Saturday 10th May 2025 Continuing my Top 10 countdown towards the country's Quirkiest Bus Route takes us this month to Devon to ride Britain’s least frequent schedule bus service. Tavistock Country Bus operated route 112 famously runs just one return journey on the fifth Saturday of the month between April and September linking the company's... Continue Reading →
Thursday 8th May 2025 Here’s another fabulous bus route that needs adding to the list of Britain’s Most Scenic Bus Routes. Introduced in June 2024, thanks to Bus Service Improvement Plan funding from Derbyshire County Council, it's another star performer in the Derbyshire Peak District. Branded as PeakPathfinder, High Peak operated route 62 comprises three... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 6th May 2025 It’s always heartening to see another small enterprising bus operator launch a brand new commercial bus route to tap into an unmet market. Black Cat Travel began a new six return journeys a day, six days a week route between Lincoln and Retford on Saturday before last, so I took a... Continue Reading →
Saturday 3rd May 2025 Unlike Wakefield (featured in March) and Yeovil (featured last time) Newark’s two stations have no connecting line between them and furthermore are famous for the two separate lines on which they’re located - East Coast Main Line for Newark Northgate and the Nottingham-Lincoln line for Newark Castle, crossing each other on... Continue Reading →
Thursday 1st May 2025 Before May gets into its stride here's a look back at some of the things I spotted during April's travels, but didn't get round to blogging about. DRT developments First up a couple of DRT updates. Go-Coach Hire have three Sigma electric buses in the fleet on evaluation. A Sigma 10... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Aside from people blasting out music and conversations on their phones (see Saturday's blog), another annoyance travelling by bus these days is the impact of roadworks, whether it's a gruelling slow journey when on board due to consequential traffic queues or waiting in vain for a late running bus caught up... Continue Reading →
Saturday 26th April 2025 Good for the LibDems. They’ve proposed an amendment to the Bus Services Bill, currently going through Parliament, which would add people playing music and videos out loud on a phone speaker on public transport to the list of antisocial behaviours such as dropping litter and using threatening behaviour. Anyone caught blasting... Continue Reading →
Thursday 24th April 2025 I took a ride on Red Eagle’s newly introduced route 500 on Tuesday to see how it was settling in. Readers may recall this competitive service against Arriva’s troubled route X5 between Hemel Hempstead and Aylesbury was announced a few weeks ago before Arriva publicly admitted it was throwing in the... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 22nd April 2025 New tenders for subsidised bus services issued by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead earlier this month have meant changes to many routes and their operators with Go-Ahead's (Oxford Bus) owned Carousel expanding its reach as far as Staines and (Reading Buses' owned) Thames Valley taking on the infamous Windsor... Continue Reading →
Monday 21st April 2025 This Easter weekend's blogfest began with a Book Review, so it seems appropriate to bookend it with another. Keith Shayshutt has just published another treasure trove of nostalgia comprising historic details about bus route and operational developments over a period of time in a geographic area. Following his previous books looking... Continue Reading →
Sunday 20th April 2025 Yeovil Pen Mill I'm back on the fortnightly wander around places with two stations today and following my visit to Wakefield a month ago, here’s another pair of stations between which trains run in public service, albeit here in Yeovil, not very many. Yeovil Junction Timings of the limited number of... Continue Reading →
Saturday 19th April 2025 Today's post celebrates a true bus and rail industry legend who reached the milestone age of 75 yesterday. To mark the occasion my good friend Ray Stenning was given a surprise birthday celebration with 30 close friends and colleagues door stopping his home/office in Shepherds Bush late yesterday morning on a... Continue Reading →
Friday 18th April 2025 Welcome to the first of an Easter special of daily posts over the bank holiday weekend and kicking these off here's a review of a splendid new book that's just been self-published by blog reader Eric R Sykes. As the title suggests the book features scenic bus routes that can be... Continue Reading →
Thursday 17th April 2025 There’s a new ‘kid on the block’ providing express coaches between London and Stansted Airport. Flibco has been awarded a five year contract by the Airport's owners commencing 1st April, replacing previous incumbent Airport Bus Express, for the lucrative link to Stratford and Liverpool Street where it competes with National Express,... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 15th April 2025 Readers may recall an Explore Wales trip I did with my brother last September when we missed out on a planned journey on the lovely Sherpa'r Wyddfa branded route S1 through Llanberis and a ride on the Conwy Valley railway line from Betws-y-Coed to Llandudno Junction due to a late running... Continue Reading →
Saturday 12th April 2025 After Windsor and Northumberland I'm in south west London for this month's featured bus route I've ranked eighth in Britain's Top 10 Quirky Bus Routes. It's a TfL contracted route, operated by Transport UK (formerly Abelllio), running from Whitton via Richmond, Mortlake and Barnes to Roehampton. Some readers might be puzzling... Continue Reading →
