After yesterday's post had been safely put to bed, some more pictures of the opening of the new Beamish Bus Depot have appeared in the twittersphere. One of which shows the whole GoAhead bus in its heritage liveried glory. Here it is - click on the pic for an enlargement.
... (that's the self effacing shrinking violet Ray Stenning) is aways on about "Creating Desire". fbb reckons that GoAhead's "Northern" Versa does a better job of desire creation than many of today's swirly and variegated livery offerings.
The Versa oozes distinguished quality - you would trust a bus company that dressed its vehicles like that.
Or you could travel with flying banana!
Excellent London Buses Publicity
Route 140 has been around for some time running between Heathrow Airport and "Arrer" (or maybe "Herrow").
Currently run by Metroline is speeds (?) between its two termini every 7 minutes.
Or maybe every 8?
Broadly, the route has not changed since 1955 although then it ran from Mill Hill via Harrow.
In two week's time, the route changes almost beyond recognition. Fortunately there are some helpful posters displayed at South Harrow Station. we are introduced to a speeded up (but less frequent) X140.
The all sops 140 now runs only as far as Hayes and Harlington station.
Details of a replacement 278 are also explained on the poster.
The all night service is, effectively, the old 140 bus numbered N140.
This would represent a dramatic change in publicity style and content from Transport for London - except that, with just two weeks to go to this significant change, TfL are telling you absolutely NOTHING.
These posters have been downloaded from a twitter group calling itself LDNBusUpdates.
Their stuff is excellent in every way.
And how does fbb know that the X140 is less frequent between Harrow and Heathrow than at present.
He has search a timetable site for London Buses. Here we find the shortened 140 ...
... the speeded-up X140 ...
... and the night service.
None of these will EVER be published by Transport for London, an organisation which seems unwilling to consider any tentative move towards "creating desire".
As usual, all London timetables are published in a variety of formats on Robert Munster's site (here).
Trans Pennine's Timetable Pottiness
Last week, First Trans Pennine had a formal launch of it three Nova trains all in one place ...
... complete with blue, not red, carpet. It will be a while before these new trains become commonplace, but they are coming, albeit late. What is also coming is some enhancements from the December timetable change. One feature is trains to Edinburgh via York and Newcastle.
Good eh?
But look at the timetable (which repeats every hour).
The 1345 from Manchester Victoria runs to Newcastle, arriving 1613. Just 15 minutes later another train follows on the same route. Without at stop at Northallerton it is 11 minutes later at Darlington. Omitting a Chester-le-Street call, the train arrives just 6 minutes later at Newcastle before continuing to Scotland's capital.
Does it make ANY sense to run two trains barely ten minutes apart?
Sensibly commercial or some variant of an ORCATS raid?
Operational Research Computerised Allocation of Tickets to Services is the means by which ticket revenue is divvied out between the train companies that share a route or lines. It is all based on surveys and clever algorithms but in an extreme case a train company can do quite well even if there are very few passengers on its particular train.
That is known as an ORCATS raid.
Whatever the reason, Trans Pennines timetable looks very odd.
And Another Clue
For the festive season the fbb's have decorated the front of their property with a large star made out of 5 garden canes and a set of LED lights. Nice!
When this was taken town on twelfth night it fell to bits in a spectacular and terminal fashion. The lights survived intact. This years' design is under construction and awaiting the addition of stringS of lights - a more ambitious project.
As a certain disgraced entertainer was wont to ask, "Have you worked out what it is yet?"
Tomorrow we go to Scunthorpe!
Next Good Publicity blog : Tuesday 26th November
I lived in Mill Hill as a child and the 140 used to pass our house. The Bunns Lane terminus was at the top of our road, however when the M1 was built alongside the railway the station got remodelled and a bus terminus was created. I don't think double-deckers could get under the old railway bridge anyway, only RF and TD single-deckers. Incidentally the 140 was one of the very last RT routes in London - 1978 I think. (I was living in Lisbon at the time where there were not only Regent IIIs but also some 1948 Regals still very much in service).
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