Today's blog was due to be the start of a review of how various bus operators and local authorities are publicising their Christmas bus services. But it was immediately obvious from various web sites that all was not well weather-wise. In the balmy environs of Seaton (or, indeed, the barmy environs of Seaton) not a frosty flake has fallen - although the rain was very cold yesterday afternoon.
The first hint of excessive hexagonal crystal precipitation came via an email from Alan with an attached photo taken at 0915 yesterday morning.
Alan comments, "What an absolutely splendid idea for the County Council to cut its snow clearing budget"; the consequences of which were apparent in Stagecoach's news later in the afternoon.
We are attempting to run a limited Northampton town service as well as Bedford, X4 & 19. However the following alterations are in place:
1 (Rectory Farm - town centre)
Buses will be unable to sereve Rectory Farm
2 (Camp Hill - town centre - Kettering Rd - Rectory Farm)
Buses are unable to serve Ringway
7 (Grange Park - Hardingstone - town centre - Broadmead Ave - Moulton Park)
Buses are unable to serve Grange Park Estate.
Buses will be unabel to sereve Broadmead Ave
8 (Kings Heath - St James Square - town centre - East Hunsbury)
Buses not serving Kings Heath. All journeys will turn at Gladstone Rd
12 (Kings Heath - St James Square - town centre - Towecster Rd - East Hunsbury)
Buses not serving Kings Heath. All journeys will turn at Gladstone Rd
Buses are unable to serve Granary Road
15/15A (St Giles - Upton - town centre - Acre Lane)
Buses unable to serve Upton or St Cripins
16 (Kingsthorpe - town centre - Weston Favell - Ecton Brook)
Buses unable to serve Tonmead Rd/Penistone Rd.
88/X7/D3/X46 will not run
X4 (Peterborough - Corby- Kettering - Wellingborough - Northampton - Milton Keynes)
Buses will not serve Earls Barton, Red Hill Grange, Oundle, Elton or Lynchwood
In summary what this tells us is that anything off the mainest of main roads will not be served - presumably because there has been no attempt to clear the white fluffy stuff.
One positive thought, however ...
Northampton was significantly better off than Birmingham! The juxtaposition of the travel offer and the news item is perhaps "unfortunate"?
At 0930 yesterday London Underground was having problems.
The delays and suspended problems were quoted as caused by "power supply problems due to snow". By 1700 it wasn't much better.
Same reason/excuse as earlier.
It does seem odd that a bit of snow should be so disruptive to travel. Surely it never used to be like this? Perhaps yet another example of trimming back the snowfall budget?
There didn't seem to be anything about disruption to the bus services. The daily Telegraph tagged this picture ...
... "a bus struggles in North London" - with no further details. The Evening Standard on-line had a picture of what looked suspiciously like the same bus from a different angle.
The sub-editor's take on the weather story was different, however.
Meanwhile, National Rail also had problems with snow and their electricity supply.
This all calls for s song:-
Oh, the weather outside is frightful
Bus travel is not delightful.
And since we've no place to go
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
Underground service is stoppin'
And I was thinking of shoppin'
We've decided that we won't go.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
Electric supply is dying
Travel, it ain't worth trying
Can't get to work what a blow
Let it snow, let it snow, and snow
The council has given up gritting
Drivers with venom are spitting
The traffic refuses to flow -
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
Repeat as required.
This blog will return to Christmas travel publicity tomorrow.
Little donkey, little donkey on the dusty road
But why, donkey-less and wearing khaki garments, did Mary and Joe toddle the 100 miles to Bethlehem. Oh yes; to take part in a Roman census. Joseph was a descendant of Old Testament King and Goliath-slayer, David.
Remember the verse from the carol about those flock-watching shepherds?
Throughout the Old Testament of the Bible, Bethlehem keeps popping up, most notably as the birthplace of said King David. Combine this will umpteen prophecies that David's descendants will "rule for ever" and a powerful picture is emerging.
The eternal Son of God would be born in a small, utterly insignificant village south of Jerusalem. Now you might expect a radical and divine leader to pop up in Jerusalem, maybe in the temple ...
... where richness and holiness, plus a whole army of priests and hangers-on could offer a truly religious welcome.
But no; it was to be in a tin-pot village of no status other than a thread of history. The prophet Micah gets it just right in his writings, penned about 850 years before the first Christ Mas.
The Lord says, “Bethlehem Ephrathah**, you are one of the smallest towns in Judah, but out of you I will bring a ruler for Israel, whose family line goes back to ancient times. When he comes, he will rule his people with the strength that comes from the Lord and with the majesty of the Lord God himself. His people will live in safety because people all over the earth will acknowledge his greatness, and he will bring peace."
Bit there is another spooky kink between Bethlehem and Jesus. Beth mans "house" in Hebrew and "Lehem" is a form of the word for "bread". And how does Jesus describe himself, born in the "House of Bread"?
"The bread that God gives is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
“Sir,” his followers asked him, “give us this bread always.”
“I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them.
The "Bread of Life" was born in the "House of Bread".
** Ephrathah - an old name for the Bethlehem area, used here to distinguish David's/Jesus' Bethlehem from "the other one".
=================
ADVENT CALENDAR - 11
Little donkey, little donkey on the dusty road
Got to keep on plodding onwards with your precious load
Been a long time, little donkey, through the winters night
Don't give up now, little donkey,
Bethlehem's in sight
To you, in David’s town, this day
Is born of David’s line
A Saviour, who is Christ the Lord,
And this shall be the sign:
Throughout the Old Testament of the Bible, Bethlehem keeps popping up, most notably as the birthplace of said King David. Combine this will umpteen prophecies that David's descendants will "rule for ever" and a powerful picture is emerging.
