Saturday Variety (sort of)

STOP PRESS

Merseyside Is Happening!

First we have the politics!

Bet Liverpudlians are really excited - especially after the non-event in Manchester. fbb has ignored paragraphs of over-hyped hyper hype.

And so to the practicalities. (click on the image for an enlargement)

What we do not yet know is what the detailed networks will look like. Will they just be the existing networks but with yellow buses? Steve Rotheram wants to be like London but might end up being like Manchester.

They can share yellow paint!

GoAhead Grabs All (Part 4)

Thanks to Keith Shayshutt's book, fbb can append a National Bus Company (NBC) map of the Falmouth Redruth Truro triangle. Have fun trying to read it. It is a pre-MAP map with MAP being the NBC's massive "Market Analysis Project" adopted in an attempt to bring losses under control.

It didn't  work, so they tried privatisation!  (Cynical, eh?)

Note most services are numbered in the five hundreds. This is because Western National, Southern National and Devon General had a combined route numbering scheme.

Even if the detail is too cluttered, it offers an interesting comparison with Cornwall network map of the area today.

There is quite a bit missing these days, notably in the Frogpool area, but colour and better print quality makes what's left easier to read!

Today we look at the long standing 'main line' route between Falmouth and Truro. Historically there were many variants with all sorts of diversions off the main road. 

Nowadays there is only one route, still with a few wiggles to reach passengers just off the main drag.

At first the brand was a minor 'UNI' addition to First's standard livery ...

.... with just U1 and U2 on the route diagram. The full all-blue livery followed, then the U4 was added later.

We know that First Bus cut the frequency of the U2 to hourly and, in the same rush of blood to the head, decided to devalue the 'U' for University by extending the U1 north to Newquay.

To cope with the diversions of half the service via St Agnes, the route U1A appeared ...

... thus devaluing the simple brand still further.

But it didn't last and things returned to something like normality.

fbb thinks those short working to the Uni campus (now renamed Tremough Falmouth from the better known Penryn) only operate during term times.

Then comes the GoAhead competition from September 2025.

But, instead of cloning the U1, GoAhead created a route 32 (DARK BROWN) ...

... which involves a small diversion via ASDA at Penryn. The 32 only runs hourly.

From the February timetable change the existing 32s join the Falmouth to Redruth table as 33A, running only as far as the Uni Campus.

Why are they not part of the new 32, one may wonder? fbb guesses that the new 32 is more complex and confusing than it's U1 predecessor, so adding in the ASDA trips would blow the passengers' comprehensibility fuses. It certainly blew fbb's at first!

Hmmm. 

We still have two buses an hour but it is beginning to look as if bus operators are steppig away from serving the campus. Would that be because the hallowed halls of academe are no longer coughing up the cash for previously lavish U services.

Anyway, here is the new 32.

Muddled, innit, compared with First's  U1?

One other change to note is that the non-Uni 32A trips are extended to Threemilestone. GoAhead does not tell us that in its blurb and fbb is not sufficiently familiar with passrnger needs as to hazard an explanation.

One thing is very clear.

In general, GoAhead is providing a worse service that that of the ailing First Bus.

It is equally likely that Cornwall Council's aspirations to take over the county's buses as in Manchester and Merseyside are off the agenda!

They ain't  got the money!

How Much?

We are all well aware of the excruciatingly expensive model railway stuff, so costly that only the well-heeled ex investment bankers can afford it.

So, how much might you pay for this OO 3-car Azuma ...

... complete with large oval of track, a siding c/w buffer stop, rerailing ramp, controller, power pack and coloured 'track mat' on which to lay out the layout?

And the train has working headlights (white, two) and rear lights (red two) which automagically swap over when the unit reverses.

Answer tomorrow.

Peterville Castle

Landforms are added between 'white' and 'black' castles with 'soil' and undergrowth to follow. The distant hills (!) now have their rolling skyline but the colour is still wrong. An artist friend suggested that fbb should add some purple to show 'distance'.

The undergrowth is also too green!

fbb may get the obligatory Round Tuit while you are reading his pearls of ferroequinological and omnibological wisdom, so maybe a bit more tomorrow.

Disappointment At fbb Mansions

fbb was catering supremo for yesterday's not-very-fine dining. Menu is a bought-in chicken and leek pie, tinned sweetcorn, a pack of gash asparagus from Seaton Library and multi-coloured carrots from Aldi. No spuds! 

Orange, yellow and purple carrots were in the bag.

But ...

... the purple carrots were orange in the middle. Disappointing.

And a further disappointment. The purple dye in the carrots turned the orange and yellowl beasties a muddy brown colour - adequately flavoured but not attractive to the eye.

Ah well; you live and learn even at nearly 81.

 

  Next Variety blog : Sunday 25th Jan 

Go Ahead Grabs All (3)

Frustrations At Falmouth Part 1

A Song And Dance At Helston

But not the traditional Furry Dance as extolled incorrectly as the Floral Dance by the late Terry Wogan.

It's  about the buses, innit!

According to transport historians, there has been a bus service from Penzance to Falmouth via Helston for over 100 years. For many of those years it has carried the number 2. Around a quarter of a century ago the main service ran between Penzancec and Helston ...

... with only occasional trips going all the way.

