Monday 7th December 2020 The order was announced in a fanfare of publicity on 4th March: "Europe's most frequent coach service set to get even better with 34 new coaches this summer.... the largest single order of coaches in the history of Stagecoach .... the latest technology designed to enhance the customer experience". Their deferment... Continue Reading →
Sunday 6th December 2020 I always know something serious is happening when a new initiative is upgraded from being described as "ground breaking" in the media release to "game changer" . Mind you, the much derided NHS Covid app was once so described, but that must be the exception to the rule. Go North East... Continue Reading →
Friday 4th December 2020 I've had a look in a bit more detail at the fifteen ideas for Restoring Your Railways recently awarded up to £50,000 each to investigate whether they have a realistic business case. I can only offer a ‘back of the envelope' view but I reckon I won't be far out, especially... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Arriva Click began a new DRT (Demand Responsive Transport) venture on Monday thanks to funding provided by house builders Redrow and Henley Camsland who, along with others, are slowly transforming Ebbsfleet's former massive chalk quarries into what is now the fledgling Ebbsfleet Garden City. Ebbsfleet Garden City lies immediately north of... 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 →
Saturday 7th November 2020 Welcome back to another series of weekly updates of bus and train developments during lockdown. Now, where were we before that “Stay at home” regime was so rudely interrupted back in early July with our being encouraged to go out and about again. Ah yes; my first journey was to enjoy... Continue Reading →
Thursday 5th November 2020 I thought I'd take my last trip out before ‘Lockdown 2.0’ to an area of the country that's seen excellent positive bus developments in recent months. So I found myself in north east England taking a look at the continuing transformation of the region’s inter-urban bus links and other bus route... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 3rd November 2020 First Bus in Leeds have just introduced a fleet of nine electric buses manufactured by the Chinese company, Yutong. They’re becoming a popular purchase choice with a fleet of 14 recently introduced in Newport, South Wales and a batch arriving for Go North East imminently. With Lockdown 2.0 fast approaching and... Continue Reading →
Saturday 31st October 2020 A long awaited extension of TfL bus route 383 from its southern terminus outside Woodside Park Underground Station to serve Finchley Memorial Hospital began today. It’s small fry in the normal scale of TfL’s bus service changes but it’s an interesting example of how TfL’s massive corporate machine responds, or not,... Continue Reading →
Thursday 29th October 2020 This week sees the start of a trial of BYD's electric EMV200 single deck demonstrator bus in Slough. But this isn't one of those short visit bus demonstrators slotted into an existing bus route for a few days enabling bus company managers to get a feel for what a new bus... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 27th October 2020 I recently had the pleasure of exploring the Abbey Line with my friend Geoff Marshall. Geoff's a professional and brilliant YouTube Creator producing engaging videos about all things track based including the epic All The Stations series he and his wife Vicky undertook in 2017 as well as the LEJOG trip... Continue Reading →
Monday 26th October 2020 Today’s date, 26th October, will for ever resonate for those of us involved in the bus industry back in 1986 as the anniversary of the birth of deregulation. And here I am, 34 years later, marking the launch of a pioneering new bus route filling a gap in the network over... Continue Reading →
Friday 23rd October 2020 Continuing my exploration of the former red and green bus territorial boundary around London to mark this year's fiftieth anniversary of London Country’s formation brings me to the Borough of Epsom & Ewell. That’s pointedly NOT the London Borough of Epsom & Ewell as residents, and more notably their representatives, resisted... 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 →
Wednesday 14th October 2020 The coronavirus pandemic hasn’t completely scotched new initiatives launching into the bus and coach market. Recent blogposts have highlighted the Bracknell Express, Flixbus entering the UK market, TfL extending bus routes to new destinations, new DRT schemes in Sevenoaks, Newport, Watford and north Lincolnshire and new rural bus routes in Oxfordshire,... Continue Reading →
Monday 12th October 2020 Woking lies five and a half miles north of Guildford. You're spoilt for choice when travelling by public transport between the towns - there are seven different routes to choose from. Over the last week I’ve tried out all seven to see how they compare. The quickest and most direct bus... Continue Reading →
Friday 9th October 2020 When TfL intrdocued the politically inspired New Bus for London - I hesitate at using its official ‘New Routemaster’ name for want of not denegrating the great iconic London bus designed in the late 1950s - nor its nickname after the vanity seeking Mayor who set the hare running by introducing... Continue Reading →
