Day 3 Friday 1st March 2019 Mull of Kintyre When planning trips it's not often I'll schedule a long journey out and back by exactly the same route and mode of travel in one day. It's always much more interesting to devise a circuit taking in different routes and scenery, villages, towns or cities along... Continue Reading →
Day 1 Wednesday 27th February 2019 West Highland Line A quick, cheap Easyjet flight from Gatwick up to Glasgow for 1030, a ride into the city centre on First Glasgow route 500 allowing time for a wander to admire recent and welcome new arrivals in that company's bus fleet and it's soon time to see... Continue Reading →
Sunday 24th February 2019 No bus company does route branding as well as trentbarton (as they like to be called, with no capital letters). trentbarton were the original bus route brand masters and have retained that crown trailblazing regular investment in impressive new vehicles, upgrades and refreshes to the brands and an eye for getting... Continue Reading →
Thursday 21st February 2019 It's reminded me of London 2012. Aside from the brilliant athletes and the behind-the-scenes organisational excellence it was the deployment of Games Makers which made for such a positive and enjoyable visitor experience despite mega crowds and challenging transport logistics before and after events. When the wash up review of this... Continue Reading →
Sunday 17th February 2019 It's been publicised for over a year; preparations have been going on behind the scenes for much longer than that. It was originally planned to happen last October. Now we're finally on the cusp of the biggest rail replacement ever as the nine day Brighton Main Line closure is hours away... Continue Reading →
Saturday 16th February 2019 There's another rail construction project approaching its deadline for completion - the opening of a brand new train station in London. Meridian Water is due to welcome its first passengers coinciding with the summer timetable change on 19th May. That's just twelve weeks away so I thought I'd pop along for... Continue Reading →
Monday 11th February 2019 I'm a great fan of the TrawsCymru high profile long distance bus routes crisscrossing the Welsh nation. They compliment the rail network and provide some great connections between distant communities at impressive frequencies. I've travelled multiple times on all the routes numbered T1 to T6, and always enjoy the truly amazing... Continue Reading →
Sunday 10th February 2019 January 2018 saw Rossendale Borough Council become the latest in the dwindling band of local authority municipal owners to sell off its bus company. Transdev Blazefield were the successful buyers and twelve months on seemed a good time to have a look around the network and see what's been happening. Quite... Continue Reading →
Monday 28th January 2019 You've got to feel sorry for the growing number of passengers who rely on the GOspel Oak to Barking orbital railway line in north east London, known affectionately as GOBLIN for short. The former down-at-heel and unloved Silverlink Metro line transferred to TfL back in 2006 when the future was bright,... Continue Reading →
Friday 25th January 2019was too good an opportunity to miss. As Ford's Chariot accepted its last ride share booking today, closing down just a few weeks after RATP's Slide and Esoteric Systems' (with First Bus) MyFirstMile in Bristol also both bit the dust, Arriva's Click has been in celebratory mood marking its 100,000th booking by... Continue Reading →
Thursday 24th January 2019The recent launch of First Bus's nine brand new Scania Irizar i6 bodied K-series coaches for its prestigous RailAir nonstop service linking Reading Station with Heathrow Airport attracted a shoal of positive comments on Twitter and in the trade press so I thought I'd give it a road test today. All the... Continue Reading →
Monday 21st January 2019 It was way back on Friday 28th September 2018 when commuters in Hertfordshire and north London had their travel appetites whetted when Great Northern rolled out one of their sparkly new Siemens Class 717s for a grand launch trip from Moorgate to Gordon Hill. The media and public were invited to... Continue Reading →
Monday 7th January 2019 It's all happening in Guildford this week. Stagecoach South introduced a fleet of nine ADL Enviro 200EV electric buses on the Guildford Park and Ride services today while, as predicted in my post on 16th November last year, the bus war between Arriva and Safeguard has escalated into Bellfields. I had... Continue Reading →
Sunday 6th January 2019 Today saw the launch of the third route in Bristol's metrobus trilogy: the m1. And this is the biggy. Route m3 was first out of the blocks last May between Emersons Green and the city centre using a new bus only exit off the M32 for easy access to the University... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 26th December 2018 And so the final forty of My Hundred Best Train Journeys ranked 61-100. You can read the top 10 here, 11-30 here and 31-60 here. 61 Brighton - East Croydon This line which passes my home station of Hassocks. I reckon I know just about every inch of its track and... Continue Reading →
1 What are passengers in Basingstoke soon to miss, that those in Leicester suffered a loss of in the summer? Printed timetables …. as Stagecoach South announced they wouldn’t be printing timetables for upcoming changes next month. It follows Arriva Midlands doing the same in Leicester in 2018. 2 What did passengers do to force... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 18th December 2018 After my fortnightly French Connection column got ditched last summer, readers of Bus & Coach Buyer have reportedly been worried sick they’ll miss my ritual round up of the year with its concoction of fascinating facts, august awards and quirky quiz questions. Fear no more. I’m delighted to report BusAndTrainUser has... Continue Reading →
