Weekend Variety Running Late (1)

Silliness Collection

Mrs fbb quite likes to watch a bit of tennis, especially of Andy is playing. She discovered she can watch the "Challies" on commentary-less TV as above. It is fair to say that Challenger TV falls just a tad short of the BBC's converge of Wimbledon, for example. Here is a screen shot from one match showing the scores for a doubles encounter. The scores were live ...

... but the pitch remained resolutely empty for the few minutes that the fbb's hoped to see some tennis! There was, however, the excitement of the man raking the brick dust!

Headline : Bristol Pub

It brands itself as a Micro Pub which looks about right.

But, sadly and according to the ever reliable internet, this hostelry ...

... does not sell larger. 

That would suit fbb as "a half" is about all he can manage without (a) needing tio run to the "facilities" and (b) falling asleep. fbb only drink smaller.

Incidentally, it wasn't;t anything as simple as a spealing mustook. The same comment appeared in the fuller text paragraph below.

Snippets

York, A P.S.

Remember the arches in the City Walls, blasted through to allow trains to get to the original terminus station and the reason for the Queen Street bridge. 

Now the bridge has gone, you can see the arch in all its vandalism-induced glory. Shouldn't it be filled in, restoring the wall to its impregnable purpose?

Oxygene Trains

SNCF has revealed pictures of its latest rolling stock. There are still some secondary intercity services operated by venerable Corail stock, now rather long in the couplings but oft refurbished.

The replacements are multiple unit trains that look "cool".

There is a video on-line of a train buzzing round the test track at Velim.

The test centre is a bit like a 12 inches to the foot model railway oval. Velim os not too far from Prague and it all used to be in Czechoslovakia when fbb was a lad and before they changed the name (TWICE!) just to confuse the old people.

But the trains do look good!

Can we have some between Axminster and Waterloo?

More Competition

With the railways still struggling to get back to pre covid numbers, it is interesting to see yet more contenders for "open access" services.

After proposing trains from Kings Criss to Sheffield, First Rail's Loony named Lumo is now looking at the West Coast main line ...

...where its new service will compete with Avanti, a First Rail company.

Yes, we have yet another example of the craziness of the remnants of the commercial railway. 

But there is worse to come.

Tricky Dickie is back!

Or might be back if he gets his licence.

New Trains Revealed

The  replacement stock for the Tyne and Wear Metro has been trundling around on test. Here is the old stuff ...

... and here is the whizzo new stock, underground ...

... in the open ...

... and confusing the passengers!

Topless in Stirling

The Bearded Bus Beautifier from the Bush strikes again.

But, there is a snag. On the side of the bus is a lovely picture of the statue commemorating the heroic leadership of Mel Gibson ...

... but the bus does not go to the Wallace statue..

Maybe Ray should have included the Wallace Monument, ...

... which is served, as part of his splendid artwork.

Whoops!

Here's the timetable.

It does run at a very un-memorable every 40 minutes.

Whoops again!

On the positive side, the tour has a route number. It is service 1314.

Somebody knows their history! fbb didn't.

1314 was the Battle of Bannockurn where the Scots WON!

Doctor Who Episode 3

Far less silly than the first two.

Because the doctor spends most of the episode standing one-legged on a futuristic computer controlled land mine, he has far less opportunity for silliness.

There was a bit of real drama if you could cope with futuristic ordained vicars fighting an electronic war with no enemy - as they do!

More Silliness

Dapol have just launched a new range of OO model railway wagons (covered vans to be precise) named after nostalgic no longer manufactured ice lolly products.

And it isn't even April 1st!

Here is the realistic basic van ...

... at (by todays ludicrous pricing standards) a really cheap £11. That is about one third of similar vans from other manufacturers. And here are the ice lolly liveried versions.

fbb thought it was called a "Zoom"!

More variety tomorrow.

Puzzle Picture

Where is this sign located?

