Tuesday 14th February 2023 Inverness Airport railway station had an official opening on 2nd February Back in December I reported on four bus and train developments in and around Inverness: the introduction of Request To Stop facilities at Scotscalder on the Far North Line; new electric buses in Inverness; the about to open Inverness Airport... Continue Reading →
Saturday 11th February 2023 Chiltern Railways is how rail franchising was always meant to be. Commencing operations in July 1996 it was crucially awarded a lengthy 20 year franchise in 2000 enabling the late and much missed Adrian Shooter and his team to invest significantly in infrastructure improvements over that substantial timeline during which they... Continue Reading →
Thursday 9th February 2023 Tuesday's newspapers gave a strong sense of déjà-vu with reports of yet another impending bus cuts cliff edge as post Covid funding for bus services comes to an end on 31st March with registrations for any service withdrawals/amendments from that date due within the next week. We’ve been here twice before,... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 7th February 2023 The transformation of Transport for Wales' train fleet continues with new Stadler built diesel powered Class 231 trains now running on the Rhmney to Penarth line in the Cardiff Valleys. It follows November's launch of the first CAF built Class 197s in North Wales. The 11 trains which make up this... Continue Reading →
Saturday 4th February 2023 Welcome to another quarterly dose of nostalgia going back 40 years recalling what I got up to as the recently arrived Assistant Traffic Manager (ATM) at Southdown Motor Services Ltd, one of the National Bus Company’s prestigious subsidiaries based in Brighton with an operating area stretching along the south coast from... Continue Reading →
Thursday 2nd February 2023 It’s been a long time coming, as these things always are at TfL. Having launched a consultation proposing the withdrawal of route 271 and associated changes to routes 21, 141, 143, and 263 as long ago as November 2021, the end is finally here. Tomorrow is the last day to enjoy... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 31st January 2023 Message to email subscribers: I am very sorry some subscribers didn't receive Saturday's blog and quite likely today's too. I have raised this issue with WordPress and asked them to urgently look into it. One of their “Happiness Engineers” (yes, really) has been in touch to advise ‘there is an ongoing... Continue Reading →
Saturday 28th January 2023 Blackpool Transport's history can be traced back 138 years to the Town Council's introduction of trams in September 1885. However, my 2023 fortnightly A-to-Z wander through selected bus and train operators is meant to be a contemporary commentary rather than a history lesson, so let's fast forward and see what the... Continue Reading →
Thursday 26th January 2023 The first of Merseyrail's new fleet of 53 trains finally entered service on Monday morning. Ordered back in 2016 to replace the ageing Class 507/508, the new Class 777 trains were originally due into service in 2019/20, but as is the way with these things manufacturing delays, delivery delays, handover delays... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 24th January 2023 No; not the motorway although obviously the M4 does go to Bristol. The clue is in the lower case 'm'. This is all about Bristol's latest new bus route as part of the city's metrobus branded network which began on Sunday. The new route m4 runs from Cribbs Causeway to the... Continue Reading →
Saturday 21st January 2023 Tomorrow sees one of England’s seven jointly operated inter-urban bus routes change to be operated by just one company. After today Arriva are quitting the long established route 685 between Newcastle and Carlisle with fellow operator Stagecoach taking over Arriva’s three bus workings increasing their commitment from two buses up to... Continue Reading →
Thursday 18th January 2023 This month’s miscellany I spotted on recent travels. Coalville information I was in Coalville on Tuesday. It has two locations in the town centre where buses congregate - one called Marlborough Square and the other Memorial Square. It can be confusing for visitors but credit to Leicestershire County Council which has... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 17th January 2023 2023 will see another impressive number of new railway stations added to the network. This follows a busy 2022 when five new Crossrail stations opened (Canary Wharf, Custom House, Tottenham Court Road, Woolwich, and Bond Street) as well as two others (Reston and Barking Riverside). This follows only two openings in... Continue Reading →
Saturday 14th January 2023 Welcome to another year of A to Z fortnightly blogposts which for 2023 are featuring bus and train companies. I’m beginning with the ironically named Avanti West Coast .... bearing in mind recent history, ‘Avanti’ is Italian for ‘Forward’ “reflecting a mission to deliver an innovative railway service that is ready... Continue Reading →
Thursday 12th January 2023 The Chiltern Railways ‘ghost bus’ ran for the first time yesterday demonstrating our railway at its most bizarre. It was a whacky Wednesday welcome to a superfluous one-journey-a-week outing between West Ealing and West Ruislip stations which no passengers in their right minds will ever use other than for the enjoyment... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 10th January 2023 For the purposes of this blog please imagine you've woken up and it's July 1960. You're just catching a train on the Hertford North line from Grange Park station and in the booking office propped up against the ticket office window are a pile of little orange books. You know immediately... Continue Reading →
