Scunthorpe Surprise (2)

One of the first things you do (well, back in the day, what fbb always did) was to scan a new timetable book and see what had changed. Hornsby's excellent production ...

... does the job for you wit a comprehensive (and comprehensible - the two are often mutually exclusive) list of what is changing from next Monday's start date.

Two big changes are highlighted, namely the complete withdrawal of route 13 ...

... and its partial replacement by an extra twiddle on service 4. The Hospital shuttle (and Park and Ride) is withdrawn on Saturdays. There is tinkering with some improvement to 35 ...

... which from next week will be shown on a separate page from the 90. Whilst fbb is no expert on Scunny's bus routes, he is convinced that a regular user with old and new timetables to hand will find the changes easy to follow.

Possibly easier than searching and re-searchng on line?

What makes the job of following somewhat easier is that with each timetable comes a map. Here is the map for service 4 (shown in two sections due to limitations of the Blogger page layout).

As can be expected with a rural service (tendered?) it has a complicated timetable ...

... but there has been a notable effort to explain the oddities. Separate Monday to Friday and Saturday pages would help readability, but space and cost constraints might well have prevented such a luxury.

Another map (extract only below) shows a more detailed view of routes within Scunthorpe itself and, again, is very helpful.

Hornsby's also operate town services in Brigg ...

... and Barton-on-Humber.

Blog readers are invited to attempt to understand the route  and timetable of the latter - a challenge for an outsider.

And what about fares?

Gareth explains:-

The only thing missing for me is the mention of fares which the customer didn’t want.

I see this as a missed opportunity but the fare setter here is actually Stagecoach through the Simplibus brand. Hornsbys and Stagecoach offer the dayrider (currently £3.70) which entitles you to board either company’s buses for the day (or week on the weeklyrider) and there have been two price rises of 10p in the last year.

What I have said to them is that information needs to go through the website, which it will. A new site is being constructed for the new year and will have a lot more interactivity than the current one. 

It is worth reminding ourselves that correspondent Gareth has been employed to create this booklet by Hornsbys and thus it represents a huge step-change in presentation compared with what has gone before. The company was anxious to improve its publicity, as Gareth explains.

They are keen to get back to publishing timetables and as I type, these are at the printers ready for the new timetable launch on 2nd December. The importance of the printed material has been highlighted an opportunity to get that information out to existing (and more importantly, potential) customers and I’m hoping that with our new timetables, we’ve achieved that.

Well done Hornsbys, well done Gareth and may both enterprises continue to succeed.

 Another Germolene blog : Thursday 28th November 

Scunthorpe Surprise (1)

Conspiracy theory rumours that Elvis did not die "on the john" as reported but, in retirement, ran a chip shop in Scunthorpe have never gained much credence, despite an LP track by Kirsty MacColl.

It was the discovery of large deposits of iron ore that turned some sleepy Lincolnshire villages into a bustling industrial town.

Works and town grew rapidly from the 1903 map (above) and, although there has been a recent decline with significant closures, the extent of the towns industry can still be seen via Google Earth.

The current bus scene is, of course, dominated by Stagecoach as owner of the former Lincolnshire Road Car Company business. There has, however, been an attempt to present a unified network promoted under one "brand".

There is a Scunthorpe area booklet ...

... which includes a map of very high quality ...

... and full timetables (colour coded) for all town services.

These timetables do not actually tell you who operates them - mostly Stagecoach but joined by routes run by Hornsbys, a company which celebrated its 100th birthday five years ago.

Once upon a time, one sunny early morning in July 1914, Arthur Hornsby and his son Joseph set off with some sandwiches from the village of Ashby near Scunthorpe to Norfolk to buy a charabanc.  Neither could drive so they travelled by steam train and on foot.

The charabanc was at a garage and was actually an early pick-up truck with a few seats, a tailgate and solid rubber tyres.  It had been used on a large country estate for shooting parties. 

In the sale it was agreed that a mechanic would travel part of the way home. The mechanic taught Arthur how to work the pedals and gears until they arrived in Lincoln where he had arranged to visit his sister he hadn’t seen in years. 

The mechanic waved the two on their way as Arthur and Joseph took it in turns to learn how to drive, bouncing along the dusty dirt tracks and cobbles arriving home in Ashby very late that evening.

After bolting on a few more seats and making it a charabanc, a week later they carried their first passengers from Ashby to the skating rink and music halls of Scunthorpe. 

