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Post by Kenton Schweppes on Jul 16, 2018 22:30:35 GMT 1
I use the 341 service at 7am from Almondbury into Huddersfield to work and the service is absolutely lousy, late regularly and with regular no shows, like this morning. You just cannot rely on it at the minute.
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TLC
Sept 27, 2017 19:26:26 GMT 1
via mobile
Post by Kenton Schweppes on Sept 27, 2017 19:26:26 GMT 1
Has anyone tried to contact TLC and got no reply? Twice sent enquiries/complaint but they've never responded. The set up seems a bit slap dash in terms of customer service, appreciate they are a small concern but it doesn't take much to reply. Have you tried phoning them? Phone? Does anyone phone anyone anymore? Not I e-mailed them once and use the form on their website the other.
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TLC
Sept 26, 2017 19:34:10 GMT 1
via mobile
Post by Kenton Schweppes on Sept 26, 2017 19:34:10 GMT 1
Has anyone tried to contact TLC and got no reply? Twice sent enquiries/complaint but they've never responded. The set up seems a bit slap dash in terms of customer service, appreciate they are a small concern but it doesn't take much to reply.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on Mar 25, 2017 23:36:00 GMT 1
I live on route 324 which Yorkshire Tiger runs vehicles between 0730 and 1900 Mon-Sat. I use the service to travel into Huddersfield. I am amazed, while waiting for a bus, by the number of people, who prefer to wait for a First Group 324 rather use a Yorkshire Tiger bus. One rather wet and windy day I did ask a group of passengers why they preferred a First 324 and was informed that Yorkshire Tiger buses were either cold or dirty, never ran to time or were driven by the bus industry equivalent of Lewis Hamilton. No matter how many new or newish buses are purchased to update the fleet or how much repainting is undertaken it needs vehicles that are running in service in a decent presentable condition driven by staff who know something about customer relations. The drivers seem unfamiliar with the concept of timetables either and I agree on the driving too fast, ragging the bus all over the place. I even saw the 343 take a detour off route down Thornhill Road and join New Hey Road by Tesco Express the other day. The drivers just seem a law unto themselves.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on Jan 19, 2017 22:24:24 GMT 1
Even the venerable class 158's which have had refurb after refurb (through all their various operators) will be approaching 30 years old in a year or two. Whilst still a class act (for now), how long they continue to hold up is anyone's guess really. How long till the cascaded Scotrail 170's and new CAF Civity's arrive?. Until they do, it looks like the 158's will shoulder the burden of Northern's longer distance services for a while longer. The 158's are decent workhorses and still have plenty to offer, little slow on acceleration but still decent if given a proper refurb. East Midlands 158's on the Liverpool Norwich route are refurbed to a high standard so there is no reason why Northern's couldn't be too.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on Sept 5, 2016 11:36:50 GMT 1
If all these services you state have poor usage then they wouldn't be being either run commercially by Arriva or subsidised by Metro. Neither party throws money down the drain.What? My eyes nearly shot out of my head when I read this? I know this is nothing to do with this topic but I'd have to draw your attention to the Leeds City Council enquiry into why 70 million notes has been wasted by Metro without delivering absolutely zero in the way of transport projects and improvements ie the dreadful trolley bus scheme. Metro not wasting money? Pull the other one.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on Jul 3, 2016 0:06:40 GMT 1
More great thinking there by First on the X6, relegating the service to the X63. What about us Huddersfield people that use it end to end? So we now have to change at Bradford and it leaves us with nothing in the way of attractive bus travel between Huddersfield and LeEdstaston. I nearly 700 quid a year for a bus only Metro card looks like I'm going to have to start paying for the train as well now too. When is WY going to be free of First? Arriva have 202/3 and 229 that runs Huddersfield to Leeds with wifi and USB ports and the 220. It's not as if there is NO Bus end to end. Sent from my D6603 using proboards I prefer the Arriva buses, their buses are of a higher standard than First's but no way is the journey time attractive.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on Jul 3, 2016 0:02:49 GMT 1
Who the hell in their right minds would use the X6 from Huddersfield to Leeds. In addition, there are plenty of other buses from Huddersfield to Leeds although when the train takes 30 minutes, you would be mad to do it! Who the hell in their right mind would buy a annual metrocard then pay again for the train? You must have far too much money mate if you could afford to the do that. Besides, the return fare between Leeds and Huddersfield is scandalous for such a short journey. I never understand why there isn't a quality high frequency, limited stop service between Huddersfield and Leeds. They seem to think that Bradford to Leeds warrants high frequency on two routes but Huddersfield warrants nothing.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on Jul 1, 2016 7:46:13 GMT 1
More great thinking there by First on the X6, relegating the service to the X63. What about us Huddersfield people that use it end to end? So we now have to change at Bradford and it leaves us with nothing in the way of attractive bus travel between Huddersfield and LeEdstaston. I nearly 700 quid a year for a bus only Metro card looks like I'm going to have to start paying for the train as well now too.
