Sunday 12th April 2020 Demand side Bus and train 1 Will companies encourage many of their employees to continue working from home thereby reducing the need for costly offices/work spaces with a consequential reduction in travel demand, particularly at peak times? 2 Will the significant increase in online shopping continue at Covid-19 levels with a... Continue Reading →
Friday 10th April 2020 As the end of week 3 of Lockdown Britain approaches, aside from the severely reduced service levels now applying across the country's bus and train networks amply catering for the approximate 5-10% of normal passenger journeys, it's sad, but inevitable, to see a number of operators and services suspended altogether. Subject... Continue Reading →
Monday 6th April 2020 With the continued absence of travel, I thought I’d have a browse online at public consultations for various transport plans and projects. There’s one closing today which is part of Network Rail’s continuing Brighton Main Line (BML) upgrade project: a proposal to build a new 12-car ‘turn back’ platform at Reigate... Continue Reading →
Friday 3rd April 2020 A couple of weeks ago I suggested these unprecedented times might be a good opportunity to give Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) a really good try out to see if its unproven business model would work in the current corona circumstances. With demand for traditional bus services plummeting to around 10% (or even... Continue Reading →
Sunday 29th March 2020 It's been hugely impressive to see central and devolved governments, local authorities and bus operators (with trade association CPT) working together to come up with a pragmatic plan to keep the bus industry in intensive care for the next few weeks. Slaying the sacred cow of the 'no better or no... Continue Reading →
Sunday 22nd March 2020 The trouble with sitting at home instead of travelling around the country is it gives too much time to ponder; so here are a few more thoughts on the extraordinary situation we've now found ourselves in. There's no doubt bus and train companies are going to run out of cash pretty... Continue Reading →
Saturday 21st March 2020 Prime Minister Harold Wilson coined the famous phrase "a week is a long time in politics" after tumultuous events before the 1964 General Election enabling Labour to overturn an expected Conservative victory by thirteen seats. I wonder what he'd have made of the seismic developments over the last seven days as... Continue Reading →
Thursday 19th March 2020 I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard 'unprecedented' used so often than in the last week. Even that's unprecedented. Unprecedented has become the new normal. In fast changing developments it’s difficult to predict what we’ll be facing at the weekend, let alone next week. Only a few days ago in... Continue Reading →
Monday 16th March 2020 For those who enjoy trying out new bus routes and train services, as I do, there are some exciting developments planned for the next few weeks. Or are there? Not just because I’m personally ceasing travel for my own health and wellbeing during the current pandemic crisis, but my guess is... Continue Reading →
Thursday 12th March 2020 London’s so called ‘integrated transport system’ with its much lauded ‘seamless ticketing’ didn’t work for me on Monday. TfL’s ticket machines at stations on the Metropolitan Line also served by Chiltern Railways (ie Harrow-on-the-Hill, Rickmansworth, Chorleywood, Chalfont & Latimer and Amersham) are unable to sell tickets with a Senior Railcard discount.... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 10th March 2020 I’ve always had a fascination with maps including discovering duplicates of place names. None more so than my north London birthplace: Winchmore Hill in London’s N21 postal district. This particular place name pair has held an obsession ever since I covered my study bedroom wall at University with Ordnance Survey maps […]
Sunday 8th March 2020 Dublin's hotly contested airport to city centre public transport market began a new three way contest this week with the arrival of a new Dublin Express branded route run by Bernard Kavanagh Coaches on behalf of National Express alongside the long established Airlink operated by Dublin Bus and Aircoach run by... Continue Reading →
Thursday 5th March 2020 TfL's hydrogen powered single deck buses reach their final terminus tomorrow so I took a couple of rides on board for one last time today. TfL first trialled hydrogen propulsion for a couple of years from 2004 as part of an EU wide trial in ten cities to test the technology. TfL used... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Hull Trains introduced its first Hitachi built Class 802 train three months ago and as four of the five seat sets on order are now with the Company, it seemed a good time to take a ride and see how they differ, if at all, from similar trains run by GWR,... Continue Reading →
Monday 2nd March 2020 Stagecoach rolled out its high profile £16.5 million investment in 32 BYD ADL Enviro400EV double deckers yesterday so I popped up to Manchester today to take a look. They're zero emission electric buses and in a nice piece of purchase symmetry the Government's Ultra-Low Emission Bus Scheme contributed a handy £6.9... Continue Reading →
Saturday 29th February 2020 A long overdue overnight visit to some friends living in the delightful market town of Stamford was a great opportunity to sample a couple of Lincolnshire’s bus routes on Thursday and yesterday. The foul weather put paid to more extensive travelling; pouring rain and misted up windows are a lethal combination... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 25th February 2020 After Friday's Tees teaser I spotted the new 'Tees flex' app became available to download over the weekend so armed with that and the zonal maps which blog readers kindly pointed out were on Stagecoach's 'Tees flex' webpage as click throughs from the zonal names, I was able to plan today's... Continue Reading →