Thursday 8th October 2020 Following recent trips to Selsdon/Croydon and the Herts/Essex border I've continued my 'London Country 50th anniversary' inspired days out to the former London Transport red and green bus boundary territory by taking a look at how things are fairing in that prosperous corner of Surrey that includes Walton, Weybridge and Woking.... 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 →
Thursday 1st October 2020 Pre Covid, Leicestershire County Council was pursuing a review of tendered bus routes across the county with a view to achieving £400,000 saving on its annual £2.4 million subsidy budget. This involved an area by area assessment of each route with public consultation workshops to discuss proposals. One of these was... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 29th September 2020 It was disappointing to hear Stagecoach has split its Oxford to Cambridge route X5 in Bedford. The X5 is the well established bus equivalent of East-West Rail now under active development. The half hourly frequency has been retained throughout but the opportunity has been taken to convert the more heavily used... Continue Reading →
Sunday 27th September 2020 Following my Essex experience last week Vecatre boss Dominic Kalantary reassured me their fledgling Essex tendered operation on route 13 between Waltham Cross and Epping was "mobilised at incredibly short notice and watch this space for a touch more class and a significant improvement", adding a photo teaser of a smart... Continue Reading →
Friday 25th September 2020 Bus provision in the Harlow area has been challenging for many years. Not helped by a myriad of small bus companies of dubious quality coming and going into the market causing inevitable instability to the network, nor the town being seemingly left out on a limb in Arriva's various management reorganisations... Continue Reading →
Thursday 24th September 2020 Fifty-one years ago it was all very straightforward. London’s red buses ventured north as far as Potters Bar, Cheshunt and Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire as well as Waltham Abbey, Epping and Debden in Essex (oh, and Ongar as well of course). London’s green buses ventured much further north to serve places... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 22nd September 2020 According to its website, the Marketing Lounge Partnership (MLP) is"one of the UK's only combined incentive, loyalty, partnership and CRM agencies" which struck me as odd. It seems double dutch to say you're 'one of the only' of anything. Either you're ‘one of a few’, or you're ‘the only’. Surely? Anyway... Continue Reading →
Friday 18th September 2020 Wherryman's Way is an eight-and-a-half-mile footpath along the north side of the River Yare between Great Yarmouth and Reedham. Half way along the River Waveney joins - at Berney Arms, famed for its no-road-access-isolated station, closed pub and disused windmill. I'd planned to walk from Great Yarmouth to Berney Arms back... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 16th September 2020 Vested (non financial) interest alert: along with Ray Stenning of Best Impressions I wrote chapter 17 in this newly published book. Last week was a busy one for the likes of Waterstones. A record number of new books were introduced into the market after the Covid publishing pause and in preparation... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 15th September 2020 When I checked out the new Uber Boat brand for Thames Clipper's service along the River Thames a few weeks ago, I noticed the journeys in the timetable specifically aimed at commuters and thought it would be a good idea to give them a try out during these 'capacity constrained peak... Continue Reading →
Monday 14th September 2020 Readers will recall we left part 1 of this intriguing tale with the tantalising prospect of West Coast Railways stepping in from today running a replacement train service for a week shuttling between Rose Hill Marple and Guide Bridge funded by devolved local committee budgets of Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council with... Continue Reading →
Friday 11th September 2020 The last time Oxfordshire funded a bus service was July 2016. That month the County Council scrapped its circa £4 million annual bus subsidy budget abandoning 118 tendered bus contracts to the fate of the commercial market - and turned 34 years of deregulation on its head. Deregulation, you my recall,... Continue Reading →
Monday 7th September 2020 North Lincolnshire Council became the latest local authority to jump on the app based Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) bus bandwagon today as it launched its new JustGo branded operation. Except this scheme serving a largely rural area has one key positive differential from the other failed DRT schemes; it’s built on... Continue Reading →
Friday 4th September 2020 'Miss Marple' ..... as in residents of the Manchester suburb by that name will soon 'miss' their hourly Northern run train service. The Rose Hill Marple service is being withdrawn from Monday 14th September for three months to give Northern Rail breathing space so more drivers can be trained up after... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 2nd September 2020 It's all change for the bus network serving Leeds Bradford Airport this week. Sunday saw Transdev Blazefield take over the three bus routes connecting Leeds, Bradford and Harrogate and introduce a smart new 'Flyer' brand. Social media coverage and photographs online looked very impressive so I popped up to Yorkshire yesterday... Continue Reading →
