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Post by stevieinselby on Jan 22, 2024 23:57:54 GMT 1
The original excuse of blaming the weather is looking a bit embarrassing now. It's entirely possible that the bad weather was the straw that broke the bus station's back, and that until the storm gave it a battering it was holding together OK (albeit not safe, but they didn't know it at the time). So not wrong to say that the problems were caused by the weather, but not necessarily the full story either.
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Post by stevieinselby on Jan 21, 2024 20:47:30 GMT 1
Can anybody explain what this is all about? M-T times are exactly the same as the FO ones? Just typical computer generated garbage that no human has cast an eye over. Arriva often do the same with schooldays and school holidays, post timetables with separate journeys shown for the two periods but with identical times throughout. Doing it different for Friday compared to the rest of the week is a (ahem) First for me!
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Post by stevieinselby on Jan 10, 2024 18:34:12 GMT 1
First York are making some changes to the Park & Ride network from 28 January: www.firstbus.co.uk/york/routes-and-maps/york-park-ride/park-ride-changes-28th-janThe 2 (Rawcliffe Bar) will now run via Bootham in both directions, calling at Theatre Royal (inbound), looping round the Station Road gyratory and then resuming its current route back out. The 59 (Poppleton Bar) will now run via Water End and Leeman Road (for NRM) in both directions, with the city centre route unchanged. This is because the diesel artics currently used on the 2 need to be replaced, but single deckers would be insufficient for the number of people using that route, so to allow double deckers to run it then it has to avoid Leeman Road. The 59 is changing so as to maintain a P&R service to the railway museum.
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Post by stevieinselby on Dec 19, 2023 20:07:12 GMT 1
The Stephensons website was revived back in 2018 with "We're part of the York Pullman Bus Company Group" on it, so it isn't exactly news 😂
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Post by stevieinselby on Dec 1, 2023 19:14:30 GMT 1
Surprising to see Arriva E200 1066 on the 42 in York yesterday – I thought only Solos and baby E200s were allowed on Cawood Bridge, and the full-size E200s were overweight.
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Post by stevieinselby on Dec 1, 2023 15:12:37 GMT 1
The first registrations for January have now appeared with a timetable change for service 42 Selby to York registered alongside a variation (nothing else mentioned) for A&A's service 30 Horsforth to Pudsey route. Could the 30 variation mean the 9 tender has been altered? I wonder if the variation for the 42 will be a cessation of the additional Saturday morning journeys to York while Naburn Caravan Park is closed for the winter, as that was the rationale for putting them on.
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Post by stevieinselby on Nov 26, 2023 19:08:34 GMT 1
I'm led to believe the Nova 3/class 68 trainset's are now only used on the Scarborough-Manchester Piccadilly service (albeit sporadically) prior to withdrawal very shortly. If indeed that is the case, could i ask what the replacement trains will be on that service. Will it be the 802's or "doubled up" 185's ? I think more likely 185s, if necessary doubled up, as plans to withdraw 22 of them have been shelved. TransPennine have 19 class 802s, and the current timetable only requires 12 in service. That should give some scope for allowing them to be used on the Scarborough route, meaning that the 185s can run doubled up on the Teesside, Hull and Humberside routes. Although thinking about it, it might make more sense to prioritise Teesside or Hull for the 802s, because they could make some use of electric power – either from Northallerton to York then Manchester to Airport, or Manchester to Liverpool – although unlikely that there would be enough 802s to run all trains on either of those routes, whereas the more limited through services from Scarborough means fewer trains are needed there.
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Post by stevieinselby on Nov 23, 2023 0:56:05 GMT 1
That's not too bad, bur from Birmingham or Stratford was thinking of coming east then up the east coast ... Or at least sheffield wakefield leeds then further north if thay makes sense That's also a possibility – I did have a route that went that way, and it still made it to JOG in 5 days but arrived later in the evening. Lands End depart Monday 0945, St Ives, Truro, Bodmin, Plymouth, Paignton, Newton Abbot, Exeter, Tiverton, Taunton, Wells, Bath, Chippenham, Swindon, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham, Chesterfield, Barnsley, Leeds, Ripon, Richmond, Darlington, Stockton-on-Tees, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Alnwick, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, Thurso, John O'Groats arrive Friday 1854
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Post by stevieinselby on Nov 21, 2023 18:31:38 GMT 1
A few years ago, this came up on another forum and I devised the following route:
I reckon you can do it in 5 days, starting at Lands End at 0719 on a Monday morning, and changing at: (locations in bold involve an overnight stay) Penzance, Truro, Bodmin, Plymouth, Exeter, Tiverton, Taunton, Bridgwater, Burnham-on-Sea, Weston-super-Mare, Bristol, Thornbury, Gloucester, Tewkesbury, Evesham, Redditch, Birmingham, Cannock, Stafford, Hanley, Biddulph, Congleton, Macclesfield, Stockport, Manchester, Bolton, Preston, Lancaster, Keswick, Penrith, Carlisle, Galashiels, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, Wick ... arriving into John O'Groats at 1334 on Friday.
