Bus Bits Blog (1)

Radical Rebranding Revealed!

News is filtering through about some new names for well known products. Marmite is being renamed Starburst as per this rough mock-up of the new label.

To avoid too much confusion, Starburst sweets will now be known as Snickers. Here is a Starburst Fruity Twist packet with the new name added.

Surely an utterly ridiculous idea?

Of course it is - it's just a fanciful and artistically pathetic fbb paste-up. But it would never happen. Even when Marathon ...

... became Snickers, the colours and lettering on the wrapper maintained the style.

So First South Yorkshire might (perhaps?) be excused for changing the X78 Steellink ...

... (complete with seat-back branding) to X1 Steellink.

This was to promote the (not much) improved service to Rotherham; improved by taking it away from Tinsley where people needed it and sending it via Meadowhell already served more than adequately by the former Steellink X78.

But it gets worse. Having re-rebranded Steellinks's shiny new(-ish) buses for the X1 ...

... the closure of Rotherham depot as meant that most have moved to Olive Grove in Sheffield (once called East Bank when fbb was nobbut a lad!). Thanks to Sheffield correspondent Roy we can now enjoy pictures of the X1 at Walkley ...

... and pictures of the X1 at Lodge Moor.

A very slight mitigation is provided by the removal (above) of the X1 text itself. But surely that should mean that the unbranded bus would be allocated to the X1 between Sheffield, Rotherham and Maltby?

Get it right, PLEASE!

fbb must finish this blog later, as it's time for breakfast. Your chubby author will sustain his day's frenetic activity with a large bowl of ...

... Daz. Yummy yum yum!

Spring and Spuds Come to fbb Towers
Despite the efforts of Storm Doris on Thursday, the fbbs are thrilled that the Mrs' miniature daffs have survived the winter and begun their flowering on part of the mansion's extensive boundary fence.

All together now - "Aaaaah!"

And on the same day as the daffs bloomed, Mrs fbb returned from their neighbourhood shop, once run by "Jolly Jack" Cohen, with a bag of spuds. fbb was impressed with the very silly label.

Or should they be "imperfectly perfect" potatoes. Or just "spuds with dents in 'em."?

Enigmatic Exeter Explanations
Regular blog readers will remember that Exeter is to get a lovely new bus station to replace the tatty old one.

Internally, it looks nice and shiny ...

... but, following recent conventions in bus station design, it will be too small for the services that want to use it.

If it ever happens? This is the latest headline locally.

What a surprise!

But to add to the good news, here is another recent headline:-

The current Travel Shop is excellent, with helpful staff and racks and racks of useful information. The article does not make it clear whether this is a permanent closure or just for the duration of the rebuilding. It ought to be the latter, but today's "bottom-line" management style (run by accountants who don't use the buses!) means that, if a travel shop doesn't show a measurable "profit", it is for the chop.

They simply ignore the thousands of customers every week who are encouraged to travel with confidence as a result of the staff's care and guidance. Without that support, thy might not travel again.

Where's your bottom line then?

Dastardly Doris Dumps Double Decker

On Thursday afternoon storm Doris was breathing he destructive last over the blasted wastes of East Anglia, A final gust greeted a First Bus bus near Wisbech with decidedly unfortunate consequences.

Thanks to a chum at First Bus, fbb is able to reproduce a genuine report from the scene.

Phew! Could have been so much worse.

And here is "yer actual" bus in happier times.

More bits tomorrow.

 Next bus bits blog (etc.) :  Sunday 26th February