Thursday 10th April 2025 Last Saturday I had the pleasure and privilege of speaking at the annual South East Bus Festival held at the Kent County Showground at Detling near Maidstone. What a lovely day it was with thousands of visitors wandering around the large display of buses, old and new, enjoying glorious sunshine as... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 8th April 2025 Welcome to the brand new cross-River Silvertown Tunnel linking North Greenwich with Leamouth and Docklands with the aim of relieving congestion in the nearby Blackwall Tunnel. It opened yesterday, on time and on budget (£2.2 billion). The 0.9 mile tunnel includes a lane dedicated to buses and lorries and sees one... Continue Reading →
Saturday 5th April 2025 Situated in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport in Greater Manchester... ... the Ordnance Survey map gives the suburb of Reddish five named areas. North Reddish, Mid Reddish, Reddish Green, Reddish Vale and South Reddish. The first and last of these give their names to the area’s two railway stations - Reddish... Continue Reading →
Thursday 3rd April 2025 Welcome to another round-up of miscellany that's caught my eye during recent travels and apologies for it being a few days after the month end, but Hulleys, Orpington and Oakham took priority. First Bus restructures (again) If it seems Arriva, First Bus and Stagecoach are for ever restructuring or launching transformative... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Answer: Both places saw a bus route denoted by the letter R withdrawn over the weekend. In TfL's continuing drive for efficiencies to save a few vehicles here and there (it all helps with Superloop expansion), from Saturday, it rerouted the already circuitous half-hourly route B14 (Bexleyheath-Sidcup-St Mary Cray-Orpington) to take... Continue Reading →
Saturday 29th March 2025 It's been on the cards for months, if not a couple of years; it’s the sad demise of Hulleys of Baslow (“Proudly serving the Peak District since 1921”) which finally came to pass on Wednesday. Emergency short term contracts were awarded by Derbyshire County Council commencing on Thursday, just in the... Continue Reading →
Thursday 27th March 2025 The latest issue of Passenger Transport fortnightly magazine is leading on a story originally covered in The Times newspaper that "Ministers saw how Greater Manchester’s Bee Network rebrand changed public perceptions almost overnight – and want the same bounce for rail". It goes on to report "the government is set to... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 25th March 2025 Many inter-urban bus routes have seen booming passenger demand in recent years as bus companies invest in new vehicles, improved frequencies and attractive branding to encourage growth along key corridors. But on the border of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire it’s a different story. Specifically the Aylesbury to Hemel Hempstead corridor along what... Continue Reading →
Saturday 22nd March 2025 I first became familiar with Wakefield’s two railway stations, Westgate and Kirkgate, 50 years ago when embarking on my full time bus industry career in 1975 with the National Bus Company’s West Riding subsidiary based in the city. I recall arriving, carrying a heavy suitcase (no wheeled suitcases in those days),... Continue Reading →
Thursday 20th March 2025 Oh no! I hear you cry. “Not another blog about DRT”. “He’s obsessed with it”. It’s just I’m trying to find one that works and it’s not my fault, nine years on, that search continues. Beginning on 27th January, this latest offering is from Telford & Wrekin Council being particularly aimed... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 18th March 2025 The much anticipated autonomous bus trial on public roads in Sunderland city centre began earlier this month. I took a ride last Tuesday, interested to see how it compares with other trials I’ve experienced in Didcot, Edinburgh, Milton Keynes and Harwell campus over the last few years. It was the Aurrigo... Continue Reading →
Saturday 15th March 2025 This year's monthly blog series is counting down Britain's quirky bus routes. Following last month's wander through Windsor Great Park using roads out-of-bounds to ordinary traffic on White Bus route 01, this month we're heading north for a ride on a route where the bus timetable is determined by the tide... Continue Reading →
Thursday 13th March 2025 The long awaited smart new Class 555 trains for the Tyne & Wear Metro are slowly entering service and I was fortunate to have a guided tour of one of the new fleet on a visit kindly hosted by Nexus as part of the Young Bus Professionals conference held recently in... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 11th March 2025 The latest addition to the DRT scene ‘soft launched’ last week. Funded by Hampshire County Council’s Bus Service Improvement Plan the service involves two vehicles serving a rural area centred on Andover in the Northern Test Valley. The operation uses Padam software with on the road operations in the hands of... Continue Reading →
Saturday 8th March 2025 1849 was a good year for railways in Windsor. It was the year when both the town's termini opened. What's now called Windsor & Eton Central opened first, on 9th October, by the Great Western Railway and what is now, South Western Railway's station in Datchet Road (now called Windsor &... Continue Reading →
Thursday 6th March 2025 It’s been quite a few years since Reading and Maidenhead were linked with a regular direct bus route. The connection was once a mainstay inter-urban route operated by the old Thames Valley Traction Company Ltd (inevitably numbered 1 in its extensive network across Berkshire) but excellent rail links between the two... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 4th March 2025 I had the pleasure and privilege of co-hosting another fascinating conference for young professionals working in the bus industry on Wednesday and Thursday last week in Newcastle. It was one of the twice-a-year conferences held at various locations around the country to encourage and inspire young managers as well as share... Continue Reading →
