Saturday Variety

First Cornwall : Failure Complete

But not for much longer!

The signs have been writ large in recent months.

One : Withdrawal of all open top buses in a busy tourist area

Two : Loss of lucrative college contracts

Three : Competition from GoAhead

Four : Abandonment of route branding

Five : Service cuts

Six : Closure of St Ives bus station

And, of course, it is all the passengers fault for not travelling on First's messy-liveried buses.

So yesterday the news broke. 

Even the above on-line 'box' was in poor taste. Why try to hide a close down as an 'update'? And, of course, the decision was made with a heavy heart.

"Exhaustion of all viable alternatives"? Try good management. Try customer focused good publicity. Try running routes that attract the tourists.

But you didn't, First Bus, you just messed up at every opportunity.

And, here is a big surprise as reported by the Cornwall Live web site ...

And which company will that be?

What a surprise! GoAhead will likely go ahead with their usual ahead going verve and replace the services vacated by First; following the pattern already established when First closed down in Southampton.

The County has issued a statement ...

Remember; Cornwall Council has no spare cash!

A few more thoughts. 

Because there has been no sale, First will just shut the shop, there is no T U P E legislation to protect jobs. If it had been a sale, staff would have a legal right to transfer to the take-over company. 

First have assured their staff that redundancy payments will be honoured whilst GoAhead are likely to be offering jobs to the locals. Currently GoAhead's Cornwall maintenance is outsourced, so there is a good chance that First's depots and engineering staff will be snapped up.

fbb's guess is that GoAhead will have been planning this for months; in a drawer in a back office somewhere the new network and timetables will ready to release.

Cornwall Council will have very little to do.

A Closure Nearby

The local freebie rag reports extensively on the demise of Pecorama in Beer. The front page headline suggests a rescue mission.

But who might rescue? There is a huge amount of expensive stuff which Peco will not want to give away ...

... and those steam powered beasties don't come cheap - all hand made in the Beer workshops. Claudine (above) was the wife of company founder Sydney Pritchard.

Let's hope that funds OR volunteers can be found to  maintain the gardens.

"Snowdrift" in OO Gauge

The "British Transport" film, 'Snowdrift At Bleath Ghyll' is one of fbb's all-time favourites. It tells the tale of the rescue of a stranded goods train not far from the now-demolished Belah Viaduct.

The scenes where the snowplough carves its way through packed snow are utterly memorable.

And here is said snowplough!

Now you can buy one for your OO model railway.

It is a splendid model of the early wooden version; the later builds were in steel.

The model, from Rails of Sheffield, will cost you five pennies short of £70. 

It's a wagon, innit; you need a steam loco to push it through the snow. 

fbb should have made use of one when his outdoor layout ...

... suffered a meteorological event a few years ago. The present Peterville is safely tucked indoors; unless the roof caves in!

Giving St Erth A Lift

Readers may remember that, recently, Notwork Rail has replaced the iconic and attractive footbridge at St Erth station (above) ...

... with an ugly new footbridge. But it does have lifts.

Only it didn't. 

Apparently the wire that brought the electric to the lifts wasn't thick enough so, if switched on, they would fuse the whole of Cornwall. In the absence of lifts, First Great Western ran a bus from one side of the station to the other; free to passengers but very costly to Notwork Rail.

Anyuway, the contractors have now installed that thicker wire, complete with a plug fitted with a 13 amp fuse, and the buses no longer run. Those in need of assistance can now travel by shiny red and grey lift.

A Public Service Vehicle

but not for people!

Sweet, fbb wants one to play with!

More variety tomorrow and a tank wagon from Slovenia!

 Next Variety blog : Sunday 23rd November 

Tower Transit 5 ...

STOP PRESS

Announced to staff at 12 noon today (Friday 21st Nov) : First Bus will be closing it's Cornwall operation from mid February 2026.

More in tomorrow's blog.

