Thursday 7th August 2025 Photo credit: Emma West A much welcome upgrade to the bus route between Reading and Oxford launched this week. Not only has the timetable for Thames Travel’s River Rapids branded route X40 been improved from half hourly to every 20 minutes with new late night journeys added on Fridays and Saturdays... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 5th August 2025 I thought it was about time I gave the recently introduced FlixBus express coach service between Brighton and London a try out. It began on 13th June providing two journeys from the south coast city to Cambridge via Gatwick Airport and, intriguingly, Stratford, as the coach stop in London rather than... Continue Reading →
Sunday 3rd August 2025 While passing through Covent Garden recently I naturally called by London Transport Museum’s slimmed down, sad-shadow-of-it’s-former-glory bookshop, but still managed to splash the cash (or more accurately, tap the card) and buy three books, each with a personal connection. Here’s the first: it’s the sad tale of the London Merlins told... Continue Reading →
Saturday 2nd August 2025 Before today’s blog a quick update on the mystery of the missing route 15 on 16th July and non replies from AtoB Bus and Coach. Following publication of Thursday’s blog I was contacted by AtoB’s owner Brian who apologised for the silence in response to my emails/phone calls explaining the company... Continue Reading →
Thursday 31st July 2025 Welcome to Part Two of this month's miscellany round up, with Part One being an all London version having appeared on Tuesday. And we begin with some rather misleading announcements from Train Companies... Urgent repairs or not? Something very odd happened on the Brighton Main Line earlier this month. A major... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 29th July 2025 July's month end round up is over brimming with items not previously blogged about so I'm splitting it into two bites with today's installment covering a few items ‘seen around’ London and Thursday's post will be devoted to matters spotted outside London. Welcome to an extended route 241 I got round... Continue Reading →
Sunday 27th July 2025 Having tried out new route 714 and the soon-to-be-amended 'almost quirky' route 555 to one of Britain's best served villages, I can also report on a few other enjoyable journeys I made in the north of Surrey earlier this month. As previously explained on my first abortive attempt to visit Wisley,... Continue Reading →
Saturday 26th July 2025 Welcome to another blog featuring the fourth station pair to be found within a town or city on precisely the same line of longitude but on completely different rail lines (see Canterbury, Yeovil and New Mills, previously featured in this fortnightly series) But, as you can see from the above map,... Continue Reading →
Thursday 24th July 2025 Two more new bus routes launched this week and, once again, they're pure commercial ventures and come from one of Britain's newest bus companies. Who said deregulation and entrepreneurialism in the bus industry was dead? New ‘express’ routes X22 and X43 began on Monday linking Chester-le-Street (X22) and Stanley (X43) directly... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 24th July 2025 A new bus route for 2025 has been introduced for the summer season by Southern Vectis on the Isle of Wight. It’s a purely commercial venture with no public support through Bus Service Improvement Plan funding. And it’s not so much a bus route, more an open-top leisure travel experience. Called... Continue Reading →
Sunday 20th July 2025 I’m writing this blog on Saturday morning (yesterday) sitting in the shadow of Scafell Pike at Wasdale Head, in the Cumbrian Mountains, having arrived on one of Britain’s most scenic and quirkiest bus routes, and as the blogpost title confirms, it’s free for all passengers too. Sounds too good to be... Continue Reading →
Saturday 19th July 2025 Brothers Kevin, Ian and Anthony Delaine-Smith Longer term readers may recall the D is for Delaine blog I wrote a couple of years ago for 2023's A-to-Z of bus and train companies series. It coincided with Anthony Delaine-Smith's tenure as Omnibus Society President that year including his fascinating talk to members... Continue Reading →
Thursday 17th July 2025 Regular blog readers will appreciate I couldn’t resist giving last week’s media reports about the bus route costing a £180 subsidy per passenger journey in the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority area the BusAndTrainUser Verify treatment. Not that I disbelieved for one moment the veracity of the claim as it came... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 15th July 2025 It's the middle of the month, so time for another Quirky Bus Route. Cumbria Classic Coaches is based in Ravenstonedale, Cumbria about four miles south east of Kirkby Stephen. The company has a small collection of vintage vehicles for use on private hires, especially weddings. It also has a few more... Continue Reading →
Sunday 13th July 2025 I'd never been to Whiteley Village prior to my bus wanderings around Surrey last week. I'd known it from seeing the destination emblazoned on the front of buses serving Heathrow Airport on route 555.... ....Whiteley Village being the southern terminus of the meandering route operated by White Bus which connects the... Continue Reading →
Saturday 12th July 2025 Today's blog features the two separate stations located closest together in this fortnightly series. They're in the south London suburb of Catford in the London Borough of Lewisham. Frankly, if it wasn’t for the fact they’re named differently and the railway lines don't connect, they could be marketed as one station,... Continue Reading →
