Saturday Variety

 Northamptob to Bedford 41

Daily readers of this blog may have spotted a snippet a couple of days ago, namely that Stagecoach were de-registering service 41 that runs between Northampton and Bedford. There may be several reasons for the decline of passenger numbers, in addition to the complete lack of publicity and not a sniff of anything that might be called "promotion".

The service does not appear on the Bedford Council web site ...

... nothing appears on the Northampton councils' web sites except a link to Stagecoach. Fortunately, they do admit to running it - but with no enthusiasm. The service has recently been reduced from hourly to a very unattractive every 90 minutes.

So it came as no surprise to fbb that withdrawal was proposed.

Not so says Stagecoach.

Hmm. Note that "we are discussing options with local authorities". For this phrase read "we are trying to get more subsidy money out of the local authorities."

Will they?

Unlikely.

And if they don't ...

Stagecoach Reports

You "gotta love" these sound-bites! (press bites?).

What are your expectations "expectations", Stagecoach? Maybe you expected poor results, so you are telling us that they come up to expectations.

The above statement tells us nothing. But it goes on ...

But nothing at all about company profits!

The whole statement is a typical corporate non-event.

First Spends Money

As usual VIPs of assorted kinds stand in front of a new bus ...

... and, playing the "we are working with the city" game, a new bus is pictured alongside an venerable Bradford Corporation double decker.

To be even more community spirited, the buses have a new fleet name ...

The livery is very disappointing. The rather dull blue is set against boring white (or is it a very pale blue?) and the posh "leather-type" seats are boring khaki.

Look at First in Southampton, and learn!

There's A Precedent : It's The Precedent!

Readers will remember that Isle of Wight Alan bought a shiny new tow wagon for Southern Vectis when the operator was still part of the National Bus Company.

To avoid breaking the HQ rules about capital expenditure, the tow truck was invoiced in bits as a "repair and rebuild" of the existing machine ...

... which remained totally unchanged!

The London And North Western Railway (not the modern lot!) built a batch of locos that were known as the "Improved Precedent" class.

Dig the crazy non standard chimney!

The locomotives were designed by F. W. Webb. A total of 158 were built in batches by Crewe Works from 1887 to 1897 with two further additions in 1898 and 1901 respectively. They were officially "renewals" (i.e. replacements) of 96 Newton Class and 62 Precedent Class, so that, for accountancy purposes, they could be charged against the revenue account rather than the capital account of a "new" locomotive. On "renewal", they kept the numbers and names of their predecessors, and as a result the numbering system continued to be completely haphazard.

A couple of the class were particularly famous.

Above is Hardwicke hauling BR blue and grey coaches!

Then there was Charles Dickens ...

... a real star of the fleet.

Wowsers.

But if you would like your own Precedent, the loco is now available as at OO gauge model from Rails of Sheffield. It comes in three versions ...

Sadly, of the three. Lucknow (below) is already sold out!

The models are gorgeous, but way beyond fbb's pay grade.

Caveat Emptor No 34a

Faced with a bewildering array of prices with and without postage as an extra, fbb asked, "which one would he buy". Yes, he sent of for the £30.95 jobbie which, like the others, was "with lights".

It arrived and it wasn't. No internal lights. 

Legally, fbb would have been within his rights to insist on a model as described, but as he makes plenty of mistakes and the company offered a full refund including return postage, 

fbb accepted.

It just goes to show that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true.

He did, however, buy a different model (with lights) which will be reviewed in due course - when the similar model from the competitive stable of Hattons of Widnes becomes available.

 Next Variety blog : Sunday 6th March