Foot or Bottom or Top?
Historically Bus destination blinds have shown either "Foot of Beachy Head" or "Top of Beachy Head" as illustrated on the front cover of the Middleton Press book.
Historically "Foot" was the Corporation whilst Southdown went to "Top".
The two places are quite different; it is a challenging trudge to get from Bottom of to Top of. Currently Stagecoach service 3 and 3A serve Meads ...
... and the time point on Dukes Drive (Bede's School) ...
... gives access to a footpath climb from foot to top. No 3 son confirms the ascent, having run up there.
From here the B2103 climbs and wiggles up to the top.
Currently the Eastbourne Tour equates to Southdown 197.
It leaves the pier and runs out via the sea front and back via the town centre ...
... ascending the B2103 and running clockwise via "top of" and Birling Gap.
Operated by Seaford and District it has tour fares ...
... and fbb's old fogey pass is not valid. Boo Hiss! Maybe on the next visit the old man will be willing to shell out £7.50 for a wonderful open top ride. It looks like a superb trip on a sunny but breezy day - UK seaside at its glorious best.
But there is another route to "top" of which more next week.
Memories Fade
fbb had forgotten that before privatisation Brighton (Corporation) Buses struck out with a revolutionary change of image. Brighton Hove and District (a "Tilling company") were red and cream ...
... whereas Brighton Corporation painted their vehicles in ...
... red and cream. The two companies had a complex operating agreement plus some mysterious revenue sharing algorithms which meant that, sometimes, Brighton and Hove buses would run a Corporation route and vice versa.
It was something of a shock when the Corporation decided to paint its vehicles BLUE and cream ...
... and something of a relief when the two operations merged to become the present Brighton and Hove - but with a reversion to read and cream!
Stripes and slash gave way to wavy bits, but the core and tradition colours remained.
Both styles have been (and still continue to be) adorned by colour coding for the more frequent services.
Southdown's eponymous South Downs green ...
... succumbed sadly to the all pervasive Stagecoach stripes and zigzags, then swirly bits.
Snippets
Manchester "Tube" Map
fbb has been reminded that Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham ...
... is up for re-election in 2020, so what happens to his "vision" if he loses? That is the real problem when politicians get involved in Public Transport - noble and aspirational plans can evaporate at the next election. But will the OneBus partnership approach do any better?
Certainly the Sheffield Bus Partnership may have taken the companies closer to profitability but it has been a real "disaster darling" for the public. Further cut-backs are expected in September.
Fish Fingers
Following on from Greggs celebrated vegan sausage roll, Waitrose is now offering vegan fish fingers. (shouldn't they be called Tofu fingers? Trades description legislation?) An on-line tweet reports an "interesting" shelf display.
fbb has been known to make the occasional tryping mistake (surely not) but the above is a classic. Look at the last sentence.
When fbb started the Great Britain timetable he has a stiff letter from a user complaining of multiple mistakes. Sadly the correspondent somewhat undermined his point when he advised the team to "make more use of a spell che
rcker"!
Pram Bus
The Christchurch (New Zealand) pram buses provided a fascinating insight into solving the problem of how to attract young mums to the buses.
Correspondent John (he of the acronymic** street name in Eastbourne) sent this scan of a page from a West Yorkshire Road Car Company bus timetable book.
And the service was FREE!
** acronymic - there is no such word - but there should be. If Shakespeare can invent new words, so can fbb!
Night Tube Car Cards
After a bit of aggro from the Unions, the night tube started in 2016. Services run all night on Fridays and Saturdays on Central, Victoria, Northern and Jubilee line plus part of the East London Overground.
A twitterer has spotted a night service diagram in his tube train, taking some of the space used normally for the daytime version.
The black background is the night network's trademark.
Electric Cars : Saviour of the Planet?
Maybe not completely! A recent report casts a few doubts.
Did anyone say they would? Electric cars, it is proposed, will deal with air quality, shortage of fossil fuels etc. But this report warns that other problems will NOT be solved.
The report has got a point but doesn't seem to be much of a surprise. What is clear is that the commercial model for bus travel has not delivered the step change in public transport that the politicians claimed. £50billlion for buses might make a difference!
Tomorrow we spend some time in and around a piece of railway infrastructure.
Next Viaduct blog : Monday 8th July
Historically "Foot" was the Corporation whilst Southdown went to "Top".
Bristol Omnibus Company also operated a free pushchair service at bus stations around its territory.
ReplyDeleteThe 'commercial model for bus travel' *has* delivered: the rate of passenger decline has been reduced compared to the pre 1986 situation. And has managed to do so in the face of out of town retailing, decentralisation of employment and so on.
ReplyDelete