Monday 31st August 2020 I last took a ride on the Hayling Ferry in November 2018. This cute little passenger ferry crosses Langstone Harbour connecting the eastern tip of Portsea Island with the extreme western tip of Hayling Island. It only takes three minutes to make the 400 yard crossing and saves a long detour... Continue Reading →
Saturday 29th August 2020 Readers may recall my ride on route 404 earlier this month highlighting TfL’s penchant for circuitous bus routes wandering around the back streets of London's suburbs making sure everyone lives within 400 metres of a bus stop. But up in Barnet, it's all change for circuitous route 384. From today it's... Continue Reading →
Thursday 27th August 2020 It only takes 44 minutes on the train. But that’s far too easy a way to make the journey. How about taking the bus instead? I set off yesterday on the 08:13 route 270 from Brighton to East Grinstead operated by Metrobus. I joined the bus by Preston Park with two... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 26th August 2020 It's been trailed on social media as making "it easier than ever to connect with the people and places that matter to you". Arriva'smuch vaunted new website and app were launched yesterday. It gets a one star rating from me, and that's being generous. Bring back the previous website famed for... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 25th August 2020 The London Transport Museum has been running a series of Hidden London branded tours for a number of years. There's even a book recently published which features the tours and history of the locations and a dedicated exhibition was added to the Museum in Covent Garden prior to lockdown featuring highlights... Continue Reading →
Saturday 22nd August 2020 Continuing my Covid curtailed summer open top bus rides, I popped down to the New Forest today to sample Bluestar's colour coded circular tours around the National Park. There are three circular routes with the Blue and Green routes running anti-clockwise while the Red route goes clockwise. I last travelled on... Continue Reading →
Thursday 20 August 2020 The last time I took a ride on East Yorkshire's open top bus service along Scarborough's seafront was in May last year, just before the lovely bright new Beachcomber brand was rolled out, so it was nice to make a return visit on Tuesday and see the Best Impressions designed makeover... Continue Reading →
Monday 16th August 2020 Heritage Railways have had it tough these last few months. No 'Emergency Measures Agreements' for them, nor any help for charter train companies either. So it was a surprise a few weeks ago when I saw news a new charter train service would be starting up from Monday 20th July running... Continue Reading →
Saturday 15th August 2020 A brand new station at Horden opened quietly without any ceremonial ribbon cutting, balloons or cup cakes during the Covid-19 'essential travel only’ lockdown era on Monday 29th June. I wrote about it on 5th May as part of a review of ’50 new stations’ but to recap ….... Continue Reading →
Thursday 13th August 2020I had high hopes for fflecsi (it’s Welsh for flex) - the Welsh version of DRT (Demand Responsive Transport).Transport for Wales (TfW) are replacing existing fixed-timetable small-scale bus routes with a bookable flexible bus running along the route and its environs according to demand. It’s a bit like how Go Coach Hire... Continue Reading →
Monday 10th August 2020 When First West of England managing director James Freeman announced a few weeks ago he was going to trial the idea of allowing passengers to pre-book a seat on the network of frequent city bus routes in Bath and Bristol I thought he was joking. Then I heard West of England... Continue Reading →
Saturday 8th August 2020 Thames Clippers’ six year partnership with credit card company MBNA came to an end on Monday when the naming rights of the company’s twenty boats was taken over by Uber, a company that's no stranger to transport in the Capital. Unsurprisingly details of the deal are not public but Uber gets... Continue Reading →
Thursday 6th August 2020 London's bus route 404 is interesting for a number of reasons. It’s one of TfL's short meandering routes that doesn’t really go anywhere. It wanders around well-heeled leafy residential roads lying either side of Coulsdon Road which links Coulsdon (in the London Borough of Croydon) with Caterham-on-the-Hill (just over the border... Continue Reading →
Monday 3rd August 2020 It was pats on the backs all round at Network Rail and GoVia Thameslink Railway (GTR) this morning as although operational problems a plenty caused by damaged overhead lines near Farringdon meant disruption for Thameslink services across the network, the opening of Stevenage’s new ‘turnback’ platform 5 was rightly being celebrated... Continue Reading →
Saturday 1st August 2020 It’s a shorter summer season this year for obvious reasons, so this past week I've been out and about giving three bus companies running seafront open top bus routes in the south-east a bit of much needed custom and support. First up on a lovely sunshine filled day last Sunday was... Continue Reading →
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