Tuesday 16th December 2025 I’ve been taking a look at three bus routes on which established bus companies are currently competing to see how things are working out. Morecambe-Carnforth: Routes 5 and 85 First up is in Lancashire where Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire began operating a couple of new hourly routes in the Morecambe area... Continue Reading →
Thursday 11th December 2025 Has TfL given up on Putney High Street? Never mind Oxford Street, it's Putney High Street that's got the bigger problem of air quality from slow moving traffic. The south west London shopping street leads south from Putney Bridge and is notorious for almost round-the clock daytime congestion and just like... Continue Reading →
Thursday 20th November 2025 You don’t have to spend long in Bury St Edmunds bus station to appreciate the variety of bus operators serving the town. Stephensons and Mulleys are frequent visitors... ... as well as Coach Services... ...Chambers and Simonds CountryLink... ... both now owned by... ...Transport Made Simple. For a town of around... Continue Reading →
Thursday 2nd October 2025 There’s never a dull moment in Cornwall’s ever changing bus scene. In recent times we’ve seen……First Bus show no interest in its Cornish operations, running ageing second hand vehicles in a dreadful state transferred from other parts of the country... ... allowing the rising star that was Western Greyhound... ...to steal... Continue Reading →
Thursday 18th September 2025 Scotland has two National Parks: Loch Lomond & The Trossachs and The Cairngorms. I enjoyed an absolutely brilliant day on Tuesday sampling two of Britain’s most scenic journeys - one across each National Park. If you enjoy a scenic bus and coach ride, I heartily recommend adding these two to any... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 16th September 2025 This post was going to be about my journey last Thursday on bus route LC6 which runs four times a day between Coalville and Hinckley Operated by Centrebus with one bus on behalf of Leicestershire County Council, the route was introduced on 26th August providing a north-south link between these communities... Continue Reading →
Sunday 7th September 2025 Blog reader Natasha recently got in touch to suggest I visit Chartwell House in Kent and sample the options to travel there by bus. Situated down a country lane (called Mapleton Road) off the B2026, Hosey Hill, south of Westerham, the National Trust property, famous for being the home of Sir... Continue Reading →
Thursday 28th August 2025 I recently experienced an enjoyable round trip through the Derbyshire Dales and Peaks which I thought I'd share. Alighting from the train at Derby's railway station a smart new '25' plate Kinchbus operated Enviro200 soon arrived on the Skylink branded route from Leicester and Loughborough to whisk me over to the... Continue Reading →
Thursday 21st August 2025 The end of this month sees changes to two bus routes that cross London’s border with Hertfordshire so a small group of bus industry veterans recently joined me for an enjoyable wander cross-crossing the border four times to sample routes 84B and 610 for one last time. We began our travels... Continue Reading →
Sunday 27th July 2025 Having tried out new route 714 and the soon-to-be-amended 'almost quirky' route 555 to one of Britain's best served villages, I can also report on a few other enjoyable journeys I made in the north of Surrey earlier this month. As previously explained on my first abortive attempt to visit Wisley,... Continue Reading →
Thursday 17th July 2025 Regular blog readers will appreciate I couldn’t resist giving last week’s media reports about the bus route costing a £180 subsidy per passenger journey in the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority area the BusAndTrainUser Verify treatment. Not that I disbelieved for one moment the veracity of the claim as it came... Continue Reading →
Sunday 13th July 2025 I'd never been to Whiteley Village prior to my bus wanderings around Surrey last week. I'd known it from seeing the destination emblazoned on the front of buses serving Heathrow Airport on route 555.... ....Whiteley Village being the southern terminus of the meandering route operated by White Bus which connects the... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 8th July 2025 The end of an era for two odd ball tendered bus routes beckons in a few weeks time. I took a ride on both routes last week to experience the passing of the old guard. Both upcoming changes are as a consequence of a county council re-tender exercise resulting in a... Continue Reading →
Saturday 5th July 2025 As TfL's Superloop brand becomes ever more nonsensical with more routes planned that are questionably 'super' and are certainly nothing about being part of a 'loop', I took a ride on one of the longest standing and original non-loop routes to be added to the brand - the SL6, renumbered from... Continue Reading →
Saturday 21st June 2025 Quite a bit of negativity was expressed on various online forums earlier this year when news broke First Bus was ceasing its extensive use of open-top buses in Cornwall this summer. These had run over the last few years with particular emphasis on attracting the post Covid growth in the leisure... Continue Reading →
