Sunday 18th August 2024 Enticed by the attractive bus timetable booklet I mentioned in a recent blog, I took a day trip over to the Isle of Wight a few weeks ago and was quickly reminded why Southern Vectis is a well deserved award winning bus company. I highlighted how the company exudes quality in... Continue Reading →
Saturday 17th August 2024 After my abandoned ride on the Sunday only route 100 around Barry, described last time, I headed up to Preston for an overnight stay before an early Monday morning exploration of that city’s route 100, one of two in the county of Lancashire. And, it turns out just in the nick... Continue Reading →
Thursday 15th August 2024 A decision on the future of the UK Government’s £2 fare cap scheme on bus routes in England needs to be taken in the next few weeks. When it ends in December the scheme will have been in place for two years, having being introduced in January 2023. That’s eight times... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 13th August 2024 We're up to number 4 in this Pick of the Pops style countdown of Britain's busiest railway stations and after looking at Victoria in fifth place last month with its 45,563,972 passengers, just ahead of it in fourth place is fellow Brighton Line companion, London Bridge, boasting a couple of million... Continue Reading →
Sunday 11th August 2024 I’m a child of the mid to late 1950s and early 1960s and as regular blog readers will know, growing up in the fairly affluent north London suburb of Winchmore Hill my early interest in public transport was first kindled by watching and travelling on the soon to be replaced trolleybuses... Continue Reading →
Saturday 10th August 2024 All is not well on a rural bus route in Bedford. As you can see from the above headlines in last week's trade press (Route One) and the Bedford Today online news website, a row has broken out between the respected locally based Grant Palmer bus company, Bedford Borough Council and... Continue Reading →
Thursday 8th August 2024 My recent post about The way ahead for buses and trains attracted a large response of more than 80 comments. I'm sure not every reader reads through every comment, particularly those added a few days after the original post, so today I'm reprinting a comment left by an anonymous train driver... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 6th August 2024 This summer school holiday has seen three new bus routes hit the road in Kent. First up, commencing on Saturday 20th July, is a free shuttle bus on new route 51 connecting Folkestone West and Folkestone Central railway stations with Folkestone Harbour Crosskeys are running the daily service on behalf of... Continue Reading →
Sunday 4th August 2024 London Transport Museum’s programme of behind the scenes tours of disused parts of the Underground gained a new tour last week featuring Holborn. I was fortunate to secure a place on the very first tour on Wednesday morning. Our hosts were the Museum’s very experienced tour guides, Pat and Tommy, who... Continue Reading →
Saturday 3rd August 2024 Welcome to the second of only two bus routes numbered 100 in Wales which, as mentioned last time, are both to be found in the south. This one is in Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan. Of all Britain’s 26 bus routes numbered 100, this one is unique in that it... Continue Reading →
Thursday 1st August 2024 Welcome to another month's miscellaneous matters. Those little things I spotted while travelling around during July but not so far blogged about ....... and first up a quick report on a journey I took from Tring to Chesham on Red Eagle operated route 199 at the beginning of the month.... The... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 30th July 2024 As explained in a recent blog about Arriva’s exit from High Wycombe (enacted at the weekend), Carousel Buses and Reading Buses began providing their competitive replacement bus routes between Henley and Reading on Sunday. Carousel has replicated Arriva's previous routes 800 and 850, each on an hourly frequency between High Wycombe,... Continue Reading →
Sunday 28th July 2024 Nottinghamshire County Council has expanded its DRT scheme for the third time. Thanks to the DfT's Rural Mobility Fund, NottsBus On Demand began back in August 2022 operating in two adjacent geographic zones North Ollerton and South Ollerton covering an area stretching from Gainsborough in the north to Newark in the... Continue Reading →
Saturday 27th July 2024 Norfolk is typical of a number of 'shire counties' embracing the opportunities presented by Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) funding in England. It doesn't have a high profile directly elected Mayor continually courting media coverage to spout the mantra about "taking back control". Instead, experienced and dedicated staff at the Council... Continue Reading →
Thursday 25th July 2024 Here's what King Charles III read out in his speech to both Houses of Parliament last Wednesday: "A Bill will be introduced to allow local leaders to take control of their local bus services. My ministers will bring forward legislation to improve the railways by reforming rail franchising, establishing Great British... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 23rd JULY 2024 Many years ago Stagecoach ran a bus route (numbered VT99) on behalf of Virgin Trains linking Milton Keynes Central station with Luton and its airport. Press fast forward and it became route MK1 and more recently Stagecoach linked the service to its Luton to Bedford bus route creating a pronounced V... Continue Reading →
Sunday 21st July 2024 Photo courtesy Nicholas Owen A rally marking the 70th Anniversary of the very first public appearance of a Routemaster bus at the 1954 Commercial Motor show is taking place this weekend at Chiswick Business Park - the site of London Transport’s famous Chiswick Works. RM1 is in attendance along with the... Continue Reading →
