At Last The Answers!
Bristol to Portishead awaiting its revived passenger service.
The long footbridge linked the TWO stations at Gloucester
The circular was (and still is - sort of) numbered 11A and 11C
Wolvehampton, Walsall and West Bromwich
Manchester Ship Canal AND River Ribble
Preston
Lancaster Corporation Transport, previously merged with Morecambe & Heysham (illustrated)
Cumberland Motor Services, a privatised chunk of Ribble
Central Scottish originally Central SMT.
Clyde Arc Bridge, better known as The Squinty Bridge
No prizes - but you can be smug if ou got them all right and mildly pleased if you managed 75% or over!
Oban Bus Station
In Oban, Highland buses ...
... gave way to a much expanding West Coast Motors. now the dominant operator in and from the town. Local services are in the hands of smaller vehicles ,,,,
... all in very good condition. One quitk at Oban is the use of three digit route numbers for the town services, e.g 001, 005 etc. Coaches appear on longer distance routes.
But what fbb needed to know (actually he didn't with only about 90 minutes to enjoy the cold) was a route map and some timetables. There is an excellent page of maps on-line, but no such luxury in real life. Below is just part of the Oban area.
There were no bus timetables at the railway station and none at the ferry terminal. fbb was unable to check at Tourist Information but none of the bus stop displays showed any indication of the availability of, say, company leaflets.
PDFs are published on-line which might be encouraging!
Perhaps West Coast would like to post its timetables at stops, but it can't or doesn't. Bus stops are in the hands of HiTtans, the public transport face of various Highland Councils.
The Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership (HITRANS) is the statutory regional transport partnership covering Eilean Siar (Western Isles), Orkney, Highland, Moray and most of the Argyll and Bute area (Helensburgh and Lomond is covered by SPT).The Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership (HITRANS) is the statutory regional transport partnership covering Eilean Siar (Western Isles), Orkney, Highland, Moray and most of the Argyll and Bute area (Helensburgh and Lomond is covered by SPT).
So you just get departure lists!
Timetables are displayed under three headings; Monday to Friday non-Schooldays, Monday to Friday Schooldays and Saturdays. This is better than cluttering a timetable with lots of column header notes, but it makes the print far too small for anyone with even a soupcon of visual impairment. A calendar is also present showing which days are which.
The bus stop "flags" are high up (why?) ...
This also includes trains and ferries,
You do get a "proper" timetable for the Glasgow route.
... which again leads to unnecessarily small route numbers.
Each stand had an electronic display ...
... and there is an all-services screen on a pole nearby.
fbb was not around for long enough to test whether the on-screen bus information was in real time - but it did not look thus. Maybe everything was reliably on time?
Out "in the suburbs" there are no such luxuries. 
A step ladder to enable you to read the departure list is not supplied! Sometimes you get a shelter!
In common with much of today's public transport information nationally, Oban will remind you of what you probably already know, but you will not find the sort of help that a visitor or a potential newcomer to the area might need.
But Sometimes Things Are Better
Correspondent Peter, who lives in Chesterfield, send a picture of boxes of timetable leaflets from Hulleys of Baslow.
Presumably, unlike Arriva, First and Stagecoach, Hulleys want passengers to travel on their buses!
HOW VERY SENSIBLE!
Personal Matters
Possibly while you are reading this, fbb will be enjoying a thorough eye examination at the "Macular" Clinic at Royale Devon and Exeter Hospital. The long term consequences may be something of a problem, but in the short term, depending on the level of poking, prodding and eye drops, tomorrow's blog may be delayed.
Next Bedfordshire bus blog : Weds 19 October
The Thelwall Viaduct crosses the River Mersey, not Ribble as I'm sure you meant. Perhaps you were thinking of the next answer (Preston)
ReplyDeleteHighland bus services in Oban passed to Midland Scottish, Oban and District then West Coast Motors. Cumberland was a separate company from Ribble.
ReplyDelete