Monday, 23 October 2017

Monday Miscellany

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Please Note
The fbbs are spending a few half-term days with family at Instow in North Devon. The neighbours and Jacko the cat (in disguise) are mounting guard on the extensive property at fbb mansions.
Please excuse any potential failing in publication. (Ab)normal home-based service will resume on Friday.
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Marvellous Matrimonial Motor
Taken by lorry driving Dave outside Sheffield town hall on Saturday.
It is a Leyland PD2 with Weymann bodywork, beautifully preserved. Now that IS a bus! (Pause for assorted anonymi to add comments about fbb living in the past, a dinosaur who should have suffered the fate of the real things and other general denigration.)

An Offer You Can Refuse ...
... from Westminster, complete with Houses of Parliament portcullis look-alike.
So it must be "official".
And it is mint - or from the mint? Is it a coin of the realm?
It is a "Numisproof". You will not find this word in any serious coin collector's vocabulary

The dies for making modern proof coins are often treated with chemicals to make certain parts of the design take on a frosted appearance, with the polished fields taking on a mirror finish. Several other methods have been used in the past to achieve this effect, including sand blasting the dies, and matte proofs. The term "proof" refers to the process by which the coins are made and not to the condition of the coin. Certification agencies can grade and assign numerical ratings for proof coins.

 But do not be deceived. These are NOT coins; they are simply souvenirs of no particular value. Fair enough, if you want a collection of shiny expensive metallic discs to commemorate something, you are welcome to send your money.  But of course the bargain price is not the whole story.
Better buy one of these.

 Comet Lands At Queensbury
But it "takes off" from Hatfield!
Buses magazine for November has plopped through the letterbox at fbb mansions. The over introduces another company venturing into route branding.
Uno (formerly University of Hertforshire's outreach into bus operations) runs service 614/644 from Hatfield to Queensbury in North London.
644 is the number used for peak hour trips on this 30 minute frequency service.
The vehicle illustrated on the mag's front cover has a gorgeous picture of the plane on its stairway "banister".
But it does not end there. Northamptonian Alan has sent another branded Uno decker.
It is on a Uno service that runs from Northampton Uni to town centre and railway station. The brand had a launch in the town's Market Square ...
... but Alan is uncertain what the purpose of the be might bee.
The Violet (with bee) runs every 12 minutes (Monday to Friday) from the Uni to Sixfields with one journey an hour staring back from Weston Favell centre.
The main service reduces to every 15 minutes during Uni holidays and offers only a bus every half hour with one extended on Saturdays. Sundays every 30 from Uni to station only.

 Roger Gets It Right
Roger French, once the Main Man at Brighton and Hove buses ...
... pens an occasional column or three in Buses Magazine. This month he ends with a vehement criticism of Transport for London's bus map policy.

 They no longer provide them.
There are plenty of non-bus maps available ...
The loss of the Central London map must be a particular blow for tourists as well as residents as the network is complex and unfathomable without it. Surprisingly Transport for London has just reduced frequencies on several central area routes, offering some feeble and unlikely reasons.
Apparently there is "no demand" for the maps. Might that be because they have not been promoted in any way in recent years AND finding any outlet that offers them has been a huge challenge.

Hey ho! No timetables (on line or printed) in London, no geographical maps (on line or printed) in London.

How frequent is my bus? Guess

How long will the journey take? Guess

Where do I find possible journey options? Guess

Whoops, fbb forgot; all together now ...

 "It's all on line!"

But it isn't!

 Next Tuesday Topics blog : 24th October 
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9 comments:

  1. Anonymous23 October 2017 at 06:15

    i am glad that somebody has finally pointed out the supposed land of milk and honey (TFL) is actually coming up short in terms of publicity.

    Not only that, for months they have been hiding in plain sight service cuts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mackay23 October 2017 at 07:49

      Well TFL has got to find the money to pay for the Mayor's "how to get into office" bribes that he clearly didn't really have the money for....
      And to then say that his hopper fare has been used by however many millions since he launched it and therefore how wonderful everyone thinks it is (and he is, obviously too) is such guff. Before the hopper fare if I had a day out on say 8 buses then I paid for 3 and the rest would be free due to the daily cap. Now, if I do the same, I still only pay for 3, but TFL claim I've used the mayor's wonderful hopper fare up to 4 times, as they attribute ANY use of two buses within a 70 min period as some sort of vote of approval in him and his policies, even though in reality It's likely that I've already hit the daily cap and won't be paying anything further because of the cap and nothing to do with any hopping!! So the mayor claims his wonderful policy has helped me make 4 journeys by bus, 2,4,6 and 8 when he can only properly claim journey 2. My fear is that now journeys 4,6 and 8 now are not correctly attributed to my real hero of the day, the daily cap, and one of the bean counters at TFL will say "the use of the daily cap has now dropped across London by 40%" and therefore we can do away with it and/or raise it without significant impact, which would be devastating! They're already using hopper as an excuse to cut routes and useful through links, as you can simply change for free now, even if you don't want to have to... (eg 23 cut back to Aldwych... oh just get off and get an 11 etc)... with more of this to come!
      There'll be plenty more service cuts and curtailments to come as the real implications of his other gimmick, the "fares freeze" starts to make further inroads into TFL's finances... and don't get me started on the lie THAT really was to most people south of the river!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous23 October 2017 at 18:23

      It may be me with my commercial operator background but the hopper fare is a bad idea when your pax numbers are falling - i dont see how that gets more bums on
      on seats while cutting off peak frequencies in plain sight... unless you quicken journey times somehow

      Delete
  2. Anonymous23 October 2017 at 08:29

    Really FBB - there's a world of difference between people having an alternative view of the world and "denigration". Especially as you're quite happy to criticise others via this very blog.

    Are you living in some rose tinted view of endless summers, growing public transport usage and perfect publicity from the late 1950s? Yes

    Do I wish to see you extinguished via some cataclysmic experience? No

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous23 October 2017 at 10:07

      I think they call it a 'persecution complex'.

      Delete
  3. dwarfer197923 October 2017 at 15:47

    I suspect the bee is in reference to the Northampton Buzz Card, the multi-operator ticket covering the Northampton local zone. It certainly looks like the logo which is a cartoon bee in a similar style. It's nice to see an operator so promoting a multi-operator product so prominently in an own product launch like this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thomas Manship23 October 2017 at 17:54

      Is it not just to match the bee on the livery? Or give the UoN students in the art department something to do for the afternoon?!

      Delete
  4. Daddysgadgets24 October 2017 at 09:06

    Spending a couple of days in Liverpool I wanted to get an up to date bus map. However the only maps available from Merseyside appear to be cyclying maps. They do at least still have timetables.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Daddysgadgets27 October 2017 at 07:14

      Having moved on to Manchester I find the same situation here. The travel enquirer offices have lots of cycling (street) maps but no longer any bus maps.

      Delete

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