Saturday 20th July 2024 We’re in south Wales for this ride on one of Britain’s 26 bus routes numbered 100. It’s one of only two route 100s in Wales and both can be found close to Cardiff. This 100 is operated by Edwards Coaches. Edwards is a long standing well known coach and bus operator... Continue Reading →
Thursday 18th July 2024 A commenter recently suggested I publish a blog outlining the logistics of last month's Rail Rover. On that very theme here’s one I prepared earlier … (it’s been sitting in the pending folder since March) … explaining what happened on a day trip to Weston and Wells. 07:05 Arrive Hassocks station.... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 16h June 2024 TfL introduced the final route change in its Central London Bus Review at the end of last month - the extensive proposals launched and consulted on during the summer of 2022. It never pays to rush these things. The delayed change involves route 211 which had operated between Hammersmith and Waterloo... Continue Reading →
Sunday 14th July 2024 This delightful paperback book by Gray Lightfoot was published earlier this year and if you fancy a funny, irreverent, down-to-earth honest account of what it’s like to be a bus driver in the tourist hot spot of Cornwall, then this is definitely the book for you. Author and poet Gray, joined... Continue Reading →
Saturday 13th July 2024 I’m back on the the top ten countdown of Britain's Busiest Railway Stations and at Number 5 it’s Victoria where Southern and Gatwick Express meet Southeastern in a divided station which historically was two separate entities from rival companies. Southeastern uses eight platforms (1-8) Southern uses nine (9-12 and 15-19) with... Continue Reading →
Thursday 11th July 2024 It's been ages since I've explored the four branch lines off the Great Western Main Line between Paddington and Reading, so I put that right on Saturday taking advantage of GWR's Thames Branches Day Ranger. With a Senior Railcard, it costs a very reasonable £17.20 including travel on the main line... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 9th July 2024 Two very different new bus routes began operating on Sunday and I’ve taken a ride on both. First up, thanks to Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) funding, is a cross-city limited stop route in Brighton and Hove. New route 1X links the residential area of Mile Oak (in the north west... Continue Reading →
Sunday 7th July 2024 Ian Budd, the enthusiastic knowledgable convenor of the Friends of the Far North Line (FoFNL) kindly invited me to speak at the organisation's Annual Conference last month in Inverness. It was wonderful to see and hear the passion and enthusiasm of everyone attending; all committed to making the Far North Line... Continue Reading →
Saturday 6th July 2024 Time for another exploration of one of Britain’s 26 bus routes numbered 100. And this time I’m back in the Home Counties taking a ride on Red Rose Travel’s route between Aylesbury and Milton Keynes. In what is a topical piece of history, the route was introduced as recently as 2020... Continue Reading →
Thursday 4th July 2024 It's just over three weeks until Arriva's exit from High Wycombe (along with Aylesbury) so I decided to pay a visit to see what the company will be leaving behind. Despite imminent abandonment of the town Arriva's website continues to extol its virtues..... "High Wycombe is a thriving market town situated... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 2nd July 2024 Hot on the heels of the much delayed commencement of trams running to Blackpool North railway station, comes another “At last” transport development: the long awaited, much anticipated, opening of Cardiff’s new Bus Interchange on Sunday. The Welsh capital’s former bus station closed in 2015 to make way for a smart... Continue Reading →
Sunday 30th June 2024 Blog reader Stuart got in touch and kindly recommended I take a ride on the Faringdon Tourist Bus. It was a new one on me. A Saturday only route exploring border territory where Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire come together, comprising three circular round trips, each lasting almost two hours. Journeys leave... Continue Reading →
Thursday 27th June 2024 It was back in December 2017 Secretary of State for Transport, Chris Grayling (remember him?), gave the formal go-ahead for the £23.4 million Blackpool Tramway extension from North Pier along Talbot Road to Blackpool North railway station, enabling construction of the 600 yards of track to begin in April 2018 with... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 25th June 2024 Highland Council issued a press release a few weeks ago promoting the opening of its first every "Mobility Hub". The story was picked up by the Highland Times at the end of last month... ... and by the trade press at the weekend. As you can see from the press coverage,... Continue Reading →
Sunday 23rd June 2024 If you'd told me ten years ago much of the rural parts of the counties of East Sussex and West Sussex would be served by a fleet of around 20 minibuses trundling around providing 'Demand Responsive Transport' for a couple of passengers an hour all being hailed as a rip roaring... Continue Reading →
Saturday 22nd June 2024 We’re at the halfway stage on this fortnightly odyssey of all Britain’s 26 bus routes numbered 100 so I thought I’d celebrate by taking a ride on my local route 100 in West Sussex. It’s a fascinating route connecting many small and mid sized towns and villages as it criss-crosses the... Continue Reading →
