Sunday Variety

Every 20 Minutes!

fbb is grateful to correspondent Julian for sending a Daventry town services leaflet from the minibus-madness 1980/90s (leaflet dated 1994). The map shows routes serving the main estates much as today. ...

... with a caveat!

The Street Shuttle brand ...

... was widespread (as above in Bedford) and was continued, for a while, by Stagecoach after privatisation.

Below is the 2023 route map for comparison. (click on the map for an enlargement).

Instead of three routes, there are now only two, D5 and D6, with D5 being a merger of the Street Shuttle 97 and 98. The D5 and D6 each run hourly

Here is a paste up of the 1994 cycle of operation using two (?) buses.

Although not shown on the above extract (see below for "XX"), there were plenty of notes to confuse the passenger.

XX = service 98 at 12 noon does not operate

Remember the Explorer ticket; pretty much universally sold by "National Bus" companies?

Now those were the days!

Missing Messed-up Video

Missing from yesterday's blog for those viewing in the morning.

More Batteries For Landfill?

... and an 08 shunter (called a "gronk" by spotters etc.) ...

... converted into a battery loco. They have called is class 08e - but fbb is not sure what the "e" stands for. "e" for very Expensive?

And it works!

Two thoughts. 

There can't be much of the old 08 left as it was diesel mechanical. So they use wheels, running plate and cab?

Hmmm?

And it's very quiet. Perhaps there are two or three beefy rail engineers in there, pedalling very hard!

James Bond Retires - Shock!

It's Not Rocket (Publicity) Science

If you want passengers to travel, you need to tell then when and where the buses run. Here is McGills Bluebird bus stop publicity for the Stirling University service.

With a Uni route map ...

... and a network map as well.

Here's the whole lot at the stop on the Uni campus.

How does that compare with the Stagecoach changes at Daventry last weekend?

When First Bus ran the service, they did attempt to spice it up a bit ...

... But McGills branding is more distinguished as befits a quality educational establishment.

And there are lots of different versions of the "U" logo to "collect" and enjoy.

fbb likes the "beanz on toast" variant.

Whether Stirling's studious students will notice the difference as they travel TO lectures bleary eyed, or travel FROM lectures having done valuable study time in the Union Bar, is debatable.

But another jolly good idea from the Bearded Bus Beautifier from the Bush.

Tomorrow we will be watching a train go by.

 Next Freight by Rail blog : Monday 6th November