The Best 'O' Leicester(shire) - 4

This Is Where We Came In ...

It was the late August (Tuesday 26th - Monday 25th is a "Bank" Holiday) resurrection of the former 159 between Coalville and Hinckley that drew the inquisitive fbb into an examination of happenings in the Fox County of Leicester. 

The pedantic will aver that you cannot have a "County" of Leicester"shire" as that is akin to using the phrase "County of Leicester County."

But, even a cursory glance at the County's rather badly organised bus information will show a whole panoply of bus routes with the prefix LC.

As well as a Journey Planner we are provided with a batch of timetable updates ...

... grouped by area.

But you will look in vain for a full set of bus timetables for the county. So that's a bonus point or three for Leicester City which tells you all! 

In its drive to encourage bus travel ...

... the county will tell you nothing of any commercial services operated in its territory. So you can only Choose How You Move if you are moving by tendered (subsidised) buses.

Poot!

There is, however a list of those tendered services which links to timetables. If the services are only subsidised a bit, you are sent to the operator website which, in the case of Arriva is a lesson in how not to inform your customers .

But the on-line information on LC services is of very high quality - well high quality timetables, at least.

Here, for example, you will find a PDF of the upcoming LC6.

At one stage, fbb found a different version (or maybe something in the obscure depths of the ordinary web site) which actually told you what numbers the Elsie routes carried before Elsie got to them.

Elsie = LC, gettit? GROAN!

But the timetables are good, clear and look very helpful, which is more than can be said for the rubbish put out by Arriva!

What is even more encouraging is this press picture of a Councillor holding ...

... timetable books!

Are these also available to download?  Well, if they are, fbb has not yet found them!

But at least the individual tables are readily