The eternal Son of God would be born in a small, utterly insignificant village south of Jerusalem. Now you might expect a radical and divine leader to pop up in Jerusalem, maybe in the temple ...
But no; it was to be in a tin-pot village of no status other than a thread of history. The prophet Micah gets it just right in his writings, penned about 850 years before the first Christ Mas.
The Lord says, “Bethlehem Ephrathah**, you are one of the smallest towns in Judah, but out of you I will bring a ruler for Israel, whose family line goes back to ancient times. When he comes, he will rule his people with the strength that comes from the Lord and with the majesty of the Lord God himself. His people will live in safety because people all over the earth will acknowledge his greatness, and he will bring peace."
Bit there is another spooky kink between Bethlehem and Jesus. Beth mans "house" in Hebrew and "Lehem" is a form of the word for "bread". And how does Jesus describe himself, born in the "House of Bread"?
"The bread that God gives is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
“Sir,” his followers asked him, “give us this bread always.”
“I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them.
The "Bread of Life" was born in the "House of Bread".
** Ephrathah - an old name for the Bethlehem area, used here to distinguish David's/Jesus' Bethlehem from "the other one".
=================
Next Seaasonal Service blog : Tuesday 12th December
Not in especially good taste, fbb. The forecast for Greenline Mansions (firmly planted in the Northern Home Counties) was for heavy rain over Saturday night and into Sunday.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately the cold front proceeded a wee bittie further southwards from the expected line, and we had roundly 6 inches of snow by 0800 on Sunday. No warning at all. No point sending out the gritters to grit on top of snow. The main roads were clear enough by lunchtime, although I couldn't get the car out because of the mound of snow all about. The M25 was gridlocked - 2 hours for 10 miles.
Should the authorities have been out gritting all night with that forecast? Not really - no need, and a waste of money. I recall the winter of 1967/8 . . . major travel disruption with schools closed for several days . . . snow is still snow (wrong type or right type).
The situation further North in Staffordshire was possibly more as FBB pictured it, as Arriva stopped running after 1730 yesterday. This may have been to do with either taking the view that hardly anyone would be inconvenienced as the conditions were poor and everyone was staying tucked up indoors and/or that staff were struggling to get in. Maybe the late Controller him/herself was stuck so everything else had to stop? Just a guess. LNWR and WMT (the new London Midland) were struggling with front line staff availability as opposed to permanent way problems.
ReplyDeleteSorry, forgot to say that we have had snow since Friday, and although yesterday was by far the worst day, it was definitely forecast!
ReplyDeleteI was once told that part of the problem was that modern buaes were lightweight so had more difficulty gripping the surface when icy, causing them to 'slide' more easily. Once that started happening the services were pulled.
ReplyDeleteAt present mid Kent only has rain and high wind, but four hours of heavy snow forecast for later over at Tunbridge Wells. So probably end up with the usual flooding of the Medway cos they couldn't afford the prevention measures that were once promised by P.M.!
Meanwhile the cross channel disruption will result in a lorry park on the motorway.
I wonder when it was "decided" that buses cannot cope with snow. In Sheffield in the late 60s and early 70s we had some spectacular snowfalls sometimes without forecast.
ReplyDeleteSheffield is very hilly and some routes turned short if they involved a steep climb but most passengers could get to the temporary terminus by foot.
The City Council would work very hard to clear all bus routes first and they did grit on top of snow. But then salt was part of the mix and the melting was accelerated.
The priority for the Transport Department was to get things moving. But then bus garages were located where staff lived, so many could (and would) walk to work.
I think the move to fully-automatic gearboxes was the start of the rot and many modern gearboxes no longer offer the option to even hold a gear anymore. The other issue is that many councils have cut back on their gritting. Leicester, my local council, don't appear to prioritise bus routes, the main road through my estate which has 12 buses an hour (Mon-Sat & 4 buses an hour on Sundays) hasn't in previous snows been gritted which can mean services have to be curtailed from many estates. The problem appears to have been that the snow came much further south than forecast so the Home Counties were caught out and all sorts of disruption occurred whilst the further north you went the less disruption there appeared to be (West Midlands & it's worst snow in 7 years excepted), the Peak District had a full service running by the end of Sunday even the Cat & Fiddle was open (& this is normally the first pass to close). The main problem we had in the East Midlands was early running in the morning peak caused by the reduced traffic as many of the schools were closed though our more rural depots, where the drivers may be local but that still means the next village not next road, did have a couple of drivers who struggled to get in as they couldn't get out of their village. Car drivers are still a big problem, a couple of years ago in a previous snow we were told to keep our buses off the road for a bit longer so the police could deal with all the cars that had crashed without having to worry about passing buses.
DeleteI should add that the main impediment to keeping the buses running was idiot motorists who did not know how to drive in snowy weather.
ReplyDeleteIt was business as usual for the Epping Ongar Railway and it's connecting buses... https://twitter.com/eorailway/status/939914723222609920
ReplyDeleteOne of the worst area for snow was the Brecon Beacons, with over 30 cms at Sennybridge. But the Brecon Mountain Railway was running its Santa Specials, albeit "slightly late". However they came in for a great deal of criticism on Facebook, either from people who simply couldn't get there and wanted their money refunded (as opposed to rebooking or being given a voucher for next year), or from folk who thought they were being "irresponsible" for "encouraging" people to come out when conditions were so horrendous. I'm sure they'd have received just as much sticks if they'd cancelled for the day. These things are difficult and at least we've got social media today to let folk know what's happening.
ReplyDelete