When is WY going to be free of First?
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on May 28, 2016 12:26:21 GMT 1
Re "As for Balmoral Avenue, I always used to wonder where it was as a kid!! But this is historical is the use of Balmoral Avenue, it's always been, it is the connecting road between Beaumont Park and Crosland Moor, as pointed out by one poster." It's stretching a point to say "it's always been". Balmoral Avenue is part of the post-war housing estate at Crosland Moor and was an authorised but unrealised trolleybus extension off route 60 (Crosland Hill) but in fact the only trolleybus to run there was towed; the Balmoral Avenue bus was introduced just over a year before the abandonment of the Crosland Hill trolley route in February 1964, from which date alternate buses ran to Crosland Hill or to Balmoral Avenue (Crosland Hill) as service 61. Since there is only one stop between Balmoral Avenue and Crosland Hill it was only a matter of time before the stub of the trolley route was itself abandoned in favour of Balmoral Avenue but no-one ever thought to ditch the name Balmoral Avenue once the 61 had become the only bus route through Crosland Moor. Given that there was for years a route 70 to Crosland Road (which is nowhere near either Crosland Moor or Crosland Hill) this has often caused confusion to visitors to the town. Technically Balmoral Avenue is all in Crosland Moor; it starts a couple of hundred yards short of Crosland Hill at one end and a similar distance from Beaumont Park at the other. The sensible name for the route would be Crosland Moor. Ok, maybe I should have put 'in my lifetime'......pedant.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on May 22, 2016 8:48:18 GMT 1
There are no other options Leeds to Brighouse (except a train once an hour) The only other option Leeds to Wyke/Bailiff Bridge is the 255 which takes much longer and is only once an hour. None of the other options are operated by First, so if they split the service they'd be throwing away passengers. There are 2 trains per hour between Leeds and Brighouse, one via Halifax and one via Dewsbury. The logical option would be for the X6 to alternate between one journey operating Leeds-Bradford and the next doing the current route. That way the core section benefits from an increased frequency, whilst those who travel cross Bradford will still be able to do so without changing There is no real reason why the whole route of the X6 shouldn't be covered by the increased frequency. Huddersfield needs a high frequency bus connection to Leeds. I tend to use it end to end as I have a bus only Metrocard but it is far too slow. I don't know why any company hasn't developed a high quality, high frequency limited stop service between Huddersfield and Leeds via the M62 as yet to attract drivers away from their cars. The train is rammed at rush hour between Leeds and Huddersfield, whereas its not ideal taking business of the train I'm not sure it would take that much but be busy just by its attractive journey time.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on May 22, 2016 0:19:59 GMT 1
I would guess that the vast majority of the reasons why buses are branded as poor is traffic congestion, unless you build timetables with running times and layovers matching the longest possible delay, there isn't much that can be done by the operator. Then people complain on Twitter that the driver has got out to have a smoke delaying them,moot understanding they are early at a timing point. The reason why Metro isn't reopening railway stations all over the place, reinstating closed lines, and building bus lanes on every road, is generally due to funding. When the to came to Supertram, Leeds was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I doubt Sheffield would have got theirs a few years later, and it's noticable that theirs is still exactly the same as it was when built with an extensions seemingly having no timescale for completion. We do have modern bus stations widespread all over the county, better than many, we also have the yournextbus real time system, including screens in most major bus shelters, we take this for granted but most areas don't have this. Also some PTEs don't produce their own timetables. There are apparently 14000 bus stops in WY so it's a bit unfair to say that they struggle to display timetables at any bus stop. There has been funding cuts in those public facing departments as per all 'council' departments. Yeah, ok, it is all down to funding and money but that doesn't mean the issues don't need addressing, dealing with and creating an all round coherent, integrated, high quality public transport network for a large urban conurbation that West Yorks is. On the traffic issue regarding the buses, yeah, that is a big issue but its also an issue of services being busy and ill thought out. Take for example, the 503 service Huddersfield to Halifax service, currently it runs every 10 minutes during the day, which in essence makes it a good service to the naked eye. In reality, its bloody awful, its besieged by traffic congestion issues, lateness, heavy loadings and the worse one for me....the route through Elland and West Vale. This service has a large number of passengers who travel end to end, why should they sit on a bus, stuck in traffic, going through Elland and West Vale (my last 2 journeys on this service took 1 hour 45 and 1 hour) just because First can't be arsed or don't have the foresight at peak times to run an express service straight between the two towns? If I'm going end to end I don't want to be going through Elland and West Vale at rush hour with the bus stopping at every stop!!! I want to get to Huddersfield or visa versa asap. Its this kind of nonesense that keeps people in their cars. My issue with the timetables is that the information at the stops on the timetables is incorrect. The stop outside Sainsburys at Shore Head in Huddersfield displays the night time service for the 341 as 'no service' which there is, on Saturday there is no service too but there is and Sunday no service but there is. It's poor and they need to get things right. I often wonder, do Metro ever go out in the field to see what is happening in reality? In response to the modern bus stations and the yournextbus technology, that should be the norm, I wouldn't expect anything less with todays technology. That's what makes public transport attractive to car users, its called progress, or what should be making it attractive. You make it sound like they are doing us a favour, any business that doesn't give its customers what it wants generally tends to wither and customers drift off.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on May 21, 2016 22:29:57 GMT 1