 Next Variety blog : Tuesday 21st May 

Happily Working in High Wycombe (5)

Readers may remember a major development from Carousel. It was a rebranding of several routes under the intriguing heading as above. The routes served the Chilterns geographically and were numbered in a 1xx series. The name was doubly clever because is called to mind a rather weird aspect of the UK's Parliamentary procedure. fbb did expound at the time of the change but will reproduce the appropriate paragraphs again here.

How many of Carousel's customers are aware of this is unclear - but it is still a clever, and more importantly, a distinctive name. And it looked good on the  buses, too.

The first network was a bit like this.

Later the 102 was extended to Heathrow ...

... a destination which had been abandoned since the heady days of the A40 etc.

fbb is not going to chart the subsequent developments, but will move on to the network in 2021,

Today, the 105 has gone but the rest remains much as was in place in 2021.

The first thing to note is that a combined frequency of every 15 mins (Mon to Sat) operates between Hugh Wycombe and Beaconsfield.

The newest arrival in the network is the 106 and 107. The two routes offer an hourly frequency between Amersham (map top left) ...

... and Gerrards Cross; then following different wiggles southbound ...

... to Slough, each wiggle operating every two hours.

Once upon a time Arriva (you may have heard of that company) ran a route 353 from Hemel Hempstead to Slough over most of Carousel's route, but a detailed investigation is well outside fbb's pay grade!

Any route via the delightfully named Stoke Poges is worth of a mention in an fbb blog. Indeed the 353 was once a London Transport country area bus ...

... with Stoke Poges on the blind.

In the name Stoke Poges, stoke means "stockaded (place)" that is staked with more than just boundary-marking stakes. William Fitz-Ansculf, who held the manor in 1086 (in the grounds of which the Norman parish church was built), later became known as William Stoches or William of Stoke. Amicia of Stoke, heiress to the manor, married Robert Pogeys, Knight of the Shire 200 years later, and the village eventually became known as Stoke Poges.

Traditionally Thomas Gray's "Elegy" was written in Stoke Poges Churchyard but there is no evidence for such a claim. The only tenuous link is that Gray lived near Stoke Poges at the time the poem might have been written.

The other Chiltern Hundreds routes are all hourly and details are easy to find on Carousel's web site.

The exception is the 101 and 102.

These provide a half hourly frequency between  High Wycombe, Beaconsfield, Gerrards Cross and ...

,,, Uxbridge.

Here the 101 terminates and the 102 continues houry to Heathrow. At one stage the 102 was equipped with posh coaches ....

... initially in ex Oxford grey/silver, but later in a more Carousel-esque red.

There was some concern at the time that the vehicles, with a high step entrance, were unsuitable for what is, after all, a relatively bog standard bus route. 

It was probably the extension from Uxbridge to Heathrow that provoked the high floor luxury!

There is no doubt that "Chiltern Hundreds" has grown into a very strong and well-respected brand. fbb is not sure whether a different number for Uxbridge "shorts" is sensible, but maybe Carousel have their reasons.

So, faced with this excellent brand ...

...with added tourist emphasis ...

...what are Carousel doing?

First the good news. Route  101 will no longer terminate at Uxbridge. From the beginning of June it will be extended to Heathrow as route 102 giving a 30 minute frequency all the way.

Well done Carousel!

And now the bad news.

The Chiltern Hundreds brand is to be dropped, thus diluting the image of the 15 minute frequency between High Wycombe and Beaconsfield in favour of a new and very different image just for journeys to Heathrow.

The 102 will henceforth be branded Flightline 102.

It therefore joins the Reading buses Flightline 703 ...

... and Newbury Buses 730/731 (one route with two route numbers!).

Maybe we will see Go Ahead Oxford Bus' Airline rebranded as Flightline?

It would look nice in green!

Hmmm?

What would Thomas Gray have thought as he waited morosely at Stoke Poges Church for a Carousel 106?

He might have written a poem "An Elegy for a Country Bus Route" which might have begun like this:-

New branding tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd of PR men have spoke,

The drivers homeward plod their tearful way,

The Chiltern Hundreds name is now a joke.

 Delayed Variety blog : Monday May 20th