike in West Lothian – their new EX1 (Bathgate) and EX2 (Linlithgow) express routes to Edinburgh.
These are a significant investment by Lothian compromising eight new Volvo coaches to a unique specification with a centrally located lift for access for passengers using wheelchairs.
They have 49 very comfortable seats and offer a very smooth ride. Naturally usb and Wi-fi are fitted.
Both routes began on 30th June so it’s early days but I found loadings to be worryingly low for the fifth week. A half hourly frequency is provided on both routes across a 06:30 to 20:00 day (hourly to 18:00 on Sundays).
Both routes use the motorway (EX1 on the M8 and EX2 on the M9) for about ten minutes of the approximate 45 minute journey time. Buses run pretty much non-stop into Haymarket and Edinburgh with just three stops observed east of the motorways. This gives an impressively quick journey into and out of the City but it does mean the catchment area is restricted to either Bathgate or Linlithgow.
However at the City end of the routes Lothian have chosen to terminate the EX1 and EX2 in the West End rather than add resources by continuing through Princes Street to the east side.
… although the bus stop flag had been updated.
Over in Linlithgow I spotted one bus stop timetable referring to X2 rather than EX2.
The coaches didn’t have supplies of timetables on board either and even more bizarre I couldn’t find the timetables on the Lothian Country website – only a dated reference to the new routes ‘being launched’. I’ve subsequently been advised there’s a bespoke Green Arrow website containing all the details, but it seems odd not to include information on the Lothian Country site too, or even a link across.
I also wonder about the Green Arrow branding as this doesn’t particularly stand out on the coaches and appears an added complication to the Lothian Country brand which is used to describe all the ticket options.
A tie up with CityLink is highlighted on the coach sides and rear but not mentioned in the timetable leaflet or online so I’m not sure what it actually is.
I caught the 12:08 EX1 from Bathgate to Edinburgh driven by a very nice driver called Gill who normally drives standard Lothian Country routes but was covering the EX1 and EX2 just for today. I was the only passenger.
In between my EX1 and EX2 rides I sampled the First Bus competitive fight back in the heart of Edinburgh – their newly launched foray into the city sightseeing market under the new Bright Bus Tours brand.
Waverley Bridge has long been the centre of open top tour buses which until now have all been operated by Lothian despite the plethora of brands and tour variations.
Now First Bus are aiming for a slice of this lucrative market by offering a cut price (£10 instead of £16) tour of the City. Buses depart every ten minutes on a 75 minute circuit with a multi-language pre recorded commentary. It’s pretty standard open-top sightseeing stuff.
It was all very orderly and chummy on Waverley Bridge while I was there with both companies flooding the market with street sellers and handing out leaflets. 
If anything I reckon Bright Bus Tours were more prominent in their on brand colours ….
…. but the established brands seemed to be the more popular with customers.
It looks to me as though First Bus will easily capture a slice of this huge market and probably make a small contribution against the pure direct costs, especially as they start winding down around 16:00 with buses returning to the depot, which I assume is over at Livingston adding quite a bit of dead mileage and time.
… whereas this isn’t mentioned on Lothian’s buses…
… although they have the advantage of prominent comprehensive static displays …
… with Bright Bus Tours keeping it simple …
I’m not sure whether Bright Bus Tours will be a commercial proposition in the dead of winter; but by then the sustainability (or not) of the EX1 and EX2 might also be more apparent.
Seven months into the year and I’m reviewing the seventh new class of train to be introduced in 2019 – that’s not bad going; a brand new different fleet into service on average once a month (I know the Class 230, formerly known as ‘D Train’ is not a brand new train, but it’s certainly a brand new class of train and definitely as good as new).
Until yesterday Greater Anglia had been operating a Class 37 loco hauled train on one set of Wherry Line workings and this is the first diagram to be upgraded to these swish new Class 755 trains.
These lovely new Class 755 trains are built by the Swiss train manufacturer, Stadler, and are called FLIRT – which stands for ‘Fast Light Intercity (and) Regional Train’. Greater Anglia have ordered 38 to replace Class 153, 156 and 170 trains. Twenty-four sets have four coaches and the other fourteen are three coaches long. But they all also have a ‘power pack’ coach, which is just under a third the length of one of the passenger carrying coaches, where the ‘gubbins’ is housed.
The contractual entry into service for these trains, and the similar intercity Class 745 electric trains now being delivered, was Spring 2019 and it was hoped to run a set coincidental with the new timetable on 19th May on the ‘Norwich in 90’ launch. Just over two months late isn’t bad going these days for trains-into-service-missed-dates so that’s already one star awarded for timeliness. Roger Ford reported in this month’s Modern Railways magazine that thirteen of the Class 755 sets had been delivered and authorisation received from the Office of Rail and Road on 11th June with four of the longer twelve coach all electric Class 745s delivered and authorised.