Unless you assume trams mean more, Manchester does not have more. It has a huge bill for trams, and is even more committed to the stupidity of franchising than even Metro. Trams have an important place, but getting the buses right first is the economic way to get trams. And getting buses right means bus priority and demand management. Anything else is pouring our money down the drain. You do have apoint htat Leeds was too pro motorways and still is. The Metrolink is self sufficient profit making service, it receives no subsidy, is that what you mean? Metro have never got to grips with First's total domination and their unwillingness to run the services other than for when it's convenient for them and not the passengers transport needs. They are unable to get high quality high frequency services to run to any kind of timetable, see 372 and 503 in Huddersfield as examples of this. They are unwilling to develop high frequency high quality limited stop intercity services that are needed and their evening services are absolutely awful, their customer service is totally dire too. In fact the whole bus network is an utter shambles with too many companies with too much self interest and no appetite from Metro to sort it, if there was, we'd have had Quality Contracts by now but they have totally bottled it.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on May 21, 2016 22:07:58 GMT 1
It is quite simply Metro and the MDCs to blame If they had gone for a quality partnership years ago we would have good bus services Either First would have improved or another company would have moved is as the bus lanes would have made buses much more profitable. Nonsense! If a quality bus partnership (a classic oxymoron!) were the solution why has Manchester fared so much better than West Yorkshire without ever considering one? The problem probably has its origins far longer ago in a city which was proud to call itself 'Motorway City of the Seventies', didn't wake up to the idea of supporting, rather than suppressing, public transport on the streets until far too late and has ended up with a populace which has forgotten what decent public transport could be like. (Thank you Alderman Rafferty, this is your legacy!) Faced with a bus regulatory policy which would disgrace a third-world country and a city which had been force-fed a car-borne mentality Metro logically concentrated on the railways of West Yorkshire for its first 25 years and the results weren't at all bad - but one of the results of rail privatisation has been to push the cost of station re-opening through the roof. PTEs generally (not just in West Yorkshire) have been discouraged from showing any initiative by central government's progressive erosion of their powers since 1986. In the meantime national bus policy has given such power to private bus companies that they are able to promote and protect their own interests above the wider transport interests of the area (an example being the way that they have undermined the metro in Tyne & Wear). One has to question whether Manchester and Sheffield would have got their tram systems had they lost another five years in the planning process; as it is they and Newcastle might have something on which to build, if the promised devolution really occurs in the next few years, where Leeds has nothing. Whereas you're not wrong with what you say, the issues need sorting and quick. I often wonder what goes on at Metro HQ on a daily basis as they even struggle to get the correct information on bus timetables at shelters let alone be responsible for West Yorkshires transport needs. Do they sit around scratching their arses all day with their pens? They really need to seize the nettle and properly address the major issues facing West Yorkshire and the Leeds City region.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on May 20, 2016 23:33:17 GMT 1
He's right, so here we have the Leeds City region with no rapid transit system, a international airport with no railway station, a major shopping centre with no railway station despite being next to a railway line, towns with no railway stations with trains sailing straight through the town, towns with former connections with no chance of them ever being brought back Wetherby, Otley, Spen Valley, lines with diabolical service levels, a bus market dominated by one provider who frankly need running out of West Yorkshire and finally a PTE that is ineffectual. If you compare Leeds with Manchester, it's light years ahead in public transport. Who is to blame for the regions inertia on public transport? And a rail system that's had plenty of station and line reopenings over the past 30 years thanks to Metro! Granted, they made a rash of station openings in the 80's with cheap construction but they have failed to capitalise on that and openings have been slow, although granted they have given us Brighouse, Glasshoughton, Apperley Bridge, Kirkstall Forge and the soon to be opening Low Moor in the last 15 years. They seem unable to tackle the Airport issue successfully though.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on May 19, 2016 23:15:02 GMT 1
He's right, so here we have the Leeds City region with no rapid transit system, a international airport with no railway station, a major shopping centre with no railway station despite being next to a railway line, towns with no railway stations with trains sailing straight through the town, towns with former connections with no chance of them ever being brought back Wetherby, Otley, Spen Valley, lines with diabolical service levels, a bus market dominated by one provider who frankly need running out of West Yorkshire and finally a PTE that is ineffectual.