Thursday 20th June 2024 I joined around 50 members of London Transport Museum Friends on a fantastic day out last Wednesday recreating London's most iconic rural bus route and loved every nostalgic minute of it. RF220 leaving Ardeley towards Blind Lane in July 1974. Photo with kind permission of Mike Harris. And it really was... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 18th June 2024 Taking a ride on Pulhams Coaches route 801 has been on my to do list ever since seeing buses on the route pass through the delightful Bourton-on-the-Water when trying out the Robin DRT in November 2022. Spurred on by further suggestions to take a ride after contact from blog readers Chris... Continue Reading →
Monday 17th June 2024 The McGills group of bus companies are building up an impressive portfolio of open top sightseeing operations with a newly introduced tour of Stirling from Bank Holiday Monday at the end of last month, joining its operations in Edinburgh (including a recent addition of a bus and boat tour) and Dundee.... Continue Reading →
Sunday 16th June 2024 I’d read about Gloucestershire Council’s plans to spend £33 million on a Transport Hub at Arle Court in Cheltenham, so while I was wandering around the country on my recent Rail Rover I stopped off to take a look. Don’t be misled by any hype surrounding the term ‘Transport Hub”. Basically... Continue Reading →
Saturday 15th June 2024 Bradford city centre is in a bit of mess at the moment. The city's large multi-level Transport Interchange closed overnight back in January due to structural safety concerns leading to dozens of terminating buses per hour being dispersed to surrounding streets... ... then in April work began on a major pedestrianisation... Continue Reading →
Friday 14th June 2024 It’s some time off completion but my visit to Cardiff and the Valleys the weekend before last confirmed work is well in hand to transform the area’s rail network into a modern, electrified 'turn-up-and-go' Metro branded system. A new fleet of trains manufactured by Stadler are destined for the network including... Continue Reading →
Thursday 13th June 2024 Another interesting new bus service I took a look at on my travels last week is Arriva North East’s AIRLINK Northumberland branded route 777 providing an hourly direct link between Morpeth, Ponteland and Newcastle Airport before continuing to the Kingston Park shopping centre on the outskirts of Newcastle. It was introduced... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 12th June 2024 Artists impression of the completed White Rose station Another location I visited on my Rail Rover wanderings last week was the site of the new railway station being built in south Leeds called White Rose. Well, I say “visited … the site” but that’s not strictly true as the station is... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 11th June 2024 Travelling by bus between Kendal and Penrith through the beautiful Lake District has always been an absolute delight. It's definitely in the top ten scenic bus journeys, if not the top slot. For many years there’ve been two options - the hugely popular route 555 from Kendal through the spine of... Continue Reading →
Monday 10th June 2024 GWR did a business like launch with Japanese involvement. LNER did the full blown razzmatazz with dry ice and christened the trains Azuma. Lumo had its whole project to launch and TransPennine Express named their’s Nova 1. But when it came to Avanti West Coast putting its brand new Hitachi 800... Continue Reading →
Sunday 9th June 2024 Beginning this series of daily blogs featuring highlights of last week's enjoyable wander around the country using a complimentary First Class All Line Rail Rover (thanks to a year's worth of Delay Repay) is a post about the newly restored railway line to Leven which opened for business exactly a week... Continue Reading →
Saturday 8th June 2024 It seems a good idea to complete the trio of bus routes numbered 100, all operated by the associated bus companies of Centrebus, Chaserider and D&G Bus, by taking a ride on the latter’s service between Hanley and Stone in Staffordshire. Routes 100 operated by the other two companies (in Melton... Continue Reading →
Thursday 6th June 2024 Readers will recall Tuesday's blog saw us ending Part 1 of our round London Superloop odyssey beginning at East Croydon having only reached as far as Finchley Central rather than the planned Walthamstow Central. Thanks to light rain conditions, unimpressive aged vehicles on the SL7 to Heathrow, slow going through Northolt... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 4th June 2024 The small gang of intrepid (mostly retired) busmen who do occasional bizarre London based bus trips has been at it again. Way back before Superloop was even a glint in a Mayoral eye, in June 2016, some of the team circumnavigated the extreme outer edge of the Capital's bus network using... Continue Reading →
Saturday 1st June 2024 I was going to spare you another blog about DRT and just give Somerset Council's new Slinky branded service a passing mention in Thursday's 'Seen Around' blog. But that was before I remembered the sorry state of Yeovil's bus station and environs which deserves more than a passing mention. I managed... Continue Reading →
Thursday 30th May 2024 Welcome to another end-of-the-month round up of miscellany that’s caught my eye during travels in May which haven't made it into a full blown blog, but nevertheless might be of interest. First up, a visit to Oxford, after checking out that frozen-in-time Park & Ride site at Eynsham to see ...... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 28th May 2024 It's good to see the First Bus takeover of Ensignbus last year hasn't stopped the Purfleet based company being its usual entrepreneurial best over the Bank Holiday weekend, when it once again added a fleet of heritage open-top buses to its now traditional seafront service from Southend-on-Sea's world famous Pier. And... Continue Reading →
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