It's Now No More, The X84 (Part 5 - mini)

The Natives Are Revolting ...

... And The Press Isn't Much Better! But the service was not "axed" at the end of October. It was changed as fbb reported in yesterday's blog. The BBC on-line seemed to grasp the situation ...

... but still reported on the mythical and incorrect axe.

Yet again, the Press and the Petitioners seem to forget that First is in business to make money for its shareholders and not in business to run uneconomic bus services to keep the passengers happy. The latter is the job of the local authority.

The rant goes on!

Do all these signatories actually use the X84? There is no way of knowing, but fbb suspects that, if all 1700 (a later figure) travelled five days a week, First's profits would be enough to increase the X84 and not tinker with it.

"Improve the reliability" is a euphemism for try to make a profit!

Whilst the new services are slower, (fbb does not have a recent X84 timetable, so they might not be as slow as he reported yesterday), there are equivalent journeys for commuters - they just take a little longer. fbb guesses that traffic conditions would be such that the X84 wasn't noticeably quicker at peak. The X84s would be stuck in the same queues as the new 25/26!

Simply totally untrue. It's alteration may be less convenient in terms of running time, but the timetable is not changed significantly and, IF First is right and their so-called AI software is more than a gimmick, then the new service should be more reliable.

Then another unsupported remark.

As journeys to Otley are still half hourly, albeit with slower journeys via Pool ...

... it is hard to see why passengers should want to abandon the bus.

fbb is, however, convinced that the wholesale tinkering and renumbering of the "Headingley Line" routes is a mistake.

It is always unwise to change route numbers unnecessarily, and just to reinforce that thought here is a tram timetable from the mid 1950s. OK it's not 1929 but over 70 years of service 1 makes some kind of reliability statement - now thrown away.

The bottom panel is for Sunday!

Now those were the days!

And Headingley tram depot? It was on St Chads Road ...

... and the shop is still there!

But the depot ...

... isn't!

PTO -Peterville Terraforming Operation

The Bill Bodge and Fred Fudge Quick Guide to Scenery

There is no real skill to this. Just splodge paint and "grass" about until it looks OK. Here the light colour of the grass has been mitigated by a few squirts of green spray can.

Later a "front panel" will be added to tidy things up.

But we need some fencing to stop visitors to the railway from encroaching on the dangers of the loco shed. This ...

... is three sheets of cheap fencing.

Looks tricky!

 Feeble Cheers for Bee Network - Mon 25 Nov