Sunday Variety

 Customer Service : What A Good Idea?

How about creating an "enquiry office" so that potential passengers can wander in and find out about their local bus services. This one is announced for West Sussex.

Inside consultation ...

... or, of course, you could enquire "en plein air" ...

... if it isn't raining!

It's a wonder nobody has thought if something like this before!

And there's more!

Stagecoach has been promoting a similar service in the neighbouring county of Hampshire ...

... although there is something familiar about the services offered across the border.

Pardon?

Oh, it's just one tiny bus to deliver customer service to a combined population of about 3 million souls.

Well, you've got to start somewhere!

Customer Service : Yeovil

Yeovil Junction station is served by First's South Western Railway (SWR) business. It is some way from Yeovil.

There it is, at the village if Barwick.

SWR has not been doing so well recently.

Not that long ago, the SWR class 158 and 159 diesel units were high in the national reliability list, being maintained by a dedicated and committed team at Salisbury depot.

We now read ...

Could it be that First Rail has cut back its depot staff? Surely not! Could it be that the trains are just too old for the daily thrashing they get between Waterloo and Exeter? Maybe that as well!

Then, yet again, the service has been cut between Yeovil and Exeter.

This has happened before, and, weren't we told last time, that remedial work had stabilised the track?

Now the MP had got involved.

That's him, Adam Dance, Lib Dem. As an MP, he is, obviously, an expert on the railways. So he is campaigning for better customer service at Yeovil junction.

The station has one island platform accessed by an ancient footbridge ...

... actually half a footbridge!

Accessibility?

There is a linking bus from town to station ...

... presented on-line with slightly mystifying place names, one (above) from a community group, the other from Traveline.

Both are different in place name detail, of coirse. The operator, Somerset County Council, doesn't tell you anything!

Service 68 buses are never busy for either departures or arrivals at Yeovil Junction.

So here is the MP at work.

221,442 is not a big number by railway station standards. Axminster, fbb's 'local' rail head, manages 417,948; nearly twice as many!

So, hugely successful so far, then?

Customer Service : Chunnel Competition

Some readers may vaguely remember an fbb blog about plans for competitive services through the Channel Tunnel. Above we see a headline report.

Firstly we need to treat, with polite suspicion, the concept of "ordering" new trains. Sometimes this means that the train operator and train builder have signed an agreement to sign a contract to lease trains financed by another company for delivery in due course. 

It is the start if a long and hugely complicated process; which should begin by booking train paths from London to Paris via the tunnel.

No operator would fully commit to buying 19 hugely expensive trains without being certain they could run them.

It's complicated!

F.S. is Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane S.p.A., Italian State Railway

a k a

Trenitalia

Trenitalia France is a company wholly owned by FS, to run services in France and in competition with S N C F, the French state railway operator.

So it will be French Italian state railways that runs from the United Kingdom in competition with Eurostar, owned by French and Belgian state railways.

Good, innit?

Watch this space.

What You Have Been Waiting For!

One of the latest TWO tanks to join fbb's world famous collection is revealed here.

Lima S.p.A. (Lima Models) was an Italian manufacturing company of model railways. The company was headquartered in Vicenza for almost 50 years, from the early 1950s until the company ceased trading in 2004. Lima was a popular, affordable brand of 00 gauge and N material in the UK. . Lima partnered with various distributors and manufacturers, selling under brands such as A.H.M., Model Power, and Minitrain. Market pressures from superior Far Eastern products in the mid-1990s led to Lima merging with Rivarossi, Arnold, and Jouef. Ultimately, these consolidations failed and operations ceased in 2004. What was left if the Lima business was absorbed by Hornby.

Lima had a superior manufacturing system compared with the big UK firms and was able to produce a vast catalogue of OO models more cheaply than the UK brand leaders. Well it did until it went bust!

But the only true UK tanker that the company produced was a six wheel milk tank.

It appeared in umpteen liveries under Lima management and production continued under Hornby. Ex Lima tank wagons still appear from time to time in the Hornby catalogue.

It is quite a good model at nearly 35 years old!

For other varieties of tank wagon, Lima put UK couplings on its existing European (HO) wagons and decorated them with UK brand names.

Hence fbb's recent purchase.

It came in a box illustrated by two models that Lime never made: a LMS "Crab" and a sort-of High Speed Train. Lima did make an HST, but it didn't look like that!

From above, the Lima model (in white) sits reasonably well with a high quality UK model ...

... but the under parts are really cheap and nasty.

There are a few black blobs on the Lima; but a vast collection of "stuff" on the top grade UK model.