Thursday 19th June 2025 I enjoyed a fleeting visit to the far south west corner of Cornwall at the beginning of this week to check out a few developments in the county’s bus network. Here’s the first of a couple of posts about those travels. (Part 2 follows on Saturday). First up when I arrived,... 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
Tuesday 29th October 2024 Today marks an important milestone in BusAndTrainUser blogging. This is blog number 997. And by a happy coincidence, ignoring Stagecoach's contrived route number 1066 (Hastings to Tunbridge Wells), 997 just happens to be the highest number taken by any of Britain’s scheduled daily bus routes (numbers 998 and 999 are school... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 15th October 2024 There's been understandable concern raised recently about the future role for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the bus sector particularly following the franchise experience in Greater Manchester where they didn't really get a look in and, aside from the University of Hertfordshire owned UNO, the recent withdrawal of the... Continue Reading →
Thursday 10th October 2024 Readers will know I like to get out and about and see what's actually happening on the road as well as on the tracks when commenting. Something I wish more managers and especially senior directors of transport companies would do more often so they can take informed decisions based on real... Continue Reading →
Thursday 26th September 2024 Here's another one of those community involvement success stories. It's from the Lake District where a volunteer-led community group called Sustainable and Integrated Transport for Ullswater (SITU) has set about organising and funding two additional bus routes to supplement Stagecoach's successful and well used bus network through the National Park. Key... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 3rd September 2024 I featured the three seasonal bus routes that ran in Kent this summer in a blog last month so thought I’d better also take a ride on neighbouring Medway’s summer offering before it ended last weekend. As you can see it was a convoluted circular route linking Chatham, Gillingham and Rainham... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 20th August 2024 It was fifty years ago in 1974 Jeff Morss set up his one man bus company called Fareline. Based in Wingfield, Suffolk - a village close to the County’s border with Norfolk, eight miles east of Diss - the Company has made a speciality of running rural bus routes in north... Continue Reading →
Saturday 10th August 2024 All is not well on a rural bus route in Bedford. As you can see from the above headlines in last week's trade press (Route One) and the Bedford Today online news website, a row has broken out between the respected locally based Grant Palmer bus company, Bedford Borough Council and... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 6th August 2024 This summer school holiday has seen three new bus routes hit the road in Kent. First up, commencing on Saturday 20th July, is a free shuttle bus on new route 51 connecting Folkestone West and Folkestone Central railway stations with Folkestone Harbour Crosskeys are running the daily service on behalf of... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 30th July 2024 As explained in a recent blog about Arriva’s exit from High Wycombe (enacted at the weekend), Carousel Buses and Reading Buses began providing their competitive replacement bus routes between Henley and Reading on Sunday. Carousel has replicated Arriva's previous routes 800 and 850, each on an hourly frequency between High Wycombe,... Continue Reading →
Saturday 27th July 2024 Norfolk is typical of a number of 'shire counties' embracing the opportunities presented by Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) funding in England. It doesn't have a high profile directly elected Mayor continually courting media coverage to spout the mantra about "taking back control". Instead, experienced and dedicated staff at the Council... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 16h June 2024 TfL introduced the final route change in its Central London Bus Review at the end of last month - the extensive proposals launched and consulted on during the summer of 2022. It never pays to rush these things. The delayed change involves route 211 which had operated between Hammersmith and Waterloo... Continue Reading →
Sunday 30th June 2024 Blog reader Stuart got in touch and kindly recommended I take a ride on the Faringdon Tourist Bus. It was a new one on me. A Saturday only route exploring border territory where Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire come together, comprising three circular round trips, each lasting almost two hours. Journeys leave... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 18th June 2024 Taking a ride on Pulhams Coaches route 801 has been on my to do list ever since seeing buses on the route pass through the delightful Bourton-on-the-Water when trying out the Robin DRT in November 2022. Spurred on by further suggestions to take a ride after contact from blog readers Chris... Continue Reading →