Sunday 2nd December 2018 Back on track(s) again to describe thirty more wonderful train trips, ranked 31-60 in My Hundred Best Train Journeys. For the Top 30 previously published click here and here. 31 Exeter - Exmouth I love this journey not only for the truly superb views as the train trundles along the east... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 28th November 2018 A right royal bus battle is underway in West Lothian with more salvos being fired this weekend. At the beginning of August First Bus gave their extensive network based on Livingston a good old sort out introducing a simplified route pattern offering quicker journeys and new links into Edinburgh's city centre... Continue Reading →
Friday 23rd November Hats off to Transdev Blazefield owned Harrogate Bus Company for getting their brand new fleet of electric buses for the town's network of local bus routes on to the road and into service. Unlike London's all electric Waterloo garage where buses only charge up back at base, this scheme introduces 'opportunity charging'... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 20th November 2018 Many congratulations Andrew Wickham and all the team at Go South Coast. They've only just gone and added yet another award to their bulging trophy cabinet this afternoon at London's Troxy: the prestigous UK Bus Awards 2018 Bus Operator of the Year; having won top Shire Operator of the Year and... Continue Reading →
Friday 16th November Head to head bus competition broke out in Guildford last week. It won't last; one operator will blink first - read on to find out which. Long established family owned Safeguard Coaches runs circular routes 4/5 linking the city centre with Aldershot Road, Park Barn and the Royal Surrey County Hospital. Eight years... Continue Reading →
Thursday 15th November 2018 Following the top ten listing in Part 1, welcome to the next twenty most wonderful train journeys around Britain - they're part of my Hundred Best Train Journeys. Read along for the rides ...... 11 Shrewsbury - Llandrindod - Swansea After the Cambrian Coast line entry in tenth place, we're still... Continue Reading →
Sunday 11th November 2018 Part 1 of 4. This started out as my top ten favourite train journeys but I quickly realised I couldn't possibly do justice to all the many fantastic rail lines across Britain by being so limited. It quickly grew to a top twenty, then thirty as favourites easily clicked away... Continue Reading →
Thursday 8th November 2018 There was a bit of unfinished business in my last blogpost about the Hayling Ferry; I thought I'd pursue the outstanding query of the cost of a return ticket on the First Bus route 15 between Portsmouth city centre and the Ferry. I'd bought a £3 single from the driver but... Continue Reading →
Saturday 3rd November 2018 There's a handy passenger ferry which connects the south western tip of Hayling Island with the south eastern tip of Portsea Island across Langstone Harbour. It only takes a couple of minutes to cross and saves Hayling's residents a 12 mile detour via Havant and Cosham to reach the commercial centre... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 30th October 2018 The Euro Bus Expo show opened at Birmingham’s NEC today for its biennial showcase of what’s hot in the bus and coach industry. I popped along for a stroll round the stands; here are ten exhibits that took my fancy. 1 Navaho Technologies Ltd’s displays These guys were demonstrating attractive bright... Continue Reading →
Monday 29th October There’s something not quite right on the Cambridge Busway. That’s apart from a driver shortage impacting the reliability of Stagecoach services. I arrived at the Cambridge Station stop this morning for the 11.47 Route D which uses the Busway towards St Ives as part of a combined 15 minute frequency with Route... Continue Reading →
Thursday 25th October 2018 It's taken around ten years to deliver at over four times the original budgeted cost but today passengers could finally get on what seemed like a 'train' at Rotherham Central station and get off what had turned into a 'tram' during the journey right in the heart of Sheffield's city centre... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 24th October 2018 Last week's conference for Young Bus Managers in Bristol was another great success. A hundred people attended from across all five of the UK's big bus Groups as well as ten smaller companies and even some transport students from Aston and Huddersfield Universities. The afternoon workshop session asked attendees what the... Continue Reading →
Saturday 20th October 2018 Monday's 'Business Announcement' outlining proposals to centralise even more of Arriva's UK bus business mysteriously landed anonymously in my inbox. I'm told it's a legacy plan left over from recently departed UK Bus MD Kevin O'Connor (formerly Regional MD of G4S) who's now moved on to pastures new. I thought I'd... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 17th October 2018 'Snap is premium inter-city travel, on demand, using the UK's best independent coach companies. All for pocket money prices. Snap was founded in 2016 by Thomas Ableman, former Commercial Director of Chiltern Railways and Product Director of National Express and has carried over 100,000 people since launch, with outstanding customer feedback... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 16th October 2018 No, not the infamous leisure park in Surrey, that's so last decade; I'm talking Thorpe Park as in 'a flagship scheme for the Northern Powerhouse Agenda' no less (well that's what their brochure reckons). And in case you didn't know, Thorpe Park 'sits in the city regions most significant growth area... Continue Reading →