Saturday 1st March 2025 It's not just Eastenders and Comic Relief's Red Nose Day celebrating a 40th anniversary this year. I am too, and more pertinently, today. 1st March 1985 saw the mighty Southdown bus company, whose buses and coaches had reigned supreme across Sussex and East Hampshire since formation in 1915, reorganised into six... Continue Reading →
Thursday 27th February 2025 Another month end and another potpourri mix of miscellany spotted as I've travelled around. Hydrogen blockage eases to power more buses in Surrey At long last it seems Metrobus has been able to start using the permanent Hydrogen storage facility at its Crawley bus garage albeit not yet to the extent... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 25th February 2025 Lanarkshire based JMB Travel reintroduced route X1 last month (13th January), reinstating a fast motorway link between Hillhouse, Hamilton and Glasgow that was abandoned by First Bus in 2020. Flashback to happy days when smiling children adorned printed timetables for First Bus Although First Bus cut the route during the early... Continue Reading →
Saturday 22nd February 2025 Neither of Dorchester's two railway stations are particularly busy when compared to the six stations featured so far in this fortnightly series (Hertford, Canterbury and Wigan) but Dorchester South, which arrived on the scene first, in 1847, beats its near neighbour, Dorchester West, by virtue of hosting South Western Railway's twice-an-hour... Continue Reading →
Thursday 20th February 2025 Hello A new bus station opened in Gosport last October and I finally got round to paying a visit last Friday to take a look. It's been built alongside the old site which, after 52 years, had definitely seen better days, and, like its predecessor, is conveniently located next to the... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 18th February 2025 The DfT got round to publishing a report evaluating “the first 10 months of the £2 bus fare cap” (£2BFC) last week. It had been handed over to the DfT last November being compiled by consultants SYSTRA and Frontier Economics. But it only evaluates the first 10 months of the scheme... Continue Reading →
Saturday 15th February 2025 Welcome to a new series of monthly blog posts for 2025 where, over the next 10 months, I’ll be counting down Britain's Top 10 Quirky Bus Routes each with an increasing quirkiness factor as we head towards No 1 in November. Appropriately enough the countdown kicks off with a bus service... Continue Reading →
Thursday 13th February 2025 Blog reader Geoff kindly drew my attention to a recent online news story in which Derbyshire Live, part of the Reach news group, used a clickbait headline implying all was not well for “a new Derby bus hub”. It's not yet been built and is linked to the huge residential development... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 11th February 2025 There was an understandable backlash in December 2024 when Transport for Wales reduced the timetable on the iconic Heart of Wales line between Swansea and Shrewsbury via Llandrindod Wells. Passengers had got used to having an improved five return journeys a day as well as evening journeys at each end of... Continue Reading →
Saturday 8th February 2025 Wigan’s two stations are both located on Wallgate just 100 metres apart. Tessa Sanderson could easily throw a javelin from one entrance to the other (assuming no pedestrians were about for obvious Health & Safety issues). Wigan North Western came first, opening in 1838 as plain Wigan with a renaming to... Continue Reading →
Thursday 6th February 2025 Southampton gained a new bus hub at the end of last year, and I got round to paying a visit early on Sunday morning to see what the £3.9 million spent has delivered. It's located on Castle Way by Albion Place south of the popular West Quay Shopping Centre and close... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 4th February 2025 As identified in a recent blog, the future of route 84B between Potters Bar and Barnet is far from secure with confirmed funding in place only until April. Hertsmere Borough Council stumped up the initial £183,600 to fund the service for its first 12 months in September 2023 after which Hertfordshire... Continue Reading →
Saturday 1st February 2025 Photo courtesy Inside Croydon Bus shelters in Croydon have been in the news again this week with online media reporting TfL is to "install, maintain and clean new bus shelters across more than 100 locations”. In fact 114 brand new shelters are destined for the Borough. Why the big news story?... Continue Reading →
Thursday 30th January 2025 Another month end; another round up of things I've 'seen around' but not blogged about. STP takes over KGX First up this month is my journey from London to Newcastle last Saturday which coincided with the closure of Kings Cross and the East Coast Main Line between London and Peterborough to... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 28th January 2025 It's not often a brand new motorway service area opens for business and even more rare for there to be a new bus route laid on to serve it, but that's exactly what happened on Friday before last when the new £40 million (some reports quote £55 million) Welcome Break services... Continue Reading →
Saturday 25th January 2025 Many thanks for all the positive feedback and comments about the first in this new fortnightly blog series featuring Hertford. I was enthralled to read the fascinating back stories and history about Hertford’s stations many of you kindly provided as well as making suggestions for future places to include as the... Continue Reading →
Thursday 23rd January 2025 The latest Hidden London tour from the London Transport Museum launched yesterday and I went along to see what's on offer. This one features a behind the scenes look at Green Park Underground station, or to give it its original name, Dover Street, with passageways, ventilation shafts and lift landings long... Continue Reading →
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