Saturday 7th January 2023 Listening to Mark Harper, Secretary of State for Transport and Mick Lynch, General Secretary of the RMT doing the media rounds during this week’s strikes brought home the dysfunctional state of Britain’s railways. There seems no hope of an early resolution to the current industrial disputes while a state of paralysis... Continue Reading →
Thursday 5th January 2023 There are some great bus routes along the northern coastlines of Somerset, Devon and Cornwall especially since Cornwall Council won the bus support funding lottery and First Bus found they could prosper by attracting the leisure travel market. I’ve ridden the complete coastline a few times over the last few years... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 3rd January 2023 I visited Devon at the end of last week and after all the negative media coverage of Stagecoach’s driver shortage last summer it was heartening to see some positive developments, particularly in Exeter. I hadn’t been back to the city’s new bus station since it opened in July 2021 so it... Continue Reading →
Saturday 31st December 2022 Today was going to be the last day of operation for the Hythe Ferry. The hourly service links the town, on the west side of Southampton Water, with Southampton. Blue Funnel Ferries have been running the service since taking it over from previous owners White Horse Ferries in April 2017. Rising... Continue Reading →
Thursday 29th December 2022 I wrote about my journey on Britain's shortest bus route back in August. That was Vectare's route 30 introduced in January 2022 between St Margaret's Hospital, Epping and Coopersale with a four minute end-to-end journey time. At that time a number of blog readers kindly suggested more contenders for a top... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 27th December 2022 Another month; another potpourri of miscellany. Another great Ensignbus running day A big shout out to the Newman family (Peter, Steve and Ross) for organising another great running day based on Lakeside at the beginning of the month. It's proving to be one of the most popular events of its kind... Continue Reading →
Saturday 24th December 2022 Dear Santa I know it's your busiest day and night of the year, but please can you deliver something from my list (I’ve not been naughty this year) …. A network bus map produced by TfL to the style adopted up until 2016 for buses in London in both online and... Continue Reading →
Thursday 22nd December 2022 Four new unusual bus routes started running in north London this week. That’s the introductory paragraph I optimistically wrote as I left home yesterday morning to try them out. Spoiler alert: one never ran; one had such a long gap in service I gave up waiting; one was extensively disrupted by... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 20th December 2022 It's one of those weeks for end of year reviews and news round ups so I thought a few updates on how Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) is going would be in order particularly as the DfT and so many local authorities have such high hopes for it. 2022 has seen nine... Continue Reading →
Sunday 18th December 2022 A blog link to a vlog. 100 Bus and Train Events in 2022. 100 clips in 10 minutes. See how many you recognise. A listing of all 100 events is in the comments. Click here for the video. Roger French Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS
Saturday 17th December 2022 Photo of the Year: Nicely encapsulating the state of politics and transport in the country in 2022: the then Chancellor Rishi Sunak, promotes a 5p per litre fuel duty cut introduced in one of the many Budgets/Fiscal Events this year (the one in March) notwithstanding the need to cut car use... Continue Reading →
Thursday 15th December 2022 I spent a couple of days earlier this week in Inverness checking out some recent bus and train developments. 1. Request to Stop This innovation is being rolled out by ScotRail on the Far North Line from Inverness to Thurso and Wick. The idea is when passengers require a train to... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 13th December 2022 Among the bus service cuts made by Stagecoach East at the end of October were changes to the company’s bus routes between Peterborough and the market towns of March, Spalding and Ramsey. Route 33 provides a long established link to March and used to run hourly but cut back to two-hourly... Continue Reading →
Saturday 10th December 2022 Welcome to my final A to Z fortnightly exploration of public transport provision in Britain's mid sized towns which brings me to Somerset. Yeovil is the county’s second largest town after Taunton, having a population of around 48,000 making it just a bit larger than Bridgewater and Frome. Its in the... Continue Reading →
Thursday 8th December 2022 Yesterday saw the final outing for Chiltern Railways' quirky anomalous once-a week journey between West Ealing and West Ruislip. It’s been what's called a ‘Parliamentary Train’ to retain driver route knowledge on the former Great Western line out of Paddington that parallels London Underground’s Central line between Hanger Lane, Greenford and... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 6th December 2022 Safeguard Coaches managing director, Andrew Halliday contacted me last week suggesting I might like to sample the company's two recently delivered new Volvo B8R/MCV Evoras (spelt eVoRas - just to be different I guess). It sounded a good idea and one not to miss out on so yesterday morning found me... Continue Reading →
Saturday 3rd December 2022 And so to the third and final of my palindromic anagram London bus route riding trilogy. Having enjoyed the 123/321 and 132/231 it can only be the turn of routes 213 and 312 thus completing the only six route palindromic anagram possible on TfL's bus network. So far I’ve not had... Continue Reading →
