Hapless Happenings at Honiton
 |
| Honiton Tunnel : Eastern Portal |
fbb arrived at Axminster station at 0950 yesterday to collect No 3 son off the 1003 arrival from Waterloo. Son was visiting for the holiday weekend and dear papa was surprised to see a train in platform 1. 
Trains in opposite directions pas each other at Axminster just after each hour. They do not normally park there!
What was slightly more discombobulating was that there was a train in platform 2 as well. Being bit dozy, fbb did not spot tha platform 2 train as it was hidden behind the above.
Back in 2022, Notwork Rail instituted a huge amount of work on the eastern portal of Hointon tunnel.
This is because of unstable land in the embankment to the right of the tunnel mouth.
So on Tuesday last (20th Aug) there was a landslip at Honiton tunnel.
The slide was temporarily supported by very large sandbags ....jpg)
... and all was well until ...
Except it wasn't all well. South Western Railway's service of dark green class 800 bi-moses (sic!!) was disrupted again from Thursday of last week. Or so one on-line news feed thought!
.jpg)
It was this disruption that greeted fbb yesterday.
This time it was more of a sludgelip than landslip.
The Notwork Rail team opined that the problem was less with land coming down from above, and more with water seeping up from below. So the track had been excavated!
Either way, no trains could run between Axminster and Honiton.
No 3 son was on the 1003 arrival from Waterloo and the very nice man at the station informed fbb that it had left Crewkerne, previous stop to Axminster.
But with trains on both platforms at Axminster there was a bit of a snag. And the line between Crewkerne and Axminster is single track!
So the 1003 arrival had to wait until the 1006 Departure had left from platform 2. Thus No 3 son was held at the end of the Crewkerne double track section until the departing 1006 could ease past.
Here comes No 3 son (and a few others) arriving wrong platform at 1025.
The dead train on platform 1 then sprang into life to form the 1106 to Waterloo.
Meanwhile, with a bevy of taxis ...
... and an anonymous grey minibus ...
... passengers were being conveyed westbound.
fbb thinks there was a train every two hours from Honiton to Exeter St Davids, the one unit having been trapped at Exeter.
Who would run a railway, eh?
Beastliness at Burton
For many a long year there has been a nearly non stop bus service between Derby and Burton upon Trent. For many a long year it has been "joint" between Trentbarton and Arriva, the latter as successors to Derby corporation.
fbb thinks (unreliable brain cuts in and quickly cuts out again!) the "joint"ness was a response to early post-deregulation competition. Again, fbb thinks (with no time to check in his Great Britain Bus Timetable collection) that the service used to run every 15 minutes with operators alternating.
Currently the service is every 20 minutes with an unfathomable 50:50 split between operators as shown on Trent's web site.
Blog readers may be able to guess what the code "A" might mean.
Trent's posh leaflets simply show an unallocated 20 min headway with no mention of the "other" operator.
The leaflets used to be very posh ...
... but recent editions have beem more mundane.
By comparison, Arriva's leaflet is utterly stunning!
Yep, there isn't one!
Here is a Trentbarton bus for the X38.
And Arriva?
Arriva's on-line timetable, as we might expect ...
... doesn't mention Trent journeys. Here we see old and newer Arriva livery.
And a response!
The boss of Trent has become almost apoplectic on line, because ...
... as from August 31st Arriva has registered a 20 minute service on the X38. Arriva has, arbitrarily and one-sidedly, broken the joint agreement.
Horrid Arriva!
In response, Trent has registered a 15 minute service on its X38, at the same time extending it from Derby city centre to the bus station. The new times are on the Trentbarton web site but with no mention of the bus station.
On Arriva's web site we can see the new timetable ...
... NOT. The only mention of Trent is in the blurb about tickets, which pre-dates the kerfuffle.
Has fbb got it wrong - again?
So from next weekend there will be five buses every hour running almost non-stop ...
... Between Derby and Burton upon Trent. And there simply will not be enough passengers to make either of the services commercially viable.
Who will crack first?
fbb suspects Arriva will have withdrawn completely by Christmas. Surely the new investment bank owners will not tolerate such wasteful activity?
Watch this space!
Hello Doctor Yellow But Goodbye
Dr Yellow is the nickname of certain trains on various bits of the Japanese high speed network. There have been many Doctors Yellow over the years ...
... the most recent looking like this.