Whether that route is still possible is left as an exercise for the reader 😉
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Post by stevieinselby on Nov 21, 2023 13:15:56 GMT 1
To be fair, an announced ticket inspection isn't going to have the same impact is it? I think it's the difference between a tannoy announcement across the train "We will shortly be coming through the train so please have your tickets ready" and the conductor coming through the door shouting "All tickets and fares please!" when you're sitting right by the door and only have a couple of seconds before they've reached you – no-one is asking for a warning before they've got on the train, which is when it would enable people to buy a ticket and avoid the fine. It was bad enough in ye olden dayes when you had to hunt through various pockets trying to find them but now if you're struggling to get your phone to play ball it can take even longer. Of course, the easy solution to this is to make sure you've got them ready as soon as you've taken your seat!
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Post by stevieinselby on Nov 19, 2023 11:36:21 GMT 1
Just picture a first time user who has took advantage of a first day ticket or week pass or some sort, and they get approached on their very first trip.on a bus then the revenue inspectors get on the bus may make them.feel like goin back to the car or seeking alternatives If someone asking to see their valid ticket is that much of a problem then they really shouldn't be out on their own. Or get a grip and not be such a snowflake lol. I think the point is that some RPIs can go in with one heck of an attitude, especially when dealing with certain demographic groups. You see this on the trains sometimes in First Class when they go to challenge a person who they don't think belongs there.
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Post by stevieinselby on Nov 17, 2023 18:08:21 GMT 1
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Post by stevieinselby on Nov 17, 2023 11:35:50 GMT 1
I can’t see any issue with this. If you’ve got a valid ticket why are you complaining? There should also be more revenue protection on the railways, there seems to be a mindset even in professional people, that the railways are fair game and you should try and not pay if you can get away with it My only niggle about First Bus doing this is just how much of a problem ticketless travel is on buses, and whether it's a pretext for something else. I can understand that, in ye olden dayes, before the maximum fare was £2, that there might be a lot of people on longer distance buses buying a ticket to a few stops away and then travelling well beyond that, but even before the fare cap First buses in Yorkshire didn't generally have such long routes and high fares that that would appear to be a problem, it's not like Transdev or East Yorkshire where a single ticket could be £10 or more on a long route. But maybe they have good reason to believe that there are a lot of passengers who are dodging the full fares and drivers are not challenging them (as indeed they are advised not to, that isn't a criticism) ... but you are going to have to have a lot of people underpaying or not paying to justify the cost of deploying enough RPIs on buses to act as a deterrent.
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Post by stevieinselby on Nov 15, 2023 19:54:26 GMT 1
How does franchising impact on the decision? Surely they're just working out if they can make money from a reliable service and have decided they can't. It obviously doesn't, but M803UYA said a couple of posts up that they would withdraw commercial services if there was a threat of franchising in the future in order to concentrate on areas of work where they would be in control of how much money they generated in fares, presumably not wanting to bid for any franchises that would give them guaranteed income 🤷🏻♂️
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Post by stevieinselby on Nov 11, 2023 12:15:53 GMT 1
Presumably, 3 car 331's will be moved across from the north west in exchange for 4 car sets going the other way. The one thing I don't get (particularly how it's described on Northern's site) is how less carriages on Doncaster's releases carriages for Knottingley, given Doncaster uses EMU's and Knottingley DMU's. I don't think it's cause and effect – the Doncaster trains are being downgraded to 3-car (presumably to provide more 4-car sets for the north west) and then to compensate for that more carriages being found from somewhere else are being added to the Knottingley trains.
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Post by stevieinselby on Nov 6, 2023 12:50:00 GMT 1
Oddly, bustimes is showing a timetable for today, but not tomorrow onwards. No tracking showing for today. It may be an administrative mixup if the cancellation date and the last day of service were confused (I don't know what the registration form looks like so that could be nonsense...)
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Post by stevieinselby on Nov 3, 2023 19:59:15 GMT 1
One thing that I have found surprising recently is the number of small independent bus companies getting brand new Volvo B8 Evoras. It used to be that Volvo saloons were largely the preserve of big companies, and small companies would usually get smaller, cheaper or second-hand buses ... but now that has completely turned around.
Aa far as I can see, First, Transdev, Rotala/Diamond and Go-Ahead don't have any at all, and Stagecoach and Arriva only have them for specific contracted fleets (eg The Busway, Orkney) where it looks like they have been specified as part of the contract. A handful of larger municipals and independents have got some – Lothian have the most, with Uno, West Coast Motors and Sanders having a few – but that's all. Part of this may be because a lot of the recent acquisitions by these bigger operators have been electric, although by no means all of them, so that isn't the whole story.
And yet in Yorkshire alone, Pullman have 6, Lonsdale have 4, Reliance have 2, Hulleys have 2 and Thornes has 1 – with a similar pattern elsewhere across the country, often small operators that have rag-tag fleets of older, smaller buses and typically used on rural routes that look like they would have low ridership ... and then suddenly, out of nowhere, shiny new Volvos.