Thursday 1st December 2022 There aren’t many instances of head to head competition between bus companies these days, particularly not on inter urban corridors. So I was a bit surprised to see Arriva and D&G Bus are battling it out between Crewe and Macclesfield with each company running an hourly service numbered 38. The route... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 29th November 2022 Having enjoyed a recent ride on the new CAF built Class 196 trains with West Midlands Railway I headed off to North Wales last week to see if the new sister Class 197 units being introduced by Transport for Wales would be any different. Actually I was on my way over... Continue Reading →
Sunday 27th November 2022 Growing rail revenue was the theme of one of the sessions at the ‘Future of Britain’s Railways’ Conference held over two days last week as part of the Modern Railways Expo exhibition in Milton Keynes. Modern Railways editor Phil Sherratt kindly invited me to join the panel discussion along with Mark... Continue Reading →
Saturday 26th November 2022 Welcome to the penultimate AtoZ of public transport in 24 mid size British towns. Yes; despite all the speculation about eXmouth and Zennor, I’ve conceded defeat for X and Z but for today’s W, I was pleased to pay a visit to Weston-super-Mare a few weeks ago and see the progress... Continue Reading →
Thursday 24th November 2022 After all the hoo-ha in the summer over TfL's proposed severe cuts to central London’s bus routes reflecting its target to reduce mileage by 4%, better match service provision with reduced numbers travelling, simplify the network and reflect strains on TfL's struggling finances, it was announced yesterday almost all the proposals... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Having seen Irizar’s new ‘ie tram’ bus displayed at the EuroBus EXPO show earlier this month I thought I’d take a ride on Go-Ahead London’s route 358, where the buses are destined to enter service early next year, to see how they’re likely to perform on this busy route. It’s a... Continue Reading →
Saturday 19th November 2022 Welcome to November's pot pourri of observational miscellany from recent travels around the country. Keighley leaflet heaven How lovely to visit Keighley bus station and find a great selection of colourful timetable booklets all designed to encourage travel around the bus network. The cleaning trolley could usefully find another home though,... Continue Reading →
Thursday 17th November 2022 After my two palindrome rides on London's bus routes 123 and 321 last month, it seemed a good idea to repeat the adventure and do an anagram variant with a journey on both routes 132 and 231, not least because it made sense to ride the 132 after finishing my journey... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 15th November 2022 Aside from two new trains for Southend Pier it’s been three years since I’ve written a blog about new trains entering service. That’s because it’s been three years since any new trains entered service. Abellio owned West Midlands Trains' West Midlands Railway (WMR) division has recently broken that famine with the... Continue Reading →
Saturday 12th November 2022 Ventnor’s not exactly mid-size having a population of just 6,000 although many summer visitors add to that in the tourist season, but the tail end of the alphabet was always going to prove a challenge. Situated on the southern coast of the Isle of Wight Ventnor is around 11 miles south... Continue Reading →
Thursday 10th November 2022 Amongst all the gloom and depressing news on our railways: Train Operating Companies running reduced services and/or random cancellations and the continued impact and threat of industrial action; and bus companies: cutting services due to dire financial performance as well as cancellations for lack of drivers; it’s sometimes hard to find... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 8th November 2022 It's time for another new DRT try out. This one's in Gloucestershire where £1.35 million from the DfT’s Rural Mobility Fund is paying for two schemes to operate in the county for a two year trial. One is in the southern part of the Forest of Dean... ... and the other... Continue Reading →
Sunday 6th November 2022 When I wrote about Stagecoach East’s cuts to services back in September I mentioned two routes in Peterborough (routes 23/24) the company was withdrawing from for which I couldn’t find any timetables online. I’m grateful to Mel Holly and Brendan Fox for explaining the services were limited to just three or... Continue Reading →
Saturday 5th November 2022 I wrote about Stagecoach East’s service cuts back in September and suggested at that time there’ll be other bus companies based in the area that’ll likely come forward to take over the bus routes being withdrawn. Sure enough Grant Palmer, Stephensons and Vectare stepped forward and contracts have also gone to... Continue Reading →
Thursday 3rd November 2022 The Euro Bus EXPO 2022 show is on at the NEC over three days this week (it ends today, Thursday). I popped up for a quick look round on Tuesday’s opening day to check out what’s new since the last exhibition four years ago which I blogged about here. Back in... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 1st November 2022 Welcome to the first instalment of an occasional series looking back to this day 40 years ago. It stems from today being the exact 40th Anniversary of my arrival in Brighton on 1st November 1982 to the role of Assistant Traffic Manager with Southdown. As you can see from my appointment... Continue Reading →
Saturday 29th October 2022 No surprises that Uttoxeter has to be my mid size town for the letter U although it's somewhat on the smaller than 'mid size' with a 13,000 population, but there wasn't a lot of choice and besides it's a very pleasant Staffordshire town to visit. I paid a visit there a... Continue Reading →
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