Saturday 12th October 2019 GWR opted for a modest launch at Paddington and Bristol of their Hitachi Class 800 trains they call IET (Inter-city Express Train) two years ago; characteristically LNER went for the high profile with dry ice, Mallard, Flying Scotsman, bagpipes and more approach as they launched their Azuma branded version this spring... Continue Reading →
Friday 11th October 2019 TfL's next round of reductions to bus routes servIng central London begins tomorrow. This one is much less extensive than in June, involving changes to just a handful of routes, most significant of which is the complete withdrawal of route 48 between London Bridge and Walthamstow Central station. Introduced as part of... 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 →
Sunday 6th October 2019 I picked up an old Western National timetable book for Cornwall when visiting the Isle of Wight Bus Museum last weekend. It's always fascinating to see how bus routes have changed over the decades so as I was heading down to Cornwall over this weekend I took it with me to... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 2nd October I travelled on Britain's longest bus route from Glasgow to Skye at the beginning of last month so decided to give Britain's shortest bus route a ride today. That accolade goes to Rosso's route 13 between Rawtenstall bus station and the business and retail park in nearby New Hall Hey. An exchange... Continue Reading →
Monday 30th September 2019 The Omnibus Society marked its 90th anniversary over the weekend with its annual Presidential Weekend offering a brilliant programme of events based in the Solent area. Around a hundred members from all over the country attended the weekend hosted by this year's president, Andrew Wickham, managing director of Go South Coast.... Continue Reading →
Thursday 26th September 2019 Metroline, the Singapore based ComfortDelGro owned bus company, which operates a large network of bus routes for TfL across north and north-west London has been in the news recently as they roll out an expensive new fleet of 67 all electric battery-rechargeable double deck buses. Having read glowing coverage in the... Continue Reading →
Monday 23rd September 2019 It's not often we get to travel on a brand new loco hauled inter-city train in the UK, but that's what's quietly being rolled out across the Pennines right now as First Group's Trans Pennine Express franchise soft launches its fleet of thirteen smart new Spanish built Nova 3 trains. Originally... 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 →
Monday 16th September 2019 Back in July I took a ride on Nu-Venture's route 58 between Maidstone, East and West Malling and villages and hamlets close to Wrotham Heath in Kent before it was transformed as part of one of Kent County Council's rural pilots. The idea was to cut the route back from the... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 10th September 2019 Readers will know of my scepticism concerning Demand Responsive Transport; I've made enough journeys to conclude there's no way such schemes will ever be commercially viable let alone more convenient for passengers over a fixed timetabled bus route. The Speke trial comprising a one bus fixed timetabled route (with passengers knowing... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 3rd September 2019 It's about 230 miles long. It takes 7 hours and 50 minutes. It's Scottish Citylink's route 915 (or 916) from Glasgow's Buchanan Bus Station all the way to Uig Pier on the Isle of Skye via Fort William and Kyle of Lochalsh. I've travelled along this route a few times, but... Continue Reading →
Monday 2nd September 2019 I've ridden round Birmingham (on both NatEx's inner and outer circular bus routes); round Leicester with Centrebus; round Coventry before that city's circular route (neatly numbered 360) got the chop so I thought it was time to take a ride on First Glasgow's route 90, which almost completes an inner circuit... Continue Reading →
Saturday 31st August 2019 Route 888 between Newcastle and Keswick is the lesser known bus service across the Pennines. Whereas the more famous route 685 takes a direct westerly trajectory along the A69 to Carlisle via Hexham and Haltwhistle, the 888 also serves Hexham but then follows a south westerly route via Alston and Langwathby... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 28th August 2019 I was puzzled by a recent news item that Merseytravel are withdrawing a local bus route they fund in the Speke area of south east Liverpool from this weekend to be replaced on Monday by Arriva Click: 'the new Arriva Click Speke Zone service will operate between the same hours... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 27th August 2019 It's not often a National Park Authority trials a new bus service these days so hats off to the Peak District for funding the new H1 and H2 bus routes for six weeks during the summer school holidays. Branded as the Hope Valley Explorer two Stagecoach Optare Solos are providing an... Continue Reading →
