Saturday 23rd January 2021 Photo courtesy of The Guardian We've heard a lot about "at pace" over the last ten months. I'm old enough to remember when PPE was being sourced "at pace"; when PPE was being rolled out "at pace"; when testing was being ramped up "at pace"; when laptops were being distributed to... Continue Reading →
Saturday 16th January 2021 I should have guessed. Just as we were reassured on a Sunday morning primary schools were perfectly safe to open yet by Monday evening they'd become "vectors of transmission" necessitating their closure, so having welcomed this latest lockdown's absence of Downing Street's damaging "avoid public transport” messaging in last week's round... Continue Reading →
Saturday 9th January 2021 There's nothing like a pandemic taking a serious turn for the worse (numbers infected, numbers in hospital, numbers dying all rising exponentially); the alert level rising to highest status five (“a material risk of healthcare services being overwhelmed”); and a new full-on, stay-at-home, Union-flag-in the-background, occasional-fist-thumping-the-table, grim-faced Prime Ministerial lockdown announcement... Continue Reading →
Sunday 3rd January 2021 Today marks the end of a train era on the Isle of Wight as the Island Line's infamous former Underground stock dating from 1938 is finally retired after 82 years front line service. They're by far the oldest trains running on the national network. Like a lot of people I enjoy... Continue Reading →
Sunday 20th December 2020 A very warm welcome to this socially distanced, Covid secure venue for our annual event in which we celebrate the 'World of Buses and Trains' with a round up of what's been happening in 2020 as well as handing out some very special awards and a quiz to test your knowledge... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 16th December 2020 No they won’t be; only joking. But the latest edition of TfL's Tube map has been updated and published both online and in print today. After much campaigning the Thameslink operated National Rail line has been added back ... and not just between Elephant & Castle through the 'core' to Kentish... Continue Reading →
Saturday 28th November 2020 Hi"'Tis the season to be jolly; but 'tis also the season to be jolly careful" our jolly jape Johnson jested in Monday's Downing Street press briefing launching England’s "Covid-19 Winter Plan". The next day saw Grant Shapps, the Cabinet Stooge doing the early turn breakfast media round, quizzed about people making... Continue Reading →
Saturday 21st November 2020 One big upside of this week’s so called Government ‘reset’ after Dom's Downing Street departure was Monday's welcome return of the Morgan-v-Hancock...Jenrick...Sharma...(et al) head-to-head on ITV’s Good Morning Britain. No-one does a Cabinet grilling quite like Piers Morgan and it's proving a ratings beating TV fest, but all the while the... Continue Reading →
Saturday 14th November 2020 Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, has obviously suffered a bad train experience some time in his past. He dampened down Monday's euphoria over the much anticipated roll out of a Covid-19 vaccine at the 10 Downing Street Press Conference by using the analogy of a train journey . "Where... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 21st October 2020 As the all too predictable battle for control of TfL rages amid the desperate need for further Covid funding from Government to keep the Capital's transport going, bus passengers in Sutton and Croydon are being asked for their views on a raft of changes proposed for bus routes serving the Boroughs.... Continue Reading →
Monday 5th October 2020 Transport Secretary Grant Shapps rolled out the usual sound bites when launching the Emergency Recovery Measures Agreements (replacing Emergency Measures Agreements) on the breakfast media round a couple of weeks ago. This is what he said on BBC Radio 4's flagship Today programme: "Today we've ended the franchise system after a... 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 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 →
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 →
Tuesday 26th November 2019 It's good to see more and more bus companies playing payment systems catch-up by accepting contactless cards as an alternative to cash. I'm not convinced the transaction time is quicker, and indeed could well be slower in the hands of a proficient and experienced cash handling driver, but it's the way... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 19th November 2019 Indeed it is; and many congratulations to Mark Fowles, managing director of Nottingham City Transport (NCT) and his entire team for picking up the coveted Bus Operator of the Year award at the UK Bus Awards’ annual ceremony in London this afternoon. Not only that, but congratulations also to Mark for... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 6th November 2019 Today's been an auspicious day for me. It's not my birthday but by dint of political chicanery back in 2010, my postcode and date-of-birth numbers have today, at last, come up in the concessionary bus fares entitlement lottery. There are now 8,500,001 people in England enjoying free travel on local bus... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Small independently owned bus companies are a vital part of the industry. They serve small size towns and rural areas which other plc group companies cannot reach. They're becoming increasingly important as the Groups try and reverse falling margins. These small businesses are usually run by dedicated passionate individuals working very... Continue Reading →
Friday 18th October 2019 There's rightly a lot of discussion about the impact of travelling by plane in the context of our global climate emergency; it pangs my conscious whenever I take a flight, and I don't do it very often, and when I do it's between London and Scotland, the Scottish islands or across... Continue Reading →
Thursday 11th October 2019 I spent an enjoyable couple of days this week helping to run the twice-a-year Young Bus Managers Network conference. It's always an inspiring event to attend with such encouraging positive energy and enthusiasm emenating from around 80 to 100 young people in their twenties and thirties; some fresh faced into the... Continue Reading →
Friday 20th September 2019 Well done UNO Bus, operator of TfL bus route 383 between Woodside Park and Barnet, for today's community led launch of the first decent route branding on a London bus route for a few decades. The 383 may be a backwater north London bus route which takes a circuitous route east... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 25th June 2019 There's something seriously amiss with Caledonian Sleeper's train service. I've blogged about the new Mark 5 coaches a couple of times recently (here and here) highlighting the teething problems I encountered, in particular no water in the en-suite shower in my supposedly swanky new 'Club' room on two of the three... Continue Reading →
Saturday 15th June 2019 Today saw the much heralded cuts to a large number of central London bus routes including many changes to termini and amended routes. I previewed the changes in a post on 5th June foreseeing a major challenge as getting bus stop plates, timetables and spider maps updated. Having had a good... Continue Reading →
Friday 14th June 2019 Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? At a time when airports should be doing all they can to enhance their environmental credentials by encouraging passengers to use public transport you'd think a new bus route introduced in the dead of night entirely at the commercial risk of a bus company... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 5th June 2019 The countdown has begun. It's ten days until TfL introduce a swathe of bus cuts across central London beginning on Saturday 15th June 2019. Twenty-five bus routes are changing with withdrawals, frequency reductions and many altered termini. And this is only Part 1; Part 2 is promised for later in the... Continue Reading →
Monday 20th May 2019 Mid May's always a good month to buy an All Line Rover and have a wander around Britain's rail network taking a look at new initiatives introduced by various Train Operating Companies in the May timetable change. This year's changes are bound to be much smoother than last year's collective meltdown... Continue Reading →
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