Monday 24th February 2020 The rail line between Reedham and Great Yarmouth, on what's known as the Wherry Lines, closed back in October 2018 to allow for upgrade work on track, level crossings and signalling. Sixteen months later it's good to see the line has reopened today and trains are once again calling at the... Continue Reading →
Sunday 23rd February 2020 If was 100 years ago it would be called Norton Junction Station but as it's 2020 today's brand new addition to the National Rail network is christened Worcestershire Parkway. The £22 million GWR run station is located where the North Cotswold Line (from Paddington and Oxford to Worcester) crosses the main... Continue Reading →
Friday 21st February 2020 (updaated Saturday 22nd February) The latest Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) scheme gets going on Monday so I thought I’d prepare travel plans and be ready to try it out. Except it’s proving a bit trickier than I thought. It’s in the Tees Valley Combined Authority area and comprises three separate geographic... Continue Reading →
Thursday 20th February 2020 My travels today once again involved sampling more impressive shiny new buses from First Bus but this time with a few unexpected experiences along the way. Read on for a mixed bag report. First Essex introduced seven new double decks to their X30 Southend to Stansted Airport route yesterday together with... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 19th February 2020 I took a ride on the Cambridge Busway earlier today to look at Stagecoach's latest vehicles purchased specifically to increase capacity to meet growing demand on the popular link from St Ives to the city as well as other destinations as far away as Peterborough and Royston. Eighteen vehicles costing £5... Continue Reading →
Monday 17th February 2020 It's 'take a ride on another high profile brand new fleet of buses' time again. Another £5.3 million spend. Another whole route conversion. This time nineteen buses for First Eastern Counties' excel branded Norwich to Peterborough 84 mile route. And all this before Johnson's promise last week of "4,000 beautiful, bouncing,... Continue Reading →
Friday 14th February 2020 Three different bus routes link Aylesbury, the county town of Buckinghamshire, with the county's former largest town, Milton Keynes (once in Bucks but elevated to its own Unitary status in April 1997). Taking the train between the two towns isn't really a viable option as you have to go via London,... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 11th February 2020 New route 459 linking the small community of Iver in Buckinghamshire (just over the Greater London border) with Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 entered its third and final phase of introduction at the beginning of this month so I thought I'd follow up my previous visit in November with another ride around... Continue Reading →
Sunday 9th Febraury 2020 It seems not a week goes by at the moment without new 'state-of-the-art' vehicles being introduced to bus fleets around the Country; usually promoted with understandable emphasis on their green credentials at a time of increasing climate change concerns. None more so than in Basingstoke where Stagecoach South introduced a fleet... Continue Reading →
Friday 7th February 2020 Public transport provision in Epsom is somewhat anomalous. Along with neighbouring Ewell it was keen to stay on the Surrey side of the new Greater London boundary back in 1965 and TfL’s Zone 6 boundary is tantalisingly close to the town running between the previous stations to the north at Ewell... Continue Reading →
Thursday 6th February 2020 One of the benefits of being a member of the Chartered Institute of Transport is being able to attend its extensive programme of fascinating meetings and organised visits. One of these took place this afternoon to London Underground's relatively new control centre in Hammersmith overseeing the four 'sub-surface' lines (Metropolitan, District,... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 5th February 2020 I’ve yet to see a bus in what is officially dubbed the “people-powered new look” actually out on the road so these initial comments come with a health warning it might all look much better when seen in the flesh and I reserve the right to change my opinion. In the... Continue Reading →
Monday 3rd February 2020 - updated Wednesday 5th February 2020 First the good news. Rail passengers using Gatwick Airport will be pleased to see work finally get underway from May 2020 on the project to increase the station's capacity. Although an extra platform (7) was added in 2014 to reduce track congestion, particularly Gatwick Express... Continue Reading →
Monday 3rd February 2020 I gave my mate Roger Davies' book Ribble a plug when it was published last summer by my mate Ray Stenning and now it's time to extol the virtues of another book about 'the mighty' Ribble, by another colleague from years back, Paul Kirkham. Except this book takes a completely different... Continue Reading →
Friday 31st January 2020 Bordon and Whitehill are two linked communities in East Hampshire situated midway between Alton on the A31 and Hindhead on the A3 and south of Farnham. The area is one of ten demonstrator sites in the Government’s Healthy New Towns programme. Launched in 2015 the programme aims “to explore the development... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 28th January 2020 The competitive battle between National Express Coventry and Stagecoach Midlands notched up another gear yesterday with the former extending alternate journeys on their ten minute frequency route 20 running between Coventry and Bedworth every 20 minutes on to Nuneaton as a direct challenge to Stagecoach Midlands' long established, and long in... Continue Reading →
Saturday 25th January 2020 Bus route 497 linking unserved parts of Harold Hill in the London Borough of Havering with Harold Wood Station was first identified as a good idea by TfL bus planners in their 'Review of bus services in Harold Hill' report back in September 2016. This report took a look at new... Continue Reading →
