Tuesday 15th September 2020 When I checked out the new Uber Boat brand for Thames Clipper's service along the River Thames a few weeks ago, I noticed the journeys in the timetable specifically aimed at commuters and thought it would be a good idea to give them a try out during these 'capacity constrained peak... Continue Reading →
Monday 14th September 2020 Readers will recall we left part 1 of this intriguing tale with the tantalising prospect of West Coast Railways stepping in from today running a replacement train service for a week shuttling between Rose Hill Marple and Guide Bridge funded by devolved local committee budgets of Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council with... Continue Reading →
Friday 11th September 2020 The last time Oxfordshire funded a bus service was July 2016. That month the County Council scrapped its circa £4 million annual bus subsidy budget abandoning 118 tendered bus contracts to the fate of the commercial market - and turned 34 years of deregulation on its head. Deregulation, you my recall,... Continue Reading →
Monday 7th September 2020 North Lincolnshire Council became the latest local authority to jump on the app based Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) bus bandwagon today as it launched its new JustGo branded operation. Except this scheme serving a largely rural area has one key positive differential from the other failed DRT schemes; it’s built on... Continue Reading →
Friday 4th September 2020 'Miss Marple' ..... as in residents of the Manchester suburb by that name will soon 'miss' their hourly Northern run train service. The Rose Hill Marple service is being withdrawn from Monday 14th September for three months to give Northern Rail breathing space so more drivers can be trained up after... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 2nd September 2020 It's all change for the bus network serving Leeds Bradford Airport this week. Sunday saw Transdev Blazefield take over the three bus routes connecting Leeds, Bradford and Harrogate and introduce a smart new 'Flyer' brand. Social media coverage and photographs online looked very impressive so I popped up to Yorkshire yesterday... Continue Reading →
Monday 31st August 2020 I last took a ride on the Hayling Ferry in November 2018. This cute little passenger ferry crosses Langstone Harbour connecting the eastern tip of Portsea Island with the extreme western tip of Hayling Island. It only takes three minutes to make the 400 yard crossing and saves a long detour... Continue Reading →
Saturday 29th August 2020 Readers may recall my ride on route 404 earlier this month highlighting TfL’s penchant for circuitous bus routes wandering around the back streets of London's suburbs making sure everyone lives within 400 metres of a bus stop. But up in Barnet, it's all change for circuitous route 384. From today it's... Continue Reading →
Thursday 27th August 2020 It only takes 44 minutes on the train. But that’s far too easy a way to make the journey. How about taking the bus instead? I set off yesterday on the 08:13 route 270 from Brighton to East Grinstead operated by Metrobus. I joined the bus by Preston Park with two... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 26th August 2020 It's been trailed on social media as making "it easier than ever to connect with the people and places that matter to you". Arriva'smuch vaunted new website and app were launched yesterday. It gets a one star rating from me, and that's being generous. Bring back the previous website famed for... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 25th August 2020 The London Transport Museum has been running a series of Hidden London branded tours for a number of years. There's even a book recently published which features the tours and history of the locations and a dedicated exhibition was added to the Museum in Covent Garden prior to lockdown featuring highlights... Continue Reading →
Saturday 22nd August 2020 Continuing my Covid curtailed summer open top bus rides, I popped down to the New Forest today to sample Bluestar's colour coded circular tours around the National Park. There are three circular routes with the Blue and Green routes running anti-clockwise while the Red route goes clockwise. I last travelled on... Continue Reading →
Thursday 20 August 2020 The last time I took a ride on East Yorkshire's open top bus service along Scarborough's seafront was in May last year, just before the lovely bright new Beachcomber brand was rolled out, so it was nice to make a return visit on Tuesday and see the Best Impressions designed makeover... Continue Reading →
Monday 16th August 2020 Heritage Railways have had it tough these last few months. No 'Emergency Measures Agreements' for them, nor any help for charter train companies either. So it was a surprise a few weeks ago when I saw news a new charter train service would be starting up from Monday 20th July running... Continue Reading →
Saturday 15th August 2020 A brand new station at Horden opened quietly without any ceremonial ribbon cutting, balloons or cup cakes during the Covid-19 'essential travel only’ lockdown era on Monday 29th June. I wrote about it on 5th May as part of a review of ’50 new stations’ but to recap ….... Continue Reading →
Thursday 13th August 2020I had high hopes for fflecsi (it’s Welsh for flex) - the Welsh version of DRT (Demand Responsive Transport).Transport for Wales (TfW) are replacing existing fixed-timetable small-scale bus routes with a bookable flexible bus running along the route and its environs according to demand. It’s a bit like how Go Coach Hire... Continue Reading →
Monday 10th August 2020 When First West of England managing director James Freeman announced a few weeks ago he was going to trial the idea of allowing passengers to pre-book a seat on the network of frequent city bus routes in Bath and Bristol I thought he was joking. Then I heard West of England... Continue Reading →