The first bus was called "Primrose" which gave the company its name until the Hornsby family name took over. But history is preserved in Hornsby's current logo

Reference to the company's web site shows that they are the operators of two town services. Route 6 to their HQ area at Ashby ...

... and route 9 the Hospital Park and Ride shuttle.

Despite promoting "Simplibus", North Lincolnshire Council offers no bus timetables on its web site but clicking on Scunthorpe Town Map gives you the whole map plus real timetables. fbb presumes that this is available in "hard copy".

Mysteriously, Stagecoach's own web site has a link to the service 6 timetable, but declines to admit the existence of the 9!

Mention should also be made of the existence of a rural services map on the North Lincs site.

This comes with the usual less than useful numeric list of services plus frequency guide.

You must suppose that such a list offers the small benefit of telling the user how bad the bus service is!

But with all this information being "all available on line" (???) fbb was double excited to receive an email from Gareth. Although a railwayman by employ, Gareth has, for some time, designed timetables for Hornsbys. He informs an eagerly anticipatory fbb that the latest edition of Hornsby's timetable book (some folk as old as fbb can remember what such a mysterious object was, and is!).

fbb will explore this superb production tomorrow - the wait will be worth it! - but, in the meantime, a P.S. from London Buses route 40 as featured yesterday.

Alan (of Northampton) writes:-

On Saturday in less than clement weather there was a running day, sometimes a queueing in traffic day, on London route 140. RMs, RTs and Metrobi ran between Harrow Weald bus garage and Heathrow Central bus station at up to a ten minute frequency, with three journeys scheduled to continue to and from Mill Hill.

As the preserved buses sometimes got in front of scheduled vehicles braver real passengers were tempted on board where the enthusiasts explained to them the forthcoming route changes, of which they seemed to be unaware. 

That last sentence admirably reinforces yesterday's posting illustrating how absolutely awful Transport for London's publicity is. Hornsby's of Scunny is so much better!

Here are a couple of snaps from Alan, one taken at South Harrow station ...

... and another  at Heathrow Central Bus Station.

Even better is this video. It shows an enthusiast's whole day, starting from East London and travelling by bus and tube to Heaathrow. It wonderfully encapsulates the manic lifestyle of the keen running day attender!

3 minutes 43 seconds to warm the cockles of an omnibologist's heart!

 Next timetable book blog : Wednesday 27th November 

Weekend Accumulation (2)

Northern's Nostalgic Versa

After yesterday's post had been safely put to bed, some more pictures of the opening of the new Beamish Bus Depot have appeared in the twittersphere. One of which shows the whole GoAhead bus in its heritage liveried glory. Here it is - click on the pic for an enlargement.

Ray Stenning ...

... (that's the self effacing shrinking violet Ray Stenning) is aways on about "Creating Desire". fbb reckons that GoAhead's "Northern" Versa does a better job of desire creation than many of today's swirly and variegated livery offerings.

The Versa oozes distinguished quality - you would trust a bus company that dressed its vehicles like that.

Or you could travel with flying banana!

Excellent London Buses Publicity

Route 140 has been around for some time running between Heathrow Airport and "Arrer" (or maybe "Herrow").

Currently run by Metroline is speeds (?) between its two termini every 7 minutes.

Or maybe every 8?

Broadly, the route has not changed since 1955 although then it ran from Mill Hill via Harrow.

In two week's time, the route changes almost beyond recognition. Fortunately there are some helpful posters displayed at South Harrow Station. we are introduced to a speeded up (but less frequent) X140.

The all sops 140 now runs only as far as Hayes and Harlington station.

Details of a replacement 278 are also explained on the poster.

The all night service is, effectively, the old 140 bus numbered N140.

This would represent a dramatic change in publicity style and content from Transport for London - except that, with just two weeks to go to this significant change, TfL are telling you absolutely NOTHING.

These posters have been downloaded from a twitter group calling itself  LDNBusUpdates.

Their stuff is excellent in every way. 

And how does fbb know that the X140 is less frequent between Harrow and Heathrow than at present.

He has search a timetable site for London Buses. Here we find the shortened 140 ...

... the speeded-up X140 ...

... and the night service.

None of these will EVER be published by Transport for London, an organisation which seems unwilling to consider any tentative move towards "creating desire".

As usual, all London timetables are published in a variety of formats on Robert Munster's site (here).

Trans Pennine's Timetable Pottiness

Last week, First Trans Pennine had a formal launch of it three Nova trains all in one place ...