The major 'traffic objective' at the Falmouth end developed as the campus of various bits of assorted Universities. The site is now massive!

Most students and staff approach from Truro and Falmouth, but the link from Penzance soon became hourly all the way.

Note for later reference; the running time is one hour and forty minutes! With the expansion of services to the campus, the 2 became U4.

Buses were given a Universities blue design complete with route diagram for U4, with U1 and U2. For a brief time there was a U3!

Needless to say, other liveries appeared from time to time ...

... thus devaluing the brand ...

... sadly all too typical of First's management. But at least the hourly frequency remained stable ...

... until last year's competitive attacks from GoAhead. Go went ahead with an hourly bus from Penzance to the Sainsbury store ...

... just outside Helston; plus an hourly short working to Goldsithney.

GoAhead revived the route number 2.

Everyone said that it would not last and it hasn't.  First is walking away from Cornwall, leaving it all to the relative newcomer, from 15th February.

But the new turntable is less than satisfactory. It seems innocuous enough as you read the incoming operator’s  blurb.

But look carefully and you will see two route numbers.  Helston to Falmouth trips are to become service 3 but not from the town centre. The timetable explains all.

The former competitive journeys to Goldsithney remain, but the through journeys would appear to be split at Helston. (Ignore the SD schooldays 'specials'). Service 2 terminates at Sainsbury's a nd route 3 runs from Sainsbury's to Falmouth.

But are they through journeys?

If they are split, then anyone from the Falmouth direction wanting to get to the real Helston has to change buses at Sainsbury's before arriving at The Seven Stars hostelry in the town centre. 

Whether the bus runs through or not, a five minute wait until proceeding into town will be really annoying,

And look at the running time for the whole route. It is now two hours and four minutes. Not many will travel all the way, but a penalty of up to ten minutes for passing Go at Sainsbury's will surely encourage passengers to Stop using the bus!

Where's  A Copper When You Need One?

Buses between Falmouth and Redruth (originally continuing to Camborne) were, before the U 'turn' numbered as route 41.

It ran erratically but mainly hourly with extras. By the time it became the U2 it was every 30 minutes to Redruth only, but coordinated with the U1 to run every 15 between Falmoith and the Universities.

But the U2 was later reduced to every hour despite being branded 'Copper'.

Again, when First remembered, the buses were also branded.

Here is a section of the current network map.

GoAhead chose not to compete with First's  U2 so the change from next month is minor.

The new 33 is remarkably similar to its coinage coloured predecessor.

Through journeys are still hourly but where have the 33A shorts appeared from? Does that represent a service improvement from the newcomer?

For that, our excited reader will have to wait until tomorrow.

  Next GoAhead (plus) blog : Sat 24th Jan 

Go Ahead Grabs All (2)

Tinner Service, Thinner Service!

25 years ago, First Western National operated an hourly service 18 between Penzance and Truro; also a two hourly 14 between St Ives and Truro. 

There were, of course, other services over sections of the two routes.

Roll on a few years and First are advertising a very attractive trunk timetable of 14s and 18s providing at least a fifteen minute frequency over the common section of route.

It was a long common section with the western end split shown in the map below.

Next we see the route between Hayle and Redruth ...

... and finally between Redruth and Truro.

Then, in a massive move over to route branding, we had the 18 renumbered as T1 ...

... with the 14 becoming, imaginatively, the T2.

The T2 above is just leaving the now abandoned clifftop Malakoff bus station at St Ives.

The livery included a stylised map ...

... and a jolly tinner complete with lethal weapon!

The T1/T2 timetable was delightfully simple...

... and fbb has been trying to excavate from his 'leedle grey cells' whether, at one stage, the T1 and T2 were both every 20 in the peak summer, every 10 on the common section. But if they were, your aged expositor can find no tangible evidence thereof.

But First Bus are not renowned for tinetabular stability. The company almost always specialised in its expertise at confusing the passengers.

So enter route T3!

The core from Truro to Penzance and St Ibes remains, but extensions northwards require an extra route number  (T3) for the St Ives leg. 

At this stage only the T2/T3 served Loggans.

Whatever the motivation for the extensions to Newquay or Snozzle (who knows the minds of First's route planners) the service soon reverted to the good old T1/T2 that we had all grown to love.

The map on the buses was not updated for the new extension!

The most recent development, now perhaps to be viewed as somewhat prophetic ...

... blrought a competitive GoAhead 20 minute frequency route 41 to cream business from the hard working tinner. Except that route branding was abandoned and the tinner was appearing anywheere and everywher.

Everything now serves Loggans but the T2/T3 have  further wiggles via Gwithian.

From February 15th, Go Ahead dons the tinner's hard hat and clutches his weapon! Actually it doesn't - Go Ahead becomes Go Backwards again and reverts to routes 14 and 18.

Route branding - what's that? We are all GoCorwall Bus now!

But that is not the company's  only leap into the past.

Through journeys to Penzance and St Ives become hourly - more like 25 years ago.

The above is not a genuine picture. It is, indeed at Penzance bus station but with infrastructure that is later than a flat fronted VR! From the look of the elderly male clientele, it is an enthusiasts tout!

And another bit of prophetic publicity.

Every journey? Well, it is now!

Tomorrow  we go to Falmouth.

  Next GoAhead blog : Friday 23rd Jan