Although the actual tank is about the right length for a UK TEA class wagon, the white tank itself is too slim and, were the Lima model be to OO scale (4mm to the foot rather than HO's 3.5mm) the model would be at least two inches longer and thus very wrong.

But the kiddies would have loved them.

 Next Weekend Variety blog : Mon 17 Aug 

Mr Arnold's HUGE Adventure (2)

 

So, Mr William Arnold, arty photographer, Falmouth College lecturer and phone box enthusiast seeks to publicise, possibly save, the box at Enaclete, Isle of Lewis.

fbb reckons that his possible journey by public transport would, realistically, involve two overnight stops. So your intrepid investigator began the tortuous process of planning the journey by public transport. Not knowing where  young Bill resided, he started with the National Rail journey planner, Falmouth to Glasgow.

You would't get further north than Glasgow, so a chance to book into somewhere pleasant, enjoy a carryoot fish supper and a good night's kip before day two.

Then fbb discovered that Bill lived at Helston. So, this time, Traveline was used because a bus was required. But a similar result was generated.

He starts on bus 38 at 0647 ...

... enjoys the experience of THREE railway companies; or FOUR railway companies if he leaves an hour later at 0750. fbb will leave his excitable readers to explore the details of his first "leg".

Day two gets him from Glasgow to Stornoway.

The 0629 departure would be fbb's recommended option unless Bill wanted to linger over a "full English" Scottish breakfast.

It should include a potato scone, square sausage and haggis black pudding. It would, of course, start with a huge bowl of porridge. All this, together with toast a-plenty, should ensure that a midday meal was unnecessary.

On the other hand, 2015 may be too late for an ample Scottish dinner at Stornoway.

Tough decision, eh?

Back to the 0629, which fbb thinks is actually a through Citylink coach all the way, over the sea bridge to Skye ...

... and on to Uig. It is from the latter that service CM22 operates ...

... being the smaller big boat to Tarbert. When the fbbs ventured this far, they were in leisure mode and hotelled in Glasgow, Portree, Tarbert and Stornoway.

They stayed in the Tarbert Hotel ...

... opposite which, back then, was the bus garage for the service to Stornoway. It is now a car hire emporium.

The minibus was not in service - it was just leaving its home next to a church.

But the maitre d' at the hotel nipped across the road and arranged for the fbbs to be picked up outside the gaff and conveyed back down to the pier, the official start of the route. That operator (can't remember the name) has now gone.

Mr Arnold will be in the capable steering wheel of Lochs Motors of Leurbost for the enjoyable coastal ride from Tarbert ferry pier ...

... to Stowaway. fbb could find no picture of a W10, but it would probably be one of these.

Here is the W10 timetable, the most frequent interurban route on the dual-identity island.

Young Will would be on the last departure of the day from Tarbert Pier, at 1625.

So an over night in Stornoway.

For the record, Lochs Motors have been around for years on Harris Lewis ...

... once using former Scottish Bus Group single decks ...

... almost the standard vehicle for independent Scottish operators.

Day 3 : Stornoway to Enaclete.

The timetable, like most routes on Harris Lewis, is heavily biased to school transport, but as we are, just about, in the long Summer break, Traveline does the sorting out for us.

There is only one through trip from Stornoway, at 12 noon, with others requiring a connection at Garynahine.

fbb guesses that William might prefer the security of the through bus, rather than the fear of a failed connection in a strange place, however minute that community might be.

The interchange at Garynahine is a minimalist affair ...

... and the picture below shows the village centre!

Together with the timetable, Traveline provides intending passengers with a helpful (!) computer driven map of the W4 ...

... which we can enlarge for even more helpful (!) detail.

The Enaclete loop off the main road ...

 ... is very unclearly shown on the map, lower right. Whether the bus would stop at the more remote phone box is debatable.

But William is there, at last.

The big challenge is how he might get back, at least as far as Stornoway. fbb will leave his readers to do their own research. Surely there is an afternoon bus back, at least to Garynahine.

Sadly for the plans prepared by fbb, but doubtless happily for William ...

... he went by car.

Talking of weird obsessions, fbb has recently taken delivery of two tank wagons, one from Italy, but for the UK market, and one ultimately the creation of Dr Richard Beeching. More in the upcoming Variety blogs.

Meanwhile ...

fbb has found his tub of 'scatter' grass ...

A few scrubby bushes will eventually disguise the join.

But he is having trouble with his electrics. In desperation he has ordered one of these.

Now he has to learn how to use it! He has never handled a testing meter  in his long and uneventful life! Lets hope it comes with instructions or ...

... there could be problems working with 12,000 millivolts!

 Next Weekend Variety blog : Sun 16th Aug