Thursday 6th June 2024 Readers will recall Tuesday's blog saw us ending Part 1 of our round London Superloop odyssey beginning at East Croydon having only reached as far as Finchley Central rather than the planned Walthamstow Central. Thanks to light rain conditions, unimpressive aged vehicles on the SL7 to Heathrow, slow going through Northolt... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 4th June 2024 The small gang of intrepid (mostly retired) busmen who do occasional bizarre London based bus trips has been at it again. Way back before Superloop was even a glint in a Mayoral eye, in June 2016, some of the team circumnavigated the extreme outer edge of the Capital's bus network using... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 28th May 2024 It's good to see the First Bus takeover of Ensignbus last year hasn't stopped the Purfleet based company being its usual entrepreneurial best over the Bank Holiday weekend, when it once again added a fleet of heritage open-top buses to its now traditional seafront service from Southend-on-Sea's world famous Pier. And... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 21st May 2024 Matt Kitchin and his Stagecoach Yorkshire team launched the Peak Sightseer open-top bus route in conjunction with Derbyshire County Council last summer. As explained when I blogged about the route last August, the route was a collaboration between Stagecoach, the County Council, the National Park Authority and Chatsworth House operating to... Continue Reading →
Thursday 16th May 2024 This week has seen Stagecoach South East re-enter the Brighton-Eastbourne market competing directly with both Brighton & Hove (B&H) and Southern Rail in East Sussex while in neighbouring West Sussex, B&H's sister company, Metrobus, has revved up its route 273 to better serve the Crawley-Brighton market. The Stagecoach South East initiative... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 7th May 2024 There are some great examples of community organised bus routes around the country. Perhaps most famous are DalesBus and MoorsBus where volunteers oversee bus networks serving the two National Parks (Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors) with financial contributions and sponsorship from local businesses as well as support from local authorities.... Continue Reading →
Thursday 2nd May 2024 A few weeks ago a partnership between Arriva and Stagecoach was announced. It's part of the Leicestershire Enhanced Bus Partnership and has seen the two bus companies amend timetables of their respective hourly routes (X3 and X7) between Market Harborough and Leicester so there’s a more even half hourly frequency from... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 16th April 2024 What do the three bus routes linking Maidstone with Ashford; Ashford with Canterbury; and Canterbury with Maidstone have in common? And I don't mean they're all operated by Stagecoach South East. And I don't mean they’re all (usually) operated by Enviro 400 double deck buses. And I don't mean they'e all... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 2nd April 2024 It’s not often a bus service has to succumb to a 10 mile diversion due to a road closure resulting in half its route and two villages left unserved for up to six months. That’s what happened when Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks embarked on its multi-million pound “Alton-Bordon Network Investment”... Continue Reading →
Saturday 16th March 2024 This month sees three high profile public transport networks change hands. Firstly in Northampton, unō withdrew from its operations last weekend (9th March) after 11 and a half years in the town to be replaced by Stagecoach. Secondly next Thursday (21st March) Stagecoach ends its 27 year tenure operating the Sheffield... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 12th March 2024 I paid a visit to Somerset last Wednesday to investigate an interesting development in that county’s bus scene. Both Somerset and North Somerset Councils have used some of their BSIP funds to reinstate route 126 between Weston-Super-Mare and Wells. Regular readers may recall I took a ride on the route just... Continue Reading →
Saturday 13th January 2024 Arriva introduced a new ‘Connexions’ brand with a suite of changed route numbers using the X prefix for its inter-urban network based on Aylesbury this week. It’s a very welcome step presenting a joined up route network with easy to understand timetables. The first rule of renumbering is to have plenty... Continue Reading →
... costing £250 per passenger. Thursday 28th December 2023 Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority Mayor Nik Johnson has aspirations to take control of the region’s bus network through franchising but if a recent meeting of the Authority’s Transport & Infrastructure Committee is anything to go by, he’s going to have his work cut out to... Continue Reading →
Thursday 21st December 2023 Newbury & District (part of the Reading Buses suite of bus operations) has recently introduced three new Volvo B8R Plaxton Panther 3 coaches on the fledgling flightline branded route between Basingstoke, Frimley, Camberley, Bagshot and Heathrow Airport, so I made a return visit last Saturday to see how the route was... Continue Reading →
Thursday 26th October 2023 A ride on the Waverley paddle steamer Earlier this month the famous Waverley - the world's last seagoing paddle steamer - was in London operating a series of daily tours along the Thames estuary as part of its Summer seasonal programme of trips around the coast of Britain. The paddle steamer... Continue Reading →
BusAndTrainUser 