These are standard very nigh speed trains carrying passengers, but they are fitted with a range of monitoring and recording technology to inspect the track and overhead catenary, but at the scheduled high line speed.
In practice, these trains are simply substituted for a standard passenger train; slipped almost at random into the timetable.
Because of this unpredictability, they are seen by the Japanese populace as being harbingers of good luck. If you see a Dt Yellow, good fortune will harbinger and fill your day.
fbb prefers the reliability of God for His more sustainable "good fortune".
The latest units on these routes are N700S stock ...
... and they are very snazzy indeed.
2+2 seating in these wide bodies trains is for "first class" passengers ...
... with 2+3 for the "lower orders". In a 2+3 coach, two sets of single seats are removed to make way for wheelchairs.
There is still room for the trolley!
These trains are as stunning as they look.
N gauge model company Kato has a set in its catalogue..jpg)
But the point of this excursion into the N700S trains is that a small extra fleet as been ordered, each unit to include an even more extensive collection of measuring and sensor stiff than on the Dr Yellow stock - which will then be retired.
.jpg)
It is not made clear whether the N700S technology trains will be panted yellow. If not, there may be a shortage of good luck on offer for the superstitious Japanese rail watchers. No harbingeing!
And tomorrow ...
Next Monorail blog : Monday 26th August
Yes, fbb has got it wrong again. It is Arriva that is extending its X38 journeys to Derby bus station, not Trent, which is moving from Victoria Street to Corporation Street. And a 20 minute and a 15 minute interval service combined means there will be 7 buses an hour slogging it out, reduced to a mere 4 on Sundays.
ReplyDeleteArriva's information on the changes is where it usually is, on the news pages https://www.arrivabus.co.uk/latest-news/changes-to-services-in-derby-aug-24, though a simple search for "X38" from the home page finds it easily.
The Arriva side of the service originated with Stevensons I believe. I remember riding on their AN68s on it.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, the Arriva contribution came via Stevensons (Arriva provided buses from the Burton end with Trent from the Derby end but when Arriva sold Burton they kept the X38 and moved it to Derby).
DeleteBoth of the pictures of Arriva buses fbb has shown are in fact the previous versions of the Trent branding, Arriva branding was always more subtle.
As others have said Arriva are extending to the Bus Station, Trent aren't they are just moving up to Corporation Street. Arriva's justification appears to be that customers have asked them to take on all journeys as the recent much publicised vehicle issues mean TB have struggled to cover all their trips reliably whilst both parties are claiming a lack of communication & co-operation from the other in trying to resolve the issues. Whatever is going on here is very opaque but given how much issue TB have had in covering their existing work recently it will be interesting to see how they cope with such a large uplift.
Comes to something when pax are asking ARRIVA to add journeys because another operator are WORSE!! Just how seriously bad have Trent Barton got of late?!?!?!
DeleteTom Morgan says that the joint service dates back 30 years, certainly my 1998 GBBTT says that the route was every 30 mins then with one bus from Arriva in Burton and one from Trent in Derby. This was later increased to two buses from each end. This explains the bunching in the joint timetable, which wasn’t significantly changed when Arriva operation was moved to Derby.
DeleteI think that the first picture that Dwarfer queried is an ex-Stevenson’s bus, running with a four-figure Arriva fleet number, though I can’t read the registration plate.
The GBBTT entry has the route serving Derby Bus Station. It was shortened as the 60 minutes allowed was too short for a round trip. When the frequency was reduced to every 20 mins, and running time increased to 80 mins, it could have returned but there wasn’t a spare bay. There is now, which Arriva will use.
Derby and Burton hospitals are in the same trust and some hospital services are now only available at one or the other. Given that parking is in short supply at Derby Royal, this has increased loadings on the X38 in the last few years. Arriva are planning to cash in on hospital traffic by allowing the use of their Derby city-wide tickets on their service, which didn’t apply on the joint service. This will offer easy connections to the Royal from their services in Derby bus station, at reduced cost.
Derby City Council are not happy with the situation, especially as they are getting flak from all sides. As a Derby resident, I’m worried that the situation will reduce the reliability of other services in the city. Though trentbarton have just had lots of new buses delivered and Arriva can transfer vehicles in from elsewhere, so I hope for the best.
Have you picked up on the news of Ian Kirby?
ReplyDeleteNo, what's the news?
DeleteHe was admitted to hospital last week with a heart valve problem late last week and died over the weekend.
Delete