Monday 15th October 2018 I've been spending a few days travelling by bus around West Yorkshire. Always a pleasure for me as, aside from brief spells with London Transport in my student days, this was where my first 'real' job 'on the buses' began (in Wakefield) over forty years ago so I've always found an... Continue Reading →
Friday 5th October 2018 Oxford's Pick-Me-Up is now over three months old so I thought it was time to see how it's settling down after the introductory honeymoon. My four criteria to judge these new ride share taxi-come-bus services are: waiting time for bus to arrive; direct or meandering route; solo ride or share with... Continue Reading →
30th September 2018 The turnaround of fortunes for First Bus in Cornwall is quite remarkable. You can't fail to be impressed by the huge investment in new vehicles, eye catching colourful branded liveries, smartened up bus stops, shelters and bus station waiting rooms and an attractive book packed full of timetables of lovely bus routes... Continue Reading →
Friday 28th September 2018 TfL's much leaked cuts to central London's bus routes were officially published today as a six week public consultation is launched. As expected the plans involve removing parts of or whole bus routes along busy roads also served by other routes on the grounds the overall capacity supplied by the combined... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 25th September 2018 There aren't many towns of Ipswich's size (circa 150,000 population) with two bus stations. Many similar sized towns don't even stretch to having one bus station these days let alone two. For example down the road and over the Suffolk/Essex border, Colchester rather cheekily calls its somewhat unexciting on-street bus stops... Continue Reading →
Saturday 22nd September 2018 I've been travelling by bus around the Outer Hebrides over the last few days. What an amazing bus adventure it's been. Scenery to die for. Never mind Coastliner 840 across the North York Moors being voted Britain's most scenic bus route - come up to the Isle of Lewis and Harris... Continue Reading →
Thursday 20th September The Westminster Parliament's Transport Select Committee have been inviting comments for their Inquiry into the health of the bus market. As Monday's closing date for feedback is fast approaching I thought I'd better gather a few thoughts for them. The Inquiry's scope sounds worthy enough... Personally I prefer the Easy Read booklet... Continue Reading →
I've received some interesting promotional emails from the new breed of ride sharers recently. Arriva Click sent an enticing personalised message on Thursday proclaiming some 'great news' for me. It seems Click now accepts concessionary passes. Amazing. Arriva certainly know how to rub salt into the wound of being in that frustrating cohort having to... Continue Reading →
Ever wondered what around £100 million will buy in the way of Bus Rapid Transit? I popped over to Belfast today to find out. The idea of creating a metro style cross city transit route has been discussed in the City for some years and as always with projects of this kind, (like in Bristol),... Continue Reading →
Tomorrow is the last day to give feedback for the Rail Delivery Group’s review of rail fares with the aim of making them much easier to understand. They’ve produced a simple clickable online survey which, if you don’t make any additional comments or suggestions, only takes around five minutes to complete, so is well worth... Continue Reading →
I won’t say I remember it as if it was yesterday, as that really would be an exaggeration but it seems impossible to believe today marks the 50th anniversary of London Transport’s revolutionary Bus Reshaping Plan hitting the streets of Wood Green and Walthamstow as well as a plethora of new Red Arrow routes criss-crossing... Continue Reading →
There's a great bus ride to be had in that part of England where Lancashire meets Cumbria meets North Yorkshire. I recently took a circular trip from Lancaster (Lancashire) taking in Kirkby Lonsdale (Cumbria) and Ingleton (North Yorkshire). I highly recommend it. Stagecoach run the 80/81 from Lancaster to Ingleton (80) and Kirkby Lonsdale (81). While... Continue Reading →
The second of the three new metrobus routes began operating in Bristol yesterday. The m2 links the Long Ashton Park & Ride site (south west of the city) via some impressive newly constructed exclusive busway road to the city centre where the bus does a large anti-clockwise circuit. It's been controversial and way behind schedule.... Continue Reading →
Having been plagued for some weeks by marketing emails from the London black cab App organisation called Gett, I finally relented yesterday and headed up to London to use up the £10 credit (with an expiry of 31st August) they'd recently added to my account in a last ditch attempt to entice my return custom.... Continue Reading →
Today is the last day to make your views known to the DfT if you’d like to see changes made for the next Cross Country franchise due to begin in December 2019. Although as befits things on rails it might be put back into 2020. The current franchise has been operated by Arriva Trains UK... Continue Reading →
I arrived in Liverpool yesterday lunchtime to try out Arriva’s new Click service and soon spotted the awful ‘Say Yes To Bus’ bus with its gaudy contravision vinyl, passing by on route 53. 'Say Yes To Bus’ is a campaign funded by partners in the ‘Liverpool Alliance’ with the laudable objective of encouraging bus travel... Continue Reading →
Community Rail Partnerships do some great work promoting branch lines around the country; a really good example can be found in the south west corner of Hampshire where the Three Rivers Community Rail Partnership promotes the lines between Southampton and Salisbury via Romsey and Eastleigh/Chandlers Ford. They organise a bus on Summer Sundays and Bank Holidays... Continue Reading →
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