Hip Hip Hooray : It Starts Today : The New 9A

If Only We Had a Timetable!

Soon after the 9A was registered with the traffic commissioners, fbb contacted his chums at Stagecoach Devon, the chums, that is, who invite him to bus launches, and asked them to send him a big bundle of timetable leaflets so that he could distribute them liberally amongst the denizens of Seaton.

Nothing has yet arrived.

But what of the town's tourist information centre? There used to be one. It was a splendid brick-built building with loads of room to display stuff ...

... but it was demolished and replaced with a portakabin.

The site was required for the construction of the exciting and ground-breaking visitor attracttion recently opened by Princess Anne/Royal.

Two thirds of the new building are full of Dinosaur "stuff" and one third is an extensive cafe.

Somewhere in there is the Tourist Information Centre, as can be gathered from the signs at the entrance.

Or not, as the case may be.

Well, it must be in there, because the TIC's web site says so.

It really is there; as fbb observed when he popped in a week ago to deliver some GoTimetable Seaton leaflets. Centre? No, it was a shelf as part of the Seaton Jurassic pay desk; and quite a small shelf at that.

Thus it was that fbb re-popped in on Sunday last to obtain a timetable leaflet for the new 9/9A which starts today.

No shelf! Gone! No Tourist Infromation people! Gone! The shelf turns out to be a trolley which is wheeled into a locked office when The Tourist Information Centre Shelf is closed; namely at weekends when Seaton Jurassic is at its busiest. Brilliant?

The removable shelf is replaced by an utterly pathetic alcove almost completely hidden from public view.

But there, in the middle, was a rack displaying Stagecoach 9/9A leaflets alongside adverts for a well know timetable app.

In passing, fbb noted that publicity for other bus services (including Stagecoach 20 to Taunton) was very much absent. But at least Seaton's non-motoring visitors could get to Lyme Regis, Sidmouth or Exeter.

The leaflet is a typical Stagecoach publication, all of it taken up with the timetable and with no map.

But at least it was available.

Once outside the Tourist Non-Information Centre, fbb can report that the lads from Exeter had been around in their little van and erected new bus stop flags ...

... and posted new timetables in the frames.

It is, perhaps, a pity that Stagecoach staff had removed the old timetables leaving possible confusion over the Bank Holiday weekend. You would have a long, long wait from Saturday to Monday for a 9A bus to Lyme Regis!

Nevertheless, fbb was able to spot that the first ever Stagecoach service 9A to Lyme Regis would leave Seaton at 0750 this morning (Sunday service on a Bank Holiday, one presumes?).

In his pre-offspring youth, fbb (accompanied by an equally youthful Giles Fearnley!) specialised in doing "first buses" or at least "first days" when resident in Sheffield. This would be his first first day for many a long year.

The outcome of this exciting expedition will be revealed tomorrow.

 Next 9A bus blog : Tuesday 3rd May