Thursday 2nd October 2025 There’s never a dull moment in Cornwall’s ever changing bus scene. In recent times we’ve seen……First Bus show no interest in its Cornish operations, running ageing second hand vehicles in a dreadful state transferred from other parts of the country... ... allowing the rising star that was Western Greyhound... ...to steal... 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 25th February 2025 Lanarkshire based JMB Travel reintroduced route X1 last month (13th January), reinstating a fast motorway link between Hillhouse, Hamilton and Glasgow that was abandoned by First Bus in 2020. Flashback to happy days when smiling children adorned printed timetables for First Bus Although First Bus cut the route during the early... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 28th January 2025 It's not often a brand new motorway service area opens for business and even more rare for there to be a new bus route laid on to serve it, but that's exactly what happened on Friday before last when the new £40 million (some reports quote £55 million) Welcome Break services... Continue Reading →
Thursday 10th October 2024 Readers will know I like to get out and about and see what's actually happening on the road as well as on the tracks when commenting. Something I wish more managers and especially senior directors of transport companies would do more often so they can take informed decisions based on real... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 17th September 2024 1. Penny pinching over Railcard discounts Holders of Railcards will notice their discounted rail ticket has increased in price this week. That's because the discount reduced marginally on Sunday from 34% to 33.4% making it closer to the actual "one third" discount included in all marketing and advertising literature for Railcards.... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 27th August 2024 When I set out to ride and blog about all Britain’s 26 bus routes numbered 100 at the beginning of the year I explained I was ignoring school journeys and sightseeing specials (eg Chester) which often don’t even display the number but use it for administrative reasons. However two additional route... 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 →
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 →
Tuesday 14th May 2024 Crewe’s newly built bus station opened for business last Tuesday. It’s a huge improvement on what went before... ...including a former Crosville bus garage on the site... It's been built in four stages over the last couple of years... ... and together with a new 389 space multi- storey car park... Continue Reading →
Saturday 16th March 2024 This month sees three high profile public transport networks change hands. Firstly in Northampton, unō withdrew from its operations last weekend (9th March) after 11 and a half years in the town to be replaced by Stagecoach. Secondly next Thursday (21st March) Stagecoach ends its 27 year tenure operating the Sheffield... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 12th March 2024 I paid a visit to Somerset last Wednesday to investigate an interesting development in that county’s bus scene. Both Somerset and North Somerset Councils have used some of their BSIP funds to reinstate route 126 between Weston-Super-Mare and Wells. Regular readers may recall I took a ride on the route just... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Technology company Prospective and First Bus are seemingly very keen to promote and publicise the use of AI in schedules and timetable compilation. Following the article in trade magazine Coach & Bus Week last month, the story appeared on the BBC News website last Thursday repeating the claim about "20% more... Continue Reading →
Thursday 4th January 2024 My very first work experience as a fresh faced management trainee almost fifty years ago was a placement in the schedules office at Belle Isle bus depot in Wakefield where four members of staff, including the long experienced Harry and Ted, compiled vehicle workings and staff duties for West Riding and... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 19th September 2023 First Group has had a sizeable Aircoach operation in Ireland for many years but yesterday it launched its inaugural route in the UK comprising an hourly service between Leicester and Birmingham Airport running 24/7. Four five-year old Mercedes Sprinter 16-seat minibuses have been shipped over from Ireland to run the new... Continue Reading →
Monday 28th August 2023 As the summer season draws to a close here’s the first of three consecutive daily blogs featuring open top bus rides I enjoyed taking last week including three brand new operations for 2023. First up …. the Southsea Coaster operated by First Bus. Building on last year’s foray along the seafront,... Continue Reading →
Saturday 10th June 2023 I'd been looking forward to another ride on First Bus's wonderful Exmoor Coaster open top bus route and in particular its newly extended route from Lynmouth via Lynton and Combe Martin to Ilfracombe. First Bus tentatively dipped its toe in the water with a separate service between Lynmouth and Ilfracombe last... Continue Reading →
Thursday 25th May 2023 While in Edinburgh enjoying autonomous bus riding last week I took the opportunity to take a look at some of the routes McGills inherited with last September's purchase of First Scotland East. First Scotland East ended its days as a business in two halves. Livingston based routes providing a network around... Continue Reading →
Saturday 4th March 2023 Another new bus route began on Thursday. It’s been given route number 001. Operated by First Bus on a 15 minute headway it takes just under a quarter of an hour to complete its circular loop around the swish business park in Didcot known as Milton Park operating for almost 12... Continue Reading →
Saturday 8th October 2022 Hidden London: Shepherd's Bush Photo courtesy London Transport Museum London Transport Museum's popular programme of Hidden London tours gained a new location this week, offering a look behind the scenes at the Central Line station at Shepherd's Bush. If you enjoy having a nose behind usually locked doors at a full... Continue Reading →
Saturday 23rd July 2022 First Bus in the South West has expanded its Adventures by Bus portfolio of leisure services in north Devon this summer. After my Bridgwater to Minehead quirky rural ride last Tuesday, on Wednesday I sampled the reinstatement of the much missed Minehead to Ilfracombe link (albeit with a change in Lynmouth)... Continue Reading →
Sunday 17th July 2022 Here’s another entry for Britain’s Top 10 Quirkiest Bus Routes. It links many villages and hamlets in north Somerset which otherwise have no bus service.The timetable comprises just three return journeys a day which requires three buses to operate it.It takes one hour and 47 minutes to travel from end to... Continue Reading →
