Keynsham, Spelt K E Y N S H A M, Keynsham
And there it is, a small town located about halfway between Bristol and Bath. It has a railway station on the GWR main line and is served mainly by First Bus.
The A4 bypasses the town centre with the church being the main stop for bus passengers.
The town's main claim to fame is focused on this man ...
... who died in 1977.
From Sunday April 5th, First Bus is throwing large chunks of its Bristol network into an omnibological cyclotron and pulling out a whole load of revised routes and timetables.
Why bus companies do this biff bash approach always baffles fbb. It can be too much to tale in. It is OK of you only ever use one route, but without printed material and a good map, you may well struggle to understand anything other than your usual journey - even assuming you can understand that!
So fbb decided to start with Keynsham, and, using the Infra Draw Method, try to understand what is gong on.
A map is useful, so here is Keynsham culled from the current First Bristol network map.
It seems simple enough; so all we have to do is to download the map of the new network and compare the two.
There isn't one!
Does this map help?
It helps only if you know that the 43 replaces the 349, the 42 from the north is in addition to the 17 whilst the,42 and 43 to the Burnett Business Park are in addition to the 522.
The X39 ...
... and 39 are unchanged in route but with timetable changes. fbb thinks this is a current timetable extract from Bristol ...
The poor quality on-line timetable for the revised service is wrong, First tells us (Great!) so the company have given us a much better quality PDF timetable instead.
There are five more 39/X39 tables available on line, all different, some dated, some not.
fbb has no idea what the column headings BH and MH signify! There table does not tell us.
One of these is for a National Express X39 ...
... which isn't a National Express service at all, merely First's X39 're-badged'.
As usual with First Bus, it is an on-line shambles!
And So To The 522
One bus an hour runs all the way to Bath, the other hourly trip terminates at Ashton Way, journeys which do not appear on the current network map.
Aha! Maybe Ashton Way is the same as Bilbie Green? Who knows?
But it matters not a lot as the forthcoming timetable ...
... shows only the hourly through buses to Bath.
Is fbb right to conclude that when 39s are not running, the only way from Keynsha, Church to Bath is via the circuitous 522!
You need to toddle down to the by pass for an X39.
So a service reduction almost hidden in the rubric - 522 - A revised timetable is now available for the 522 HERE with additional early morning journeys. We are not telling you that half you buses to Keynsham are withdrawn.
Well hidden First folks!
Well hidden First folks!
Elsewhere, First tells us that the cutback is because of the loss of tender money
349 Becomes 43 : 42 is New?
Currently, the 349 joins the 522 in providing a service to Keynsham Church, a total of four buses an hour. The 349 runs every 30 minutes ...
... but the timetable shows all journeys as terminating at Keynsham Church. But the current map shows 349 as running to Bilbie Green.
Thanks, First for a misleading timetable.
To get to Bilbie Green on the 349 you need the table for buses from Keynsham to Bristol.
Surely the Biblbie times should be shown on the outward journeys.
Of course they should!
The replacement 43 is also half hourly. But the 43 is cross city, sort of. It is certainly not 'Cross city' for the benefit of passengers! Look at the full 43 route!
To help bewildered readers, fbb has stripped out everything except the direct replacement for the 349.
Wowsers!
... current route 43 timetable extract,
And here is the easier to follow NEW 43 timetable extract!
fbb notes that there are FIVE route 43 buses an hour between City and Kingswood on the current timetable and only TWO on the new schedule.
Maybe something else has changed?
To summarise what we have learned so far ...
39/X39 : no change to route but tinkering with the number of journeys via Keynsham Church, route 39. Confusion with on-line information.
349 : replaced by 43, extended to Burnett Business Park.
522 : reduced in frequency
17 : changes in Keynsham (tomorrow's blog)
42 : new route (tomorrow's blog)
??? : The missing mystery service (tomorrow's blog)
But fbb needs to take a look at a major development in Sheffield which may be happening - sometime soon, or maybe sometime later.
But fbb needs to take a look at a major development in Sheffield which may be happening - sometime soon, or maybe sometime later.
Next Keynsham blog (plus) : Thurs 19 March