Friday 23rd August 2019 It's always a pleasure to spend some time on Tyneside. Open tops Yesterday I sampled the new open-top sightseeing tour introduced this summer by Go North East and branded as 'toontour'. There's been a bit of a change round on the open-top tour front on Tyneside this year. Stagecoach pulled out... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 21st August 2019 I sampled zeelo's new commuter coach service between Newport and Bristol back in the Spring and wrote about the company and my travel experience on 24th May. Now the enterprising entrepreneurs based at zeelo's London Shoreditch HQ have started another new venture, also aimed at commuters, this time connecting part of Crawley... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 13th August 2019 TfL's first foray into the new fangled world of App based Dial-A-Ride (aka Demand Responsive Transport) in Sutton is now in its twelfth week and yesterday a rather impersonal email popped into my inbox announcing an exciting extension of the area served by the swish exec style wishy-washy liveried Mercedes Sprinter... Continue Reading →
... and other west Cornwall travels. Thursday 8th August 2019 Having travelled up to Cape Wrath last month to visit mainland Britain's most northerly bus terminus I thought it was time to take a look at the most southerly bus stop. It's located at The Green, Lizard, just north of Lizard Point itself, where First... Continue Reading →
Monday 5th August 2019 My little trip on the GWR train between Taunton and Bishops Lydeard on Saturday was a good opportunity to sample some great bus rides across Dorset and around Somerset on my way there and back making for a lovely long weekend's travels. Planning bus journeys in Somerset is quite a challenge... Continue Reading →
Saturday 3rd August 2019 South West Trains started the 'run trains to link with heritage railways' trend a couple of summers ago (before they handed the keys over to South Western Railway) by running a few trains on a summer Saturday on the connecting tracks from Wareham to the Swanage Railway at Corfe Castle. This... Continue Reading →
Thursday 1st August 2019 LNER know all about high profile launches. I guess it helps being in the public sector with a generous marketing budget rather than being a cash strapped TOC with unattainable winning franchise pledges submitted to the DfT in misplaced optimism a few years back. Following LNER's all singing, all dancing Kings... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 31st July 2019 Edinburgh's a great city to visit and for those of us with an interest in public transport it's always full of interesting developments, whether it be new low floor coaches on inter-urban express routes, mega-size tri-axle double deckers on city bus routes, buses which accommodate bicycles, new electric trains to Glasgow,... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 30th July 2019 Seven months into the year and I'm reviewing the seventh new class of train to be introduced in 2019 - that's not bad going; a brand new different fleet into service on average once a month (I know the Class 230, formerly known as 'D Train' is not a brand new... Continue Reading →
Monday 29th July 2019 A much needed new service began carrying passengers over Hammersmith Bridge from this morning. With the Bridge closed to all motor traffic including buses since 10th April this new service is provided by a lovely man called Frederick peddling a smart electric Pedi-Cab. And very efficient it is too. I only... Continue Reading →
Friday 26th July 2019 I incorporated Wednesday's ride on Buckland Buses' splendid 1929 Dennis on route 250 between Aldeburgh and Thropeness into an enjoyable couple of days saunter around the lovely countryside in south Suffolk. On Tuesday morning I caught the stopping train to Ipswich out of Liverpool Street at 11:04 as far as Marks... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 24th July 2019 There are lots of wonderful heritage railways all over the country attracting thousands of visitors enjoying a nostalgic train ride. Most are run by volunteers with maybe just a few paid staff and are hugely successful. Who doesn't enjoy a ride-back-in-time rekindling memories of how things used to be? Although running... Continue Reading →
Monday 22nd July 2019 You have to hand it to Stagecoach. Whenever they give a new commercial service a go, they don't hold back. Their South West Falcon introduced in 2016 linking Bristol with Plymouth was a massive investment involving a fleet of brand new coaches running hourly during the day as well as night... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 17th July 2019 It's been a bucket list ambition for a few years. Travel to mainland Britain's most north westerly point at Cape Wrath and visit by far the remotest bus terminus alongside its famous lighthouse. You can't get more remote than the end of an isolated eleven mile single track road which has... Continue Reading →
