... have made blogging very difficult in Morar.
... and soon after arrival, when yesterday's published "views from bedroom window" were uploaded, in came the much more typical West Of Scotland weather!
Yep! Cloud gloom and rain.
A Challenging Day in Glasgow
For today's blog, we revert to last Sunday in Glasgow. After a one-night-er in the Travelodge on Hill Street, the fbbs needed to convey their luggage to the Tour hotel, the Holiday Inn Express. Could it be done by bus?
Indeed it could. First Glasgow service 6 has a stop on West Graham Street near Cowcaddens Underground station ...
... and the bus would take the happy holidaymakers all the way to Stockwell Street ...
... to find their bed (on the map, lower right) for Sunday night. Traveline wanted the old crocks to go on the Underground and walk a bit more than was sensible with luggage ...
... and there would be steps a-plenty and escalators. fbb was intrigued with the concept of a "SUB tram", but wonders what an untrained visitor might make of it.
The only way to find this bus was to pore (on line) over Google maps, prodding the bus stop symbols to see if ANY route served both stops. There is no user friendly city centre bus map. There are no on-line maps for each route, maps which were so helpful when they appeared on printed leaflets. Of course, the latter were totally unobtainable on a Sunday!
The fbb's were in good time for their service 6 ...
... and 5 mins later were surprised by an unwanted and unannounced 6A.
Running late? Heavy traffic? On Sunday morning?
There was time to examine the printed information at the stop. There were full-sized A4 departure list panels for service 6B and 10A ...
There was time to examine the printed information at the stop. There were full-sized A4 departure list panels for service 6B and 10A ...
... both with just one early morning journey on Mondays to Fridays terminating in the city, just two stops away.
Sensibly there were separate departure lists for the 6 and 6A; sensible because the 6A also terminated in the city, whereas the 6 would take you way, way out to EK (East Kilbride).
Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) produces the bus stop displays and they do not adorn their departure lists with a plethora of notes, as used by many operators. They use different colours of print for the actual times. Here is Monday to Friday's list ...
... with "oddities" in red and orange.
Taken through glass, the colours do not reproduce as well as they might - but you get the idea.. It is quite hard to differentiate between the two. Even worse is the dark green ...
... which fbb found difficult to find at all as he peered at the roadside panels.
POOR MARKS.
Mysteriously the electronic display changed from "coming in two minuted" to "DUE" as the bus appeared, again making fbb wonder whether such displays are really worth the money.
Then there is the stress of First's "exact fare" policy. No fares are displayed at the stops, neither are fare tables available on-line; no problem for regulars, but not inviting for occasional visitors. It should be mandatory to display a fares list at stops if the driver does not give change.
One other "observation". Where, in Glasgow is ...
"Ferrograph OVD"? Mrs fbb, a Glaswegian by birth and heart, had no idea.
Luggage duly stowed at the Holiday Inn Express, the next task was to sort out how to get to the new Transport Museum, now dubbed the Riverside Museum of Glasgow Life. There is a web site ...
VERY POOR.
First Bus offered a network map (very good) and, with a separate click, a list of services. Amazingly this included "other operators".
It was electric ...
POOR AGAIN.
From hotel to the Argyle Street stop was a pleasant walk along the Clyde ...
The new Transport Museum is worthy of a mention, but, due to intermittent internet inactivity, that delight is postponed until tomorrow. Much of the above was put together at 0300 yesterday morning in a period of nocturnal wakefulness. (Four different beds in four consecutive days is not conducive to a sleep routine!)
Then, the interwebnet behaved perfectly. The problem, therefore, appears not to be a weak signal, but either a weak spring in the gubbins at the hotel or a delivery pipe that is too thin for the needs of Morar surfers. (Apologies for the technical details!)
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Matters of Morar Moment
Today on their Rail Discoveries Tour, the fbbs are off on a trip to the Isle of Skye - by ferry and coach. STOP PRESS - Ferries cancelled due to adverse weather.
Operating "Pan B"!
Operating "Pan B"!
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Next Coplaw, Kelvin and Clyde blog : Thursday 27th September
Your comment about parking is why some still hanker for the Kelvin Hall which is on 3 high frequency bus routes.
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed that the Riverside Museum website has no public transport instructions. I'm sure it did when we visited a year ago, but it doesn't know. If you just Google "Riverside Museum Bus" you get taken to the SPT site which has a direct and easy link to the bus service ... which doesn't work! You can find it by clicking on "bus" and scrolling down the list of services till you get to the 100, but who would do that? Not good enough.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I were very impressed by the electric bus. Unlike internal combustion engines, an electric motor develops maximum torque on starting, so it positively whizzes away from stops! One curious thing though: the Friday timetable is different to the Monday-Thursday + Saturday one, but the same as Sunday's. Very odd.
The Riverside Museum opens later on Fridays and Sundays, as does the Kelvingrove Museum which is also served by the 100. Consequently the bus starts later on those days
ReplyDeleteFerrograph used to make very large expensive tape recorders. They now make electronic public information displays. A Google search reveals other sightings of the words "Ferrograph OVD"
ReplyDeleteDo these words indicate that the display is not working?
OVD + ? visual display?
Interestingly, two of the "open data" providers manage to produce a timetable, and higher up the Google search results than Traveline:
ReplyDeletehttps://bustimes.org/services/100-glasgow-riverside-museum
https://www.geopunk.co.uk/timetables/scotland/glasgow/100-glasgow-riverside-museum
(Geopunk's is less well formatted, and can't cope with the early direct trips).
I also got a result from Traveline going through SPT's journey planner (albeit with some strange alternatives!), and by going through Traveline Scotland's timetable search.
Basically, the 100 can be found everywhere except via the special page for the service on the SPT website, 'getting there' on the museum!
Although that said, the 100 has been through many operators in its time - seemingly a new operator every tendering round!
When I was looking to do this, I found the Garelochhead Coaches site and the timetable as shown by FBB, then there was a tab for fares and this gave a full traditional faretable and advice as to the exact fare/farebox requirements.
ReplyDeleteFerrograph OVD (On Vehicle Display) is the power up message, which normally switches to date and time and next stop messages as appropriate. Obviously not working correctly at the time.