... complete with blue, not red, carpet. It will be a while before these new trains become commonplace, but they are coming, albeit late. What is also coming is some enhancements from the December timetable change. One feature is trains to Edinburgh via York and Newcastle.

Good eh?

But look at the timetable (which repeats every hour).

The 1345 from Manchester Victoria runs to Newcastle, arriving 1613. Just 15 minutes later another train follows on the same route. Without at stop at Northallerton it is 11 minutes later at Darlington. Omitting a Chester-le-Street call, the train arrives just 6 minutes later at Newcastle before continuing to Scotland's capital.

Does it make ANY sense to run two trains barely ten minutes apart?

Sensibly commercial or some variant of an ORCATS raid?

Operational Research Computerised Allocation of Tickets to Services is the means by which ticket revenue is divvied out between the train companies that share a route or lines. It is all based on surveys and clever algorithms but in an extreme case a train company can do quite well even if there are very few passengers on its particular train.

That is known as an ORCATS raid.

Whatever the reason, Trans Pennines timetable looks very odd.

And Another Clue

For the festive season the fbb's have decorated the front of their property with a large star made out of 5 garden canes and a set of LED lights. Nice!

When this was taken town on twelfth night it fell to bits in a spectacular and terminal fashion. The lights survived intact. This years' design is under construction and awaiting the addition of stringS of lights - a more ambitious project.

As a certain disgraced entertainer was wont to ask, "Have you worked out what it is yet?"

Tomorrow we go to Scunthorpe!

 Next Good Publicity blog : Tuesday 26th November 

Weekend Accumulation (1)

First A Puzzle

What is this strange construction of canes and string in the hallway of fbb mansions.

Another clue later!

Rosso Rejoices : Rejuvenation in Rawtenstall

In the 1960s Rawtenstall was blessed (?) with a temporary bus station.

This was replaced by a "state of the art" new facility.

By the late 2010s this "art" was in a very sorry state and Transport for Greater Manchester decided to build a shiny new one ...

... which has now opened.

To celebrate, the main bus company that will use it (Transdev Rosso) had produced a promotional leaflet.

Containing a simple diagram of Rosso's services in the town ...

 ... plus a voucher for one return ticket, it was distributed house to house and to all businesses in the town. Free offers! Why don't we see more of them. Why don't bus companies learn from the supermarkets and start SELLING their product.

So often B O G O F is simply "bog off"!

464 To The Fore?

Whilst following up Rosso on line an on twitter, fbb came across this.

It is a 1:76 (OO gauge) model of this, the real thing.

Most twitterer wanted to know where they could buy one. Sadly they can't. It was skilfully created by a Rosso "enthusiast", a repainted version of one of these.

It was commissioned by TTC Diecast in 2013.

Talking Of Painting ...

fbb's ability is several levels below the Rosso bus quality. A purchase of a vintage Triang tank wagon for not very much on EBay brought him a rather battered model.

A shaky touch of off-white paint, mixed on fbb's palette (plank of wood) filled in a few gaps and a touch of varnish sealed the peeling transfers.

It is a bit "bodge and dodge" but "from normal viewing distance" (i.e. though heavy teeming rain or a November fog) it looks much better than "as delivered". Likewise the Playcraft tank wagon ...

... had been "modified" by its previous owner. Bits of the underframe had been painted silver. Old tank wagon underparts are inevitably caked with a mixture of dead oil and grease and, in some places, rust. No one would bother painting them silver. So fbb painted the silver bits black.

Less successful is fbb's attempt to add yellow lining to a purple N2 loco.

Explanations later.

Beautiful Beamish Building

A few blogs back, fbb reported on the completion of a "generic" bus depot at the open air museum.

It was formally opened last week with three Northern buses in attendance.

The Routemaster is beautifully preserved but notably one of GoAhead's single deckers has been decked out in "heritage" Northern livery.

Doesn't it look rather swish?

Why? It's even had a radiator and company badge added!

Is It Really Goodbye?

It will be soon, "real" ful length HSTs will soon be a thing of the past.

L N E R (our nationalised railway company) will be running its last HST in a few weeks.

Rumour has it the the very last HST will be repainted (or vinyl wrapped) in the original "flying banana" livery for the farewell tour.

That sounds extra-special.

And Clue Number Two

 More stuff tomorrow!

 Next Accumulation blog : Monday 25th November