Thursday 10th July 2025 New bus links to RHS Wisley have been in operation for a few weeks so I thought it was time to give them the BusAndTrainUser once over. Woking Community Transport had been providing a shuttle bus on behalf of RHS between Woking and the Gardens and there was also a bus... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 8th July 2025 The end of an era for two odd ball tendered bus routes beckons in a few weeks time. I took a ride on both routes last week to experience the passing of the old guard. Both upcoming changes are as a consequence of a county council re-tender exercise resulting in a... Continue Reading →
Sunday 6th July 2025 Back in April readers may recall I blogged about a raft of changes to bus routes in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead involving tendered services passing between Thames Valley and Carousel while in March, after many years absence, the latter introduced a new commercial route (127) between Maidenhead and... Continue Reading →
Saturday 5th July 2025 As TfL's Superloop brand becomes ever more nonsensical with more routes planned that are questionably 'super' and are certainly nothing about being part of a 'loop', I took a ride on one of the longest standing and original non-loop routes to be added to the brand - the SL6, renumbered from... Continue Reading →
Thursday 3rd July 2025 You’d think in an age when travel between many urban centres is booming, not least by passengers pursuing leisure activities, a bus service between Wetherby (population 11,000) and Leeds, its nearest regional centre lying 13 miles south west, would be prime territory for a successful commercial operation. All the more so... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 1st July 2025 Congratulations to Hazel Grove's Park & Ride celebrating its 10th Anniversary today. I thought I'd check out how it's going ten years on. Hailed as "the first privately funded Park and Ride in the country", the £3 million 400 space facility, purchased by Stagecoach, was destined to "take 6,000 cars off... Continue Reading →
Sunday 29th June 2025 A bumper bundle for this month's round up of previously unblogged travels and sightings from the last four weeks, so let's get straight into them with more autonomous bus riding.... Autonomous Cambridge Connector ... this time in Cambridge. The latest trial of "driver-less" bus provision began this last week on a... Continue Reading →
Saturday 28th June 2025 The 36,000 residents of Falkirk are lucky to have enjoyed the choice of travelling by train to and from the town’s two railway stations for the past 175 years. It was back in 1850 the Stirlingshire Midland Junction Railway opened its new Grahamston (Falkirk) station joining the town’s original station named... Continue Reading →
Thursday 26th June 2025 It’s a brand name I believe can be traced back sixty years to 1965 when Crosville first launched Cymru Coastliner to promote its lengthy route from Chester all the way along the North Wales coast to Caernarfon. Way ahead of its time, the name stuck for decades, even though in the... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 24th June 2025 Transport planners love track based solutions for large conurbations, especially trams. Bus based systems just don’t cut it in the same way, they reckon. Look at Leeds, for example; for years city leaders have lamented its lack of trams (“the largest city in Europe without a mass transit system”) looking enviously... Continue Reading →
Sunday 22nd June 2025 Cast your mind back to March 2020. That's when Arriva was stripped of the Northern Trains franchise and control passed to the Government's Operator of Last Resort (subsequently becoming DfT Operator). Poor beleaguered Northern never recovered from the May 2018 timetable meltdown nor the strait jacket of a no growth franchise... Continue Reading →
Saturday 21st June 2025 Quite a bit of negativity was expressed on various online forums earlier this year when news broke First Bus was ceasing its extensive use of open-top buses in Cornwall this summer. These had run over the last few years with particular emphasis on attracting the post Covid growth in the leisure... Continue Reading →
Thursday 19th June 2025 I enjoyed a fleeting visit to the far south west corner of Cornwall at the beginning of this week to check out a few developments in the county’s bus network. Here’s the first of a couple of posts about those travels. (Part 2 follows on Saturday). First up when I arrived,... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 17th June 2025 It’s the middle of the month so time for this year’s monthly countdown of quirky bus routes and after the inclusion of TfL route 969 as Britain's eighth quirkiest bus route in my Top 10, I'm back in south west London for a ride on another quirky favourite taking sixth place.... Continue Reading →
Sunday 15th June 2025 As the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority gears up for bus franchising, recently elected (six weeks ago) Conservative Mayor Paul Bristow wasted no time launching a raft of new bus roues at the end of last month. But I wonder if he really appreciates what a waste of money some of... Continue Reading →
Saturday 14th June 2025 It’s the biggest contrast yet. One station at the end of a single track branch line with an hourly shuttle service with a 17 minute journey time and the other a four platform affair with two entrances/exits, two footbridges, lifts, 10 southbound trains and six northbound trains an hour including direct... Continue Reading →
Thursday 12th June 2025 I’ve been back on the DRT trail again, this time in Portsmouth, trying out the latest scheme which hit the road at the end of last month. Branded Pompey Link, it’s funded for an initial 10 months by Portsmouth City Council’s Bus Service Improvement Plan with hopes for an extension into... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 10th June 2025 My friend Ray and I enjoyed our third walking tour of London’s termini on Friday as part of ‘Railway 200' celebrations this year. Like Victoria and London Bridge, this tour, organised by Network Rail, was led by the wonderful Rachel Kolsky exuding her enthusiasm and passion for the social history surrounding... Continue Reading →