Saturday 8th August 2020 Thames Clippers’ six year partnership with credit card company MBNA came to an end on Monday when the naming rights of the company’s twenty boats was taken over by Uber, a company that's no stranger to transport in the Capital. Unsurprisingly details of the deal are not public but Uber gets... Continue Reading →
Thursday 6th August 2020 London's bus route 404 is interesting for a number of reasons. It’s one of TfL's short meandering routes that doesn’t really go anywhere. It wanders around well-heeled leafy residential roads lying either side of Coulsdon Road which links Coulsdon (in the London Borough of Croydon) with Caterham-on-the-Hill (just over the border... Continue Reading →
Monday 3rd August 2020 It was pats on the backs all round at Network Rail and GoVia Thameslink Railway (GTR) this morning as although operational problems a plenty caused by damaged overhead lines near Farringdon meant disruption for Thameslink services across the network, the opening of Stevenage’s new ‘turnback’ platform 5 was rightly being celebrated... Continue Reading →
Saturday 1st August 2020 It’s a shorter summer season this year for obvious reasons, so this past week I've been out and about giving three bus companies running seafront open top bus routes in the south-east a bit of much needed custom and support. First up on a lovely sunshine filled day last Sunday was... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 29th July 2020 I thought it was time to take a ride on Mertrolink’s brand new line to the Trafford Centre so I headed up to Manchester today to take a look at what £350 million gets you in the way of a tram extension. The new line has been in the offing since... Continue Reading →
Thursday 23rd July 2020 Regular readers will remember last summer I took a ride on four of Kent County Council’s new ‘Rural Transport Initiatives’. Three of these involved the introduction of ‘Taxi Buses’ including a Sevenoaks Taxi Bus linking West Kingsdown and the East Hill Residential Park with Sevenoaks; a Sandwich Taxi Bus linking that... Continue Reading →
Friday 17th July 2020It hasn’t worked in Bristol, Sittingbourne, Sutton, Ealing or Oxford. And it’s on pause in Liverpool. But these failures haven’t dented Watford Borough Council's enthusiasm for joining the craze of flirting with Demand Responsive Transport (DRT). The latest scheme got underway in the Hertfordshire town a couple of weeks ago on 1st... Continue Reading →
Thursday 16th July 2020 It’s always nice to get a bus timetable book delivered through the post, so many thanks to Transport for Cornwall for sending me a copy of their 196 page book 'Your handy guide to Buses in Cornwall'. I'd seen it advertised on social media and saw you could request one be... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 15th July 2020 Meet Kevin Green. He must be the most optimistic entrepreneur in the transport industry right now. And he's such a friendly and affable guy too. I met him today while he was driving one of three smart Volvo coaches he's bought to operate the Bracknell Express; a brand new express coach... Continue Reading →
Saturday 11th July 2020 I found yesterday afternoon's tweet from Southern Vectis so positive and inviting it encouraged me to pop over today and have a mini wander around the Isle of Wight. The Government’s Test & Trace app trial may have been a flop but it’s always a pleasure to visit the Island to... Continue Reading →
Thursday 9th July 2020 After 118 days of bus and train travel abstinence, I thought it was time to venture out again following the easing of Government messaging from "essential travel only" to "consider all forms of transport before using public transport". I did, and decided you can't really test out a new coach route... Continue Reading →
Saturday 4th July 2020 It’s been another week of mixed message muddles, inconsistencies and questionable priorities. No, I’m not referring to today’s reopening of pubs while schools pretty much remain closed until September. Nor fast food outlets up and cooking, while gyms stay closed. Even though such misplaced priorities are questionable enough. I’m all about... Continue Reading →
Saturday 27th June 2020 If you’re a believer in public transport, spent your whole career in it, use it extensively, love everything about it, feel passionate about it, you know the sort of thing; you’d have been forgiven back in March for getting mildly excited at the DfT publishing its ‘Decarbonising Transport - Setting the... Continue Reading →
Saturday 20th June 2020 Week 13 was to be a milestone week. Remember this from 19th March? "I do think, looking at it all, that we can turn the tide within the next 12 weeks, and I am absolutely confident we can send coronavirus packing in this country". How lucky the Alert level was reduced from... Continue Reading →
Saturday 13th June 2020 Good news this week for those convinced social distancing and public transport don’t mix. Trouble is it's 11,000 miles away in Auckland where everything returned to normal on Monday. New Zealand closed its borders on 19th March and locked down on 26th March. We can but live in hope. Closer to... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 9th June 2020 Network Rail have launched its second consultation into the extensive plans to sort out the Croydon bottleneck on the Brighton Main Line as well as enable more trains to run on enhanced frequencies. Once complete "it’s expected there would be capacity to run an additional 2 trains per hour to each... Continue Reading →
Saturday 6th June 2020 Transport Secretary Grant Shapps was rolled out again for the Downing Street briefing on Thursday - I note this service is being trimmed back to only a weekday operation with immediate effect allegedly due to low numbers of passengers (viewers) at weekends. It’ll give ministers a few weekends off on the... Continue Reading →