Friday 24th January 2020 I don't often attend new bus PR razzmatazz type launches these days, much preferring to take a ride when they're actually in service earning their keep with passengers travelling on board. But I made an exception this morning having seen First Portsmouth's social media promoting their sparkly new buses for the... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Social media was buzzing this morning with news the previously announced withdrawal of Blackburn Bus Company's Red Express route X41 had been rescinded and the route will continue after all. This is good news for Lancastrians living in the Accrington, Haslingden to Ramsbottom corridor on the fringes of Greater Manchester who... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 21st January 2020 It's interesting to compare three recent launches of buses and brands in the last couple of weeks. Highest profile was Blackburn Bus Company's launch last weekend of 13 new ADL Enviro200 buses for route 1 running between Blackburn, Darwen and Bolton. This route runs at an impressive 7/8 minute frequency between... Continue Reading →
Friday 17th Janurary 2020 Last month's timetable change saw a greatly improved train service for Harrogate with LNER introducing direct trains to and from London Kings Cross every two hours; a substantial increase over the once a day journey which previously ran. Six daily southbound departures from Harrogate leave at 07:34; 09:36; 11:36; 13:36; 15:36 and... Continue Reading →
Monday 13th January 2020 Ride sharing's been around since the first horse bus began plying it's way but the modern incarnation envisages using a website or app to book a journey and clever software linking you up with other people going the same way, because that's what clever software can do. The fact there aren't... Continue Reading →
Friday 10th January 2020 I took a couple of train journeys today to catch up on two recent rail industry developments. First up was SWR's newly refurbished Class 442 trains now back in service after a bit of hiatus last summer after issues with the door locking mechanism and then compatibility with signal equipment. Apparently... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 8th January 2020 Abellio run Greater Anglia committed to introducing a completely new train fleet of 1,043 carriages across its network in its successful nine year franchise bid which began in 2016. First of these into service came Stadler built FLIRT Class 755 bi-mode trains introduced on the Wherry Lines last July. These were... Continue Reading →
Monday 6th January 2020 Universities are good business for bus companies. Many towns and cities benefit from having a network of attractive frequencies and buses running late into the night thanks to student travel. Despite this few, if any, University travel markets are hotly contested with competitive bus services. One exception is the University of... Continue Reading →
Thursday 2nd January 2020 I looked enviously at Paddington's departure board this morning seeing the 09:15 departure to Bristol Temple Meads, with its attractive non-stop 68 minute run to Bristol Parkway, 'boarding' yet still eluding me. Today was the first opportunity to have another try of enjoying the 'non-stop' experience after its hit and miss... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 1st January 2020 Head to head competition between First Essex and Go-Ahead owned Hedingham between Colchester and Clacton-on-Sea comes to an end on Saturday. First Essex closed its Clacton-on-Sea base back in July 2018 with Hedingham taking over the town's local bus routes leaving First running only the three-bus-an-hour inter-urban link from Colchester to... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 31st December 2019 Go-Ahead owned Carousel extended its High Wycombe to Uxbridge route 102 on to Heathrow Airport on Sunday; I took a ride yesterday to try it out. The route is part of the Chiltern Hundreds (routes numbered 101 to 105 - get it?) branded buses running between High Wycombe, Beaconsfield and Slough/Watford/Uxbridge... Continue Reading →
Did you miss the BusAndTrainUser Quiz of the Year? Take a look via the link above before sneaking a peak at the answers below..... 1 What comes fourth in the sequence: Lincoln, Aberdeen, Inverness ….? Harrogate - LNER began running its new Azuma branded trains to Lincoln on 21st October, to Aberdeen on 26th November,... Continue Reading →
Saturday 21st December 2019 A very warm welcome once again to my annual round up and review of what was in, who was out and the events that may have passed you by in the World of Buses and Trains during 2019; plus, as ever, the only prestigious awards worthy of the word prestigious …... Continue Reading →
Thursday 19th December 2019 Following Monday's disappointment at missing out on the inaugural GWR Paddington to Bristol Parkway non-stop journey at 09:15 after the journey was cancelled following a signal failure in the Slough area, I decided to give it another try yesterday. Having got my fingers burnt on Monday by GWR's sneaky retime last... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 18th December 2019 There's never a good time to have a complete signal failure at East Croydon but for the power to go down just as the evening peak is kicking in around 16:45 is probably one of the worst of times. I'm sure everyone at Network Rail did their very best to get... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 17th December 2019 A second new station on Britain's rail network opened on Sunday (in addition to Warrington West which I visited yesterday). This one's at Robroyston, located north east of Glasgow so I popped up this morning to see how it compares. It's on the Glasgow to Edinburgh line via Cumbernauld and Falkirk... Continue Reading →
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