Sunday 8th June 2025 For some of us of a certain age with knowledge of the London bus scene, the route number 284 will always be associated with the Potters Bar local service operated for a time by the unique FRM 1 vehicle. The route lasted for nine years between 1968 and 1977. Now, hopefully,... Continue Reading →
Saturday 7th June 2025 TfL are introducing another cut to its beleaguered central London bus later this month involving a diversion to route 205 which currently links Bow, Mile End, Whitechapel and Aldgate with Liverpool Street, Kings Cross, St Pancras, Euston, Marylebone and Paddington stations as well as St Mary's Hospital, Paddington. From a date... Continue Reading →
Thursday 5th June 2025 It’s good to see the promised new battery-electric buses are now being introduced on the Kent Thameside Fastrack network. Readers will recall Go-Ahead took over the contract for this high profile operation in the Dartford-Bluewater-Ebbsfleet-Gravesend area last November and have been using mainly London cast offs for the last few months.... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Eyebrows were raised in April 2023 when First Bus made changes to its network of bus routes in Slough and Maidenhead cutting the direct link from Heathrow Airport and Langley to Maidenhead. Route 4 was changed to terminate in Cippenham instead (shown in orange on the network map below) and is... Continue Reading →
Sunday 1st June 2025 Horray it’s June; so that means Sunday blogging is back as the BusAndTrainUser.com enhanced summer timetable kicks in for the next three months from today. I’ve been meaning to visit Pilning railway station for years and finally got round to treating myself to that delight yesterday, so what better way to... Continue Reading →
Saturday 31st May 2025 Welcome to a marathon medley of miscellany for the month of May. How to confuse your passengers Back in November 2023 Arriva changed the route number for the bus service between Hemel Hempstead, Watford and Rickmansworth from 320 to 322 but it came as no surprise on Thursday to see the... Continue Reading →
Thursday 29th May 2025 I’m pleased to report my follow up visit to Kemble to try out the recently extended Wiltshire Connect DRT operation went without a hitch last Friday as well as throwing up a few surprises. After the abortive attempt over a week ago, this time I forewent the offer of a pick... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 27th May 2025 The following blogpost has been brought forward from its intended slot this Saturday as it describes the perfect place to reflect on the weekend's sad news...... So here I am in the tiny hamlet of Tyndrum in Stirling, exploring its two lovely stations: Tyndrum Lower on the line to Oban and... Continue Reading →
Sunday 25th May 2025 I’m so sorry to update today’s blog (written yesterday) with the devastating news Andrew sadly passed away in the early hours of this morning. Rest In Peace Andrew. This very special blog is for a very special person. The sad news came on Friday that the hugely respected and much admired,... Continue Reading →
Saturday 24th May 2025 Secretary of State for Transport Heidi Alexander reckons tomorrow’s high profile ownership change of South Western Railway from First Group/MTR Corporation over to DfT Operator Limited (DFTO) is “a watershed moment” marking the start of the much heralded re-nationalisation of Britain’s Railways. Expect an overdose of hype as the first train... Continue Reading →
Thursday 22nd May 2025 My friend Ray and I enjoyed another of Network Rail's walking tours of London's three main line termini serving the south coast last Thursday. This time we were at London Bridge and once again enjoyed the brilliant company of our guide Rachel Kolsky, who as mentioned in the write up on... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 20th May 2025 I’ve been back on the DRT trail again, trying out the recently introduced geographic expansion of the Wiltshire Connect branded scheme to cover more of the county. I’ve previously praised Wiltshire Connect in a number of blogposts for showing how to do DRT properly. Until now their schemes have been built... Continue Reading →
Saturday 17th May 2025 New Mills Central looking west towards Manchester Welcome to another town with a station pair located virtually on the same line of longitude (see also Canterbury and Yeovil, previously featured in this fortnightly series). We're in the Derbyshire town of New Mills visiting its stations known as New Mills Central and... Continue Reading →
Thursday 15th May 2025 I had the privilege of speaking at ALBUM's Annual Conference in Nottingham yesterday. David Astill, ALBUM chair (and managing director of Nottingham City Transport), had invited me to share my thoughts on "what passengers are getting" based on my travels across the length and breadth of Britain over the last decade... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 13th May 2025 It can’t have escaped blog readers’ notice the railway is “commemorating 200 years of the modern railway” this year involving a whole series of events up and down the country including ‘The Greatest Gathering’ in Derby over the first weekend in August (which is sold out) and an ‘Inspiration’ exhibition train... Continue Reading →
Saturday 10th May 2025 Continuing my Top 10 countdown towards the country's Quirkiest Bus Route takes us this month to Devon to ride Britain’s least frequent schedule bus service. Tavistock Country Bus operated route 112 famously runs just one return journey on the fifth Saturday of the month between April and September linking the company's... Continue Reading →
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