=============

... Awstralia yn goresgyn Cymru

Tower Transit (TT) has recently bought South Wales Transport. This is not the much loved BET company of old ...

... which became part of the National Bus Company ...

... subsequently privatised as SWT ...

... finally becoming First Cymru with a variety of names and brands!

At least there is no sign on-line of the national bland brand!

But the TT purchase is of South Wales Transport (Neath) Limited which operates mostly in Swansea, although has recently gained work back in its home town.

The company web site is generally helpful but its maps (for want of a better word) leave a lot to be desired.

Here is Swansea with North at the bottom ...

... and thus Oystermouth is in the East rather than in the West. 

There is a bit more Swansea map ...

... includung the oddly numbered X6C. 

Then we have a Neath area map.

Port Talbot is South and a bit East of Neath, but it is somewhat better than Swansea's inaccuracy. Neither Neath Port Talbot nor Swansea City counciks offers their residents a bus map. First Bus only show their own services cartographically.

South Wales has just one separate route map for the 37 to the aforementioned Oystermouth. It is a Google Maps overlay ...

... and is slightly less useful than a chocolate teapot. As usual with these things, if you already know where the bus goes and you have a good geographical knowledge of the area, the map makes sense.

But, truly, madly, deeply, it is USELESS. The tinetable is well presented, however ...

... as are all the on-line timetables. Unlike for Huton Travel (experienced yesterday), it appears that the tenders are for full day timetables, clearly listed. 

Some services are tiny ...

... others more substantial.

There are variants to release buses for schools work ...

... but the colour coding helps to avoid confusion. Rather more majestic are some of the recently absorbed Neathe services where the whole timetable is ...

... split for Schooldays or Non-schooldays and Saturdays. For consistency, shouldn't the whole tables be highlighted yellow or blue?

Some tables have colour backgrounds for Saturday and Not Saturday ...

... which is better than just relying on column header notes.

fbb was excited to see a mention of fares ...

... but, sadly, the information is generic for schools only and in response to some political changes from the Welsh Parliament.

There are one or two dodgy bits in the web site where one click-path leading to 'timetables' produces the dreaded '404' error message.

Memo to South Wales Transport : check yout web site and expunge the dodgy bits!

What would be really, really good would be printed copies of the (non school) timetables. There is no evidence that such useful aids to travel are currently available. If they were, these lightly used services might become a bit more heavily used.

There are no comprehensive route maps for these areas; another disincentive to travel.

fbb awaits with interest signs of the Tower Transit take over. As yet there is none.

Meanwhile, Tower Transit's purchause also includes a coach business with smart vehicles ...

... complete with scary Welsh dragon!

No scary dragons frighten the kiddies as they enjoy a ride on the service buses.

==========================

Yet Another Kesselwagen

This from from Kleinbahn (little railway); a company based in Vienna, which traded from 1984 to closure in 2008. Generally it produced Austrian railway models in HO scale.

The box is marked 5.00 in an unknown currency, possibly UK pounds ...

... or, on the other side of the package, 3.00. 

fbb paid £12.50 which included the usual approx £4 postage and packing; and it was packed well. The fbb bin is filled with cardboard, bubble wrap and an outer layer of plastic sheet and sticky tape!

The model has a very well detail chassis.

The wagon is all plastic except the fixed-hook plus lifting-wire-bar couplings which are metal. We have met them before.

Whilst fbb has no empyrical knowledge of OBB (Austrian Railways) tank wagons, there is some evidence that the model is reasonably realistic.

This is confirmed by this reality check - similar but not in Shell livery ...

... and lacking in ladders!

 Next Variety blog : Saturday 22nd Nov 

Tower Transit 4 Tenders

 

Whoops!

Apologies to blog readers who push their keys or prod their phones from 0200 UK time.  Due to a glitch in fbb's brain, yesterday's blog was running 2 hours late, appearing at 0400.