As I mentioned 
These trains, like 
This was particularly noticeable when we got to Great Yarmouth with lots of holidaymakers/day-trippers getting on and off. Luckily there’s enough stand time at the terminus but it would be a different matter at a busy intermediate station.
Greater Anglia say the new trains will help to speed up journeys and timetables; not if dwell times increase they won’t.
The toilet in the accessible cubicle is well positioned with adequate space on its left hand side (when sitting down) compared to what I’ve seen on other refurbished trains where there’s a trend of placing the toilet right in the corner.
The door locking mechanism reverts back to buttons (rather than the easy to understand lever approach) but worked well – with audible confirmation the door was locked.
These impressive new trains will certainly be welcomed by Greater Anglia’s passengers. I award them a full five star rating.
A much needed new service began carrying passengers over Hammersmith Bridge from this morning. With the Bridge closed to all motor traffic including buses since 10th April this new service is provided by a lovely man called Frederick peddling a smart electric Pedi-Cab. And very efficient it is too.
I only stumbled on Frederick and his Pedi-Cab this morning by accident as he was promoting it to passers by on the south side of the Bridge. With TfL announcing more changes to bus routes which used to cross the now closed Bridge from this Saturday (3rd August 2019) I thought it might be interesting to pop along and see how things had settled down since the hiatus immediately following the sudden closure three months ago. TfL didn’t cover itself in glory back in April with an appalling lack of updated information at bus stops and on buses.
It was the sudden nature of the closure in April which seemingly caught everyone out rather than any surprise at the closure itself. It had been known for many years all was not well with the structure of the Bridge. Five main bus routes used to use the Bridge but in the southbound direction traffic marshals restricted buses crossing to strictly one at a time through a manned barrier at what must have been a significant cost (and as seen in a photograph taken over a year ago below).
Two of those five bus routes (33 and 485) now have to terminate short of the Bridge on the south side, one bus route (72) terminates short on the north side of the Bridge, a fourth is diverted to double back south from the Bridge to terminate in Barnes Pond (419) and the fifth route (209) has been diverted away from the Bridge completely at Barnes to terminate instead at the next bridge downstream, Putney Bridge. Bus passengers are encouraged to walk across Hammersmith Bridge as the quickest way to pick up a bus to continue their journey.
TfL have also laid on a ‘temporary route’ numbered 533 which links Hammersmith bus station, adjacent to the Underground Station round to the Barnes area south of Hammersmith Bridge by crossing the next bridge upstream, Chiswick Bridge. Three buses provide a daily half-hourly frequency from 04:50 to 01:30. It’s timetabled to take twenty-four minutes from the north side of Hammersmith Bridge to reach the south side via Chiswick Bridge, Barnes Bridge station, and Lonsdale Road before returning in a loop via Barnes Pond back to Barnes Bridge station, Chiswick Bridge and Hammersmith.
I’d heard that passenger loadings on the 533 were low and this morning found typical carryings about eight passengers per single journey; it was evident the service was welcomed by those using it.
I can imagine traffic during peak hours makes a world of difference though especially around the notorious Hogarth roundabout on the Great West Road and a peak vehicle requirement of three would almost certainly be required.
The change being introduced from this coming Saturday, 3rd August, is to the short stub of a route 209 which used to run from Mortlake to Hammersmith – in history it’s the western end of the famous route 9 from Liverpool Street to the lovely bus garage at Mortlake.
The 209 currently runs at a generous daytime frequency of every six minutes to Putney Bridge with a journey time of only 18 minutes. I saw many buses running up and down the route with very few passengers on board this morning, bearing out the public comments.
The changes to bus routes have been criticised for being confusing to passengers. This wasn’t helped initially by a lack of information, but even this morning, over three months on from the Bridge closure, buses were running round with blank destination blinds (419s unable to show Barnes Pond on its extended and diverted route away from Hammersmith)….
…. and buses on the 33 unable to show the terminus on the south side of Hammersmith known as Castelnau…
…. and inevitably Spider Maps haven’t been updated, prominently displaying out of date and inaccurate information at all the affected bus stops!
The plan is for Frederick to be joined by three more Pedi-Cabs in September when it’s hoped the service really will take off providing an attractive on-demand frequency and a decent alternative to getting cold and wet walking over the Bridge in the Autumn and Winter.
It’s a great idea and I’m sure it will catch on with residents wanting to save the walk and in some way it’s suprising the rickshaws which ply their trade annoyingly in Oxford Street haven’t also caught on to the potential market in Hammersmith.
