Fun-Trip At Falmouth
Next in the farrago of seasonal services from First is an open top tour of Falmouth. There is, as before, a very smart leaflet.
The route runs every hour and takes just less than the hour for a round trip.
The leaflet includes an excellent map ...
... as in the above extract from Pendennis Castle. Falmouth is not over-blessed with long, sandy beaches, but First serves all that the town has to offer.
Swanpool and Gyllingvase (top right) are both delightful.
But fbb's readers will not be surprised to know that there already IS a bus route offering a circular ride round Falmouth and following much the same route as the First Bus novelty.
There is no map of the 67, but fbb suspects it does a few extra wiggles. A registration map from when the route was numbered 367 looks very similar!
So will the locals prefer the open topper or their little minibus?
And will the fares be compatible, i.e. does the open topper offer local short-hop fares?
One thing is certain; under the councils "one network" scheme there will be no evidence of any cooperation.
Notably New In Newquay
Under previous branding, buses between St Ives, Newquay and Padstow were part of the Atlantic Coaster branding. Now they are the only services so branded and without a route number.
This years timetable is better than previously ...
... with a bus every two hours between St Ives and Newquay and every hour with one (annoying for passengers memory ability) two hour gap bang in the middle. You would have to be a brave bus lover to tackle the whole three hours 40 minutes at one go.
As we have now come to expect, the leaflet has a superb map ...
... far too big to include on a puny blog!
And what of TfC? There is no equivalent service all the way from St Ives to Newquay, but some of the bits may well feel the pinch. Between Newquay and Padstow is the complex 56.
This has never been a route that is easy to unravel as it tries to serve a bit of everything. The ATLA will be a much better proposition ...
... and much quicker for through journeys! This 56 ...
...was pictured above before all TfC buses were fully branded.
Surftown's Surprising "S"-routes
At the end of this month, First is adding to its list of open top services by THREE local routes in and around Newquay. The S1, S2 and S3 deserve more attention than they will get at the end of a complex blog! Also, fbb needs a bit more time to work out where the three routes actually go.
And why the services is shown on FOUR timetables in First's excellent booklet.
So that is for tomorrow's blog.
Just The Ticket!
Northampton's Alan sends this:-
It has been a bit quiet down at the station for a year or so. How do the staff fill the time? The Chronicle reports –
Elliot Badger, who works in the London Northwestern Railway booking office at Northampton (Castle) Station, has collected more than 2,000 passenger train tickets to Northampton from all over Great Britain. Now he's waiting for the missing 500-or-so to complete the full set from all 2,563 stations on the national rail network from Penzance in the south to Thurso in the far north of Scotland.
Elliott, 31, said: “What started off as an interest to see where passengers were travelling to and from, quickly turned into a hobby. Once I had a mini collection of train tickets on my hands, I made it a challenge to collect every station within the UK arriving at Northampton. Five years on — and with the All Aboard collection now on display for travellers to see — I’m making it my mission to fill in the missing gaps and complete the whole collection.”
Workmates from the barriers have helped Elliott pick up more than a million used tickets — going through around 1,000 per day to see where they started out.
His collection is on display in the station concourse.
Next Cornwall blog : Thursday 20th May
No comments:
Post a Comment