================

Remember this delightful bus picture? In April this year, Tower Transit bought Huyton Travel, operator of tendered services on Merseyside. Bus watchers interpret this purchase as preparation for franchising under the aegis of Steve Rotheram, mega Merseyside Metro mayor.

The company web site makes no mention of its new owners ...

... merely referring to themselves as a family-run firm since 1985!

As ever, your blogger exercises his cat-like curiosity to discover just what Tower Transit has bought.

"Plan a journey" takes you straight to Traveline ...

... but, disappointingly, the 'Timetables' panel takes you straight to the Merseytravel index pages ..,

... starting with their various services numbered 1! So it was not much help in fbb's researches. But one picture back on the start page was this ...

... where a click on "timetables" takes you to Huyton Travels list.

From there you are taken to the PYE's PDF timetable pages.

This revealed a whole raft of services in which HTL had a contract; fbb could not find any service which was operated by HTL outside its contractual relationship with the PTE.

Take this leaflet, for example.

The  headline credits the service to Arriva but the actual timetable adds "Merseytravel" to the information as part of the heading.

On the actual timetable, tendered journeys have an "M" symbol at their head   ...

... with a subscript note referring to HTL. This is the standard presentation for all the PTE's timetable information.

In some cases HTL is tendered to run the whole service ...

... as here with the 602.

... as here with the 602. But "the whole service" only operates evenings and Sundays. Presumably you cannot get to Newton Hospital Monday to Saturday daytime?

A look at the St Helens area map from the PTE reveals that the 602 ...

... is a near clone of route 22, one of those serving Newton Hospital. You would never know that from anything obvious on the 602 PDF or any explanatory note from HTL.

Does the PDF route map help?

in a word, NO!

Bad house point, Merseytravel!

Faced with his 81st Birthday next year, your diligent blogger could not engender enough enthusiasm to read every HTL timetable, because there are lots, including a whole raft of school services. By chance he came across the 111.

... where HTL operates the whole service.

fbb pauses to breathe deeply, aiming to control his excitement.

And here is the whole service.

Stunning!

Whatever; this is what Tower Transit has bought and, surely, the bus watchers are right. This should position the Ozzy company in a good place to attempt to win a block of franchised services from the new-look supremo operation on Merseyside.

Of course their fleet will have to be painted yellow and wear no livery variation other than that of the big cheese mayor.

Will the newcomer opt for HTL or Tower Transit as the minimalist operator guy name? Assuming, of course, that they win any of the tender battles!

fbb thinks the green is much nicer than a rather pallid yellow.

Most HTL buses are small ...

... some very small!

An occasional full sized single decker appears on line ...

... but you would guess that HTL/TT would need some better vehicles to comply with future tenders and Steve Rotheram's aspirations for improvements in frequency and quality.

Maybe, maybe not!

P.S. fbb has found just one example of a Tower Transit Huyton Travel logo on line ...

... It provides a link to a Facebook page.

And next, to Wales!

===================

Tank Wagon Concours d'Elegance ...

... from fbb's novel collection of European HO tank wagons branded for Shell.

It is pronounced Mare-Klin and NOT Mar-Klin because of the umlaut over the 'a'. 

The track is similar to 3-rail, but instead of a centre rail it has a line of studs poking through the sleepers.

A loco has a skate to collect the electric; it is long and slim so it maintains contact with plenty of studs.

Cleverly, the studs get a bit taller at pointwork to lift the skate over the rails.

fbb's tank wagon is almost all metal, including wheels and axles; typical for 3-rail.

As yet, your obsessed blogger has no idea of when the wagon was on sale or even whether it is a model of a specific prototype. Oddly there aren't many full size railway enthusiasts who collect and post pictures of full sized European tank wagons.

fbb cannot think why such a paucity prevails. But this one is similar.

Clearly it sits differently on its chassis. Again similar but not quite the same.

================

 Next Tower Transit blog : Friday 21st Nov