At a time when finances for bus companies seem to be squeezed, it seems surprising that so many of them would be splashing out on expensive new buses – I don't know whether it means that Volvo are offering particularly attractive leasing deals in a desperate bid to shift vehicles that the big players won't take ... I just hope that they aren't setting themselves up for a fall a few years down the line with costs spiralling out of control on routes that aren't bringing in the bacon. We've seen it happen often enough before.
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Post by stevieinselby on Oct 26, 2023 9:58:19 GMT 1
Some very good points there Dwarfer, but a couple to come back on...
First, it's unlikely that any councils would be franchising authorities – more likely that it would be a regional executive, where there tends to be more stability and long-term thinking, although I agree that there is still no guarantee of it.
Second, perhaps part of what Burnham is talking to Yousaf about is all the pitfalls and problems he has experienced! Who better to have a full and frank discussion about the matter with than the mayor who has overseen a rollout that has not gone smoothly ... who knows, it might be enough to deter him from going any further. Unless we know what comes out of the meeting, we'll never be sure where the discussions went.
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Post by stevieinselby on Oct 25, 2023 19:53:53 GMT 1
On a related note, my son asked me the other day if he could get a bus from Wakefield Bus Station to the J32/Xscape complex at Glasshougton. I was very surprised to see there isn’t one, unless anyone knows otherwise? Seems odd not to have a bus service there from the biggest town in the local area. We had the X32 but nothing appears to have replaced it. Doesn't 186 (Wakefield - Pontefract) still do a loop around Glasshoughton/Xscape between Castleford & Airedale? It does, but at 75 minutes from Wakefield to Glasshoughton on a very circuitous route it's hardly an appealing prospect – the train takes less than half that, even though you spend longer waiting at Castleford for a connection than you do actually on the train. A bus running direct via Normanton could probably do the journey in 35 minutes.
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Post by stevieinselby on Oct 25, 2023 14:52:23 GMT 1
Easdale is factually incorrect in stating that franchising in Manchester has not led to any extra services, when a significant number of routes are now running more frequently, and/or are running buses earlier in the morning and later in the evening. It's also ridiculous to suggest that the teething problems seen in the first few days of service are anything more than that. The full impact of the Bee Network won't be known for quite some time, and you can't assess it this early on. Franchising may or may not work in Scotland, either across the country as a whole or in a key urban area like Glasgow/Strathclyde, but to go on an unhinged rant like that because two politicians are talking about it is unlikely to do his company any favours.
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Post by stevieinselby on Oct 21, 2023 14:34:38 GMT 1
True but the Medway Towns have a high level of deprivation and a high population. If a bus operator can't make money there? It isn't even as though Arriva have got any competition there. A handful of minor services from a couple of small independents, trains along one corridor only, and that's it – they have the rest of Medway to themselves.
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Post by stevieinselby on Oct 18, 2023 19:30:04 GMT 1
Minor timetable changes for 51/401 by the looks of it The 401 is regaining a Sunday service, 4 journeys in each direction, supported by East Riding's BSIP funding. Minor changes to the weekday services, principally around school services.
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Post by stevieinselby on Oct 16, 2023 14:49:58 GMT 1
Don’t book in that trip to Keighley quite yet “The new buses are expected to be in service by the end of next year” The lead times on electric buses is quite ridiculous From what I can gather, lead times on electric cars are similar, due to the limited supply chain for batteries in particular and that some manufacturers don't even offer RHD models so we have fewer options to choose from.
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Post by stevieinselby on Oct 16, 2023 14:48:31 GMT 1
From a batch of 13 to 15. Perhaps the new buses will go alongside a minor increase in frequency? 15 should be enough to restore the 10 Min frequency? currently it's around 2 hour round trip + 10 minutes layover at each end so would be a PVR 14 + 1 spare. The article doesn't reference an increase in frequency, and still refers to buses running "every 15 minutes", although what the situation will be in another 12 months is hard to predict! It could well be that they are getting additional buses to ensure resilience and avoid subbing diesel buses onto the route. I can't imagine that, with electric buses in particular, they would manage 14 out of 15 in service on a daily basis, so it seems unlikely that they are expecting to increase the frequency to every 10 minutes (although every 12 might be a manageable compromise within those resources if demand requires it).
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Post by stevieinselby on Oct 16, 2023 12:33:09 GMT 1
Yes there are no cross Wakefield services now. Pretty poor when you consider that there used to be such routes as Dewsbury to Pontefract, Leeds to Barnsley, Leeds to Hemsworth etc. I understand why, though I'm not convinced, but it does cut down on convenience and usually means two buses to reach some destinations including Pinderfields Hospital. Less through routes = more fares? I doubt that the very small increase in fares from people now having to pay twice would be worth the effort of changing established service patterns and disrupting people's journeys (with the likely loss of some passengers). More likely that the cross-city journeys were becoming unreliable, or it was becoming difficult to resource the route efficiently and match supply and demand – for that to work effectively, you need to have routes on each side of the city that merit the same frequency and size of bus as each other at the same time of day, every day, and it becomes more complicated if you want to tweak the timetable on one arm of the route because it has knock-on implications across a wider part of the network.
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