Saturday 16th July 2022 It's been a busy few weeks for new bus station openings. Joining Stevenage (see Tuesday's blog) is the city of Leicester which unveiled its all new St Margaret's Bus Station to the public on Sunday 26th June. I was able to pay a visit last Sunday to check out the new... Continue Reading →
Saturday 2nd July 2022 First Bus has announced a major shake up of the management structure of its subsidiary companies which will cut costs particularly senior managers and overheads. It's a laudable aim as Government Covid financial support comes to an end in a couple of months time and with passenger numbers still 80% of... Continue Reading →
Sunday 12th May 2022 King's Lynn lies south east of The Wash in the Fenland area that connects East Anglia with Lincolnshire. It's the western most sizeable town in Norfolk with a population of 43,000 falling within the Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk. Nearest large towns include Spalding around 25 miles west,... Continue Reading →
Thursday 21st April 2022 The bus route between Birmingham, Bromsgrove, Droitwich Spa, Worcester and Great Malvern was first introduced by Midland Red in 1914 and although extended to Malvern Wells two years later and given route number 144 in 1928, it's pretty much continued unchanged for the past hundred years or so, save for the... Continue Reading →
Sunday 27th June 2021 You can usually pick up the vibes quite quickly whether a new bus venture will be a success when experiencing the service on the road. Despite my previous trip on First Bus’s (Buses of Somerset) Exmoor Coaster having a disappointing single decker at the beginning of the month the omens were... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 26th May 2021 Following my hugely enjoyable ride across Dartmoor on the Dartmoor Explorer last Tuesday I made a return visit to the South West over the last couple of days to take a look at the many new bus routes aimed at the leisure market First Kernow are now running in Cornwall. There... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 18th May 2021 First Bus in the South West are launching a number of exciting bus route initiatives this summer with the aim of tapping into the tourist and leisure market. They're all featured on a new website adventuresbybus.co.uk which takes you through to a colourful page on the First Bus website showing all... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 12th May 2021 After visiting Kintore Station on Monday I stopped off in Aberdeen to catch up on the latest development in the city’s high profile commitment to hydrogen powered vehicles. In 2015 First Bus and Stagecoach introduced ten Van Hool A330H hydrogen powered single deck buses between them as phase one of an... Continue Reading →
Saturday 27th February 2021 The Government's new-look-cautious irreversible-one-way-road approach to unlocking means the 'stay-at-home' message will be eased, subject to data, "data not dates", in four weeks (at the earliest) on 29th March (which sounds like a date to me, as does 12th April, 17th May and 21st June, but I'm sure it's all splendidly... 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 →
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 →
Friday 3rd April 2020 A couple of weeks ago I suggested these unprecedented times might be a good opportunity to give Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) a really good try out to see if its unproven business model would work in the current corona circumstances. With demand for traditional bus services plummeting to around 10% (or even... Continue Reading →
Sunday 8th March 2020 Dublin's hotly contested airport to city centre public transport market began a new three way contest this week with the arrival of a new Dublin Express branded route run by Bernard Kavanagh Coaches on behalf of National Express alongside the long established Airlink operated by Dublin Bus and Aircoach run by... Continue Reading →
Monday 2nd March 2020 Stagecoach rolled out its high profile £16.5 million investment in 32 BYD ADL Enviro400EV double deckers yesterday so I popped up to Manchester today to take a look. They're zero emission electric buses and in a nice piece of purchase symmetry the Government's Ultra-Low Emission Bus Scheme contributed a handy £6.9... Continue Reading →
Thursday 20th February 2020 My travels today once again involved sampling more impressive shiny new buses from First Bus but this time with a few unexpected experiences along the way. Read on for a mixed bag report. First Essex introduced seven new double decks to their X30 Southend to Stansted Airport route yesterday together with... Continue Reading →
Monday 17th February 2020 It's 'take a ride on another high profile brand new fleet of buses' time again. Another £5.3 million spend. Another whole route conversion. This time nineteen buses for First Eastern Counties' excel branded Norwich to Peterborough 84 mile route. And all this before Johnson's promise last week of "4,000 beautiful, bouncing,... Continue Reading →
Wednesday 1st January 2020 Head to head competition between First Essex and Go-Ahead owned Hedingham between Colchester and Clacton-on-Sea comes to an end on Saturday. First Essex closed its Clacton-on-Sea base back in July 2018 with Hedingham taking over the town's local bus routes leaving First running only the three-bus-an-hour inter-urban link from Colchester to... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 31st December 2019 Go-Ahead owned Carousel extended its High Wycombe to Uxbridge route 102 on to Heathrow Airport on Sunday; I took a ride yesterday to try it out. The route is part of the Chiltern Hundreds (routes numbered 101 to 105 - get it?) branded buses running between High Wycombe, Beaconsfield and Slough/Watford/Uxbridge... Continue Reading →
Sunday 1st December 2019 There was a time when Oxford was the oft quoted example of head-to-head quality competition between two major bus companies as each operator aimed for a high standard of service to attract custom. Oxford's bus market matured after a statutory partnership deal led to a coordinated network so its fallen to... 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 14th March 2019 It began a month ago. A day out to Norwich to travel route 88 via Bungay and Halesworth to Southwold, where I'd catch the four-journey-a-day tendered route 90 which returns to Halesworth via a very circuitous route through some delightful Suffolk villages as well as the small town of Beccles. Both... Continue Reading →
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