Key to its success will be frequency and getting those extra Pedi-Cabs up and running. 
In the mean time Frederick was doing a superb ambassadorial job selling the new service this morning and his courtesy, politeness, enthusiasm and positivity really was impressive – it persuaded me to take a ride; the company Ginger running the service has found a gem in Frederick and I hope it’s a success.
On Tuesday morning I caught the stopping train to Ipswich out of Liverpool Street at 11:04 as far as Marks Tey. It’s impressive to see the efficient use of track capacity on the fast lines out of Liverpool Street since May with a flotilla of trains pathed within minutes including the new ‘Norwich in 90’ only stopping at Ipswich leaving at 11:00; the normal hourly Norwich leaving at 11:02 with stops at Colchester, Manningtree, Ipswich and Diss then the train I caught with calls at Stratford, Shenfield, Chelmsford, Hatfield Peverel, Witham and Kelvedon. This train is followed out of Liverpool Street by a Southend Victoria train and then one to Clacton-on-Sea.
This is a lovely branch line which I ranked 85th in my 
Greater Anglia have sensibly placed a poster at Marks Tey explaining its policy on maintaining connections – the ten minutes allowance covers the stand time of the train on the branch within its hour’s cycle and obviously prevents knock on delays for further passengers – it was good to see this being stated even if the absolute background detail wasn’t fully explained.
I enjoyed a ride on a former Scania demonstrator on Beestons operated route 91 to Ipswich and noted it had oddly been fitted with a farebox alongside the driver for exact fares.
This puzzled me for an inter-urban route and as contactless wasn’t yet in operation despite the Ticketer ticket machine displaying the symbol I handed my £5 for the single fare over to the driver who issued a ticket in the traditional way. Beestons didn’t reply to my tweet asking about the farebox and contacless so I am still mystified what the policy is.
Route 91 takes 75 minutes for the 21 mile journey via Hadleigh to Ipswich; buses currently run every 90 minutes, but will be changing to two-hourly from the beginning of September, although an improved hourly frequency will be incorporated into the new timetable between Hadleigh and Ipswich.
It gave me a chance to have a look around Felixstowe and particularly the greatly slimmed down rail station, now a shadow of its former past glory.
There’s an hourly train that shuttles up and down between Felixstowe and Ipswich timetabled to take 26 minutes. The 15:24 arrival brought a good load of passengers in and left at 15:28 with another busy train load.
There’s plenty of people travelling between Ipswich and Felixstowe – I popped down to the seafront and reminded myself how attractive this coastal resort is.
It was approaching 16:10 and I eagerly waited the next X7 back to Ipswich. I was waiting outside the cinema, the stop before Great Eastern Square, and the slightly late 16:00 route 77 picked up most of the dozen or so waiting passengers just as the X7 arrived with just four of us getting on board – not very impressive – and while I was pleased to have a top deck view on the journey back I was a bit surprised not to see the branded ‘Felixstowe Flyers’ bus on any of the other X7 journeys observed later that afternoon.
… and another by a standard liveried bus…..
I can only assume vehicles on the X7 interwork with other routes across the late afternoon and evening peak which is a shame to lose the bespoke brand promoting what could be a decent alternative to the train and the all-stops bus routes. And I regret not being able to include a photo of a Flexistowe Flyers branded bus here despite trying to track it down, but I’m indebeted to the 
…and here’s a First Cymru….
…. which only goes to show you can’t keep a good livery down and it makes sense for the First Ipswich/Eastern Counties marketing people to copy and adapt a smart livery from a sister company (for now) in the same Group.
However despite a modest load our journey got progressively behind schedule and after we hit crawling traffic by Kesgrave High School were over 15 minutes late when we reached the Park & Ride site at Martlesham.
Melton is a small station with nothing much to comment on, other than it’s in need of a makeover with all its station name boards looking distinctly faded and unloved. They were barely legible. I’m sure Greater Anglia have it in hand as Saxmundham was sporting smarter signs even though the former station building was still behind barriers following fire damage eighteen months ago.
To cut what’s becoming a long story short, I was waiting for the bus on route 64 in Saxmundham High Street and started to get twitchy that it hadn’t arrived…
….when I spotted a tweet from First Ipswich advising of a breakdown on the 64. Although there’s no timing point of 09:05 on the journey I was waiting for (it left Ipswich at 08:50), I deduced (correctly) the tweet was referring to my bus, especially as it was now around ten minutes after it’s scheduled arrival, so I took the nuclear option of sourcing a taxi to take me the last twenty minute ride over to Aldeburgh in time to pick up the vintage bus at 11:10.
… and then to Ipswich on a nice air conditioned Class 170 which made a nice change for the East Suffolk line and a welcome respite from the hot weather.