If you compare Leeds with Manchester, it's light years ahead in public transport. Who is to blame for the regions inertia on public transport?
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on May 15, 2016 14:24:31 GMT 1
What I want to know is how they propose to build a rapid transit system for £173 million? According to BBC news the cost was £250 million. Even with 250 million think they'd be struggling.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on May 15, 2016 10:30:29 GMT 1
Back in the 90s, buses on the 380/381 used to leave Brighouse showing Balmoral Avenue, which might have been confusing as those services didn't actually go there, in fact they used to change number into a 361 anywhere between Birkby and Huddersfield, fitting in with the 361s that had come from Brackenhall. There is no consistency with the things discussed in this thread, it's generally just continuing with what has always happened historically probably back to the days of the corporation buses. I quite like the old traditions being maintained. Also in the 90s the 548 used to run to Rastrick Sun Inn and display just Rastrick, the 549 was Nunnery Lane, which of course is also in Rastrick but didn't say as much! I have to take issue with the use of Brackenhall too. The name Brackenhall relates to the estate and as most of estate has now been demolished I'm not sure it still should be used. As someone who grew up round there, to me that area is Sheepridge and not Brackenhall, which was just the name of the sprawling council estate, which as I said, has almost all gone. If someone asked me where Brackenhall was I would just say it was the estate from Bradley Boulevard, Long Hill Road and it finished by Ashbrow Junior School. There is a Brackenhall Road but thats deffo not in Brackenhall. As for Balmoral Avenue, I always used to wonder where it was as a kid!! But this is historical is the use of Balmoral Avenue, it's always been, it is the connecting road between Beaumont Park and Crosland Moor, as pointed out by one poster.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on May 15, 2016 10:04:15 GMT 1
What I want to know is how they propose to build a rapid transit system for £173 million?
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on May 1, 2016 13:59:59 GMT 1
Elland station was one of five recommended "for further study" in the report prepared for Metro by the consultants Atkins in 2014. I'm not aware that any public announcement has been made about any of the five since, although no doubt the matter is still on file at Metro headquarters. It wasn't top of the five (I think Haxby and East Leeds Parkway were considered the most feasible). Cheers mate. Isn't Haxby in York? Outside Metro's natural jurisdiction, although I get that York wants to be tied in with Leeds. They seem determined to press ahead with East Leeds Parkway no matter what. Elland just seems so obvious to me, a glaring omission, it should have re-opened when the line became a passenger line again in 2000.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on May 1, 2016 11:00:34 GMT 1
Anyone any info or developments on a new station at Elland, I'm a little perplexed at the length of time it's taking, lack of progression and the lack of news.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on May 1, 2016 10:59:20 GMT 1
Nice to see that Low Moor only gets the GC's and Leeds - Huddersfield via Bradford trains and not a single direct train to/from Man Vic. I don't think many locals will be happy about this! As discussed earlier, there is only a franchise commitment for an hourly service at Low Moor, this means only the stopping trains to Halfax, Hebden Bridge and Huddersfield call plus GC trains to London. There is a proposal for Blackpool trains to call in the future (to provide a half-hourly service). Some years ago, Bradford-Manchester timings had provision for the proposed station stop at Lightcliffe, but more recently this has become a semi-fast service with no slack in the schedules. So much for the all singing all dancing Northern franchise that are going to give us a better transport network than London, inauspicious start if you ask me. Maybe I'm being a little harsh and there will be calling of Manchester services in time.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on Mar 13, 2016 19:45:25 GMT 1
They really are bad, I grimace if my train is a Pacer, they've outstayed their welcome and are finally been jettisoned to the scrap yard. The 3 seat formation ones are the worst, the 142's, with the bus style seats, horrid things.
Goodbye and good riddance.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on Mar 1, 2016 19:08:06 GMT 1
They used to do a bit of football work too, I remember catching one once over to Oldham to watch Town, must have been about 86 time.
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Post by Kenton Schweppes on Mar 1, 2016 19:04:27 GMT 1
Night route? You're lucky if you can get a bus after 9pm.
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