Thursday 4th June 2020 I reported back on 3 April Sevenoaks based Go-Coach Hire were replacing from Easter all its fixed timetable local town routes as well as rural routes in the surrounding area, including Hildenborough, Edenbridge and nearby villages, with a demand responsive bus service branded as go2. Knowing my fascination with DRT schemes,... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 The Government’s Restoring Your Railway Fund is a £500 million pot to “kickstart the restoration of lines closed more than 50 years ago”. It’s had a few launches. Boris Johnson promoted the commitment during the election campaign last November on a visit to Fleetwood then at the end of January Grant... Continue Reading →
Saturday 30th May 2020 The DfT published details of the second tranche of Covid-19 Bus Services Support Grant on Wednesday. A letter from Stephen Fidler, DfT's Director, Local Transport to bus operators in England “confirmed an additional £254 million will be provided” backdated to 12 May. It will be reviewed every four weeks and works... Continue Reading →
Monday 25th May 2020 Among the “today I can announce” sound bites at last September’s Conservative Party Conference was Grant Shapps gifting £23.5 million over four years to Cornwall Council to reduce bus fares across the county in the hope of boosting passenger numbers. At that time a spokeswoman for the unitary authority said “the... Continue Reading →
Saturday 23rd May 2020 It’s been another week of mixed messages. On Wednesday Rees Mogg decided "work from home, but you should go to work if you can't work from home” (B. Johnson, 10th May) no longer applies to MPs (who've been successfully working from home since the 'virtual Parliament' began after the Easter recess... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 19th May 2020 The Isle of Man is a treasure trove of transport delight. An efficient bus network; an electric tramway including to a mountain top; a steam railway; and a seafront horse tram. And they’re all included on an integrated visitor ‘Go Explore’ smartcard available for 1, 3, 5 or 7 days from... Continue Reading →
Saturday 16th May 2020 So much for an orderly transition out of lockdown in England. The DfT has been discussing timetable enhancements with train companies and TfL to apply from this Monday, 18th May for a few weeks, while discussions have also continued with CPT and bus operators about running more frequent services from the... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 12th May 2020 Back in the carefree pre Covid-19 days of travelling around the country for pleasure, on Wednesday 5th March, I found myself on a train from my local station, Hassocks in Sussex, up to London to seek out hydrogen fuelled buses on TfL route 444 before they were withdrawn from service. I’d... Continue Reading →
Saturday 9th May 2020 Week 7's almost over as speculation grows about how the hell we’re going to get out of the lockdown travel conundrum of providing enough capacity as restrictions ease without compromising social distancing while also avoiding an exponential increase in motoring, congestion and pollution. Anticipation has built towards Johnson’s announcement on Sunday... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 5th May 2020 Fancy a new rail station in your neck of the woods? If so, now’s a good time to get your persuasive case ready. Post Covid-19 deep economic recession aside, the Department for Transport and Network Rail are inviting bids for the third round of their New Stations Fund (NSF) in England... Continue Reading →
Saturday 2nd May 2020 Welcome to another weekly round up of corona-bus-and-train ramblings. (Reader alert: I've rambled on a bit more than usual this week.) First up, it’s been heartening to see bus and train companies doing their bit to support local communities as the Covid-19 crisis continues. Being active in the community is a great... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 28th April 2020 Back in Lockdown Week 1 at the end of March (remember that?) Transport Focus published the results of its annual Bus Passenger Survey. The trade press was by then busy furloughing so the report didn’t receive its usual extemsive coverage. Nor was it appropriate for bus companies to give their usual... Continue Reading →
Saturday 25th April 2020 Lockdown Week 5 will soon be over and done with and there’s a definite air of the new ‘normal’ becoming normalised. I’ve become unnervingly accustomed to seeing empty buses sauntering along traffic free roads and trains gliding along the tracks carrying fresh air and not thinking it won’t be long before... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 21st April 2020 My good friend Ray Stenning has only gone and done it again. Following last year's publication of 'Ribble' by Roger Davies, Ray's teamed up with career busman and retired engineer David Toy to publish another superb book you won't regret buying. This one tells the story of the much loved Maidstone... Continue Reading →
Saturday 18th April 2020 And so Lockdown Week 4 is nearly at an end and we’re still very much in the ‘who’d have thought it’ phase of Covid-19's transport fallout. From free bus travel across most of London to committing billions on HS2; it’s been quite another week. This coming Monday sees TfL’s finances take... Continue Reading →
Thursday 16th April 2020 It was always a bit of a luxury for a town of little over 12,000 population to be blessed with three stations all within half-a-mile of each other. Back in its heyday the south coast port of Newhaven would welcome trains direct from Victoria terminating at Newhaven Marine station for what... Continue Reading →
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