Friday 12th July 2019 Kent County Council's fourth 'Rural Transport Initiative' gets underway on Monday next week so earlier today I took a ride on the last weekday operation of the old order to get a sense of what this one's all about. (My write up of the first three pilot schemes can be read... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 10th July 2019 It was a pleasure to travel on Northern Rail's new CAF Civity trains yesterday afternoon and this morning. They come in two flavours - a diesel version known as Class 195 and an electric version known as Class 331 - but otherwise they're exactly the same train with only a pantograph... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 9th July 2019 Welcome to a fourth day of travelling to tick off various 'to do' routes, destinations, new buses and trains which began with an early start from Llandrindod Wells on the first 06:18 journey which starts its journey at this lovely station and continues beyond Shrewsbury as a stopping train through to... Continue Reading →
Sunday 7th July 2019 Here's a great way to spend five hours on a summer Sunday: enjoy one of the best circular journeys in Devon, if not the whole of Britain. It takes in three top rail lines and a brilliant bus route skirting a National Park. The circular route can be based on either... Continue Reading →
Saturday 6th July 2019 I thought it was high time I ticked off more bus routes on my lengthy 'to do' list compiled from the many suggestions kindly passed on from various sources, not least Twitter, which qualify for the accolade of being the Best of British Bus Routes. So for the next few days... Continue Reading →
Friday 5th July 2019 There are over 150 standard and narrow gauge 'heritage' railways operating in Great Britain. Most are run by enthusiastic volunteers who put in many hours of dedicated service. I try and visit one or two every few weeks on my travels and have managed to tick off a long list, but... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Bus and coach routes serving airports have expanded greatly over the last few decades with a seemingly constant stream of new initiatives. I wrote about the recent upgrade to First Glasgow's route 500 between Glasgow Airport and the city centre last month while over at Edinburgh Airport, Xplore Dundee have started... Continue Reading →
Saturday 29th June 2019 Back in April I took a ride on the bus route formerly known as the 'Wiltshire Wigglybus' between Pewsey and Devizes - a traditional rural bus route combined with a Dial-a-Ride flexible option and wrote about it here. Yesterday I thought it might be interesting to sample a similar type of... 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 →
This is the story of how a journey on the Longest Day of the year from Lands End to John O'Groats by ground public transport (that's bus and train) unfolded in real time. The original plan, as described in Wednesday's (19th June) blog was to complete the end-to-end journey in just under 24 hours. Except,... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 19th June 2019 To celebrate a year of blogging and the upcoming Longest Day of the year I'm heading down to Cornwall on GWR's Night Riviera sleeper train tonight to begin an epic 24-hour Lands End to John O'Groats trip by bus and train beginning tomorrow, Thursday, afternoon. On most weekdays, this famous journey... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 18th June 2019 Kent County Council's 'Rural Transport Initiative' using 'Taxi Buses' has begun so I thought I'd take a look to see how it's going. It's early days but there are already signs of interest building in the rural communities now enjoying public transport either for the first time or after quite a... 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 →
Tuesday 11th June 2019 Yesterday was the final time routes 293 and 294 connected various Kent villages with Tenterden. The routes' withdrawal are a consequence of Kent County Council's slimmed down funding cut to uncommercial bus services following its 'Big Conversation' consultation about rural transport last year. I'd been alerted to the withdrawals on social... Continue Reading →
Sunday 9th June 2019 The Epping Ongar Railway is having one of its popular steam weekends this weekend and I took a ride to the end of the Central Line to have a look. Thanks to Roger Wright's ownership interests, you can always count on decent bus connections from right outside Epping Station to North... Continue Reading →
Friday 7th June 2019It's been a long time waiting but finally First Bus have allocated much needed double deck buses on their high profile Glasgow Airport Express route 500. Ten smart new buses began operating the 24/7 shuttle link between the airport and city centre from the middle of April so I was pleased to... Continue Reading →
Thursday 6th June 2019 It may not rank as high as the West Highland Line, the Kyle of Lochalsh Line or the Far North Line in the great Scottish Scenic Rail Lines stakes but ScotRail have rightly designated the line down to Stranraer as a Scenic Rail Journey and very justifiably so too. While I... 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 →
Tuesday 4th June 2019 Sometimes it's instructive to turn up at the launch of a new rail station a day late. Opening ceremonies can be tedious affairs with dignitaries descending the scene, wooden speeches, congratulatory words, smiles all round for the cameras, pats on backs, then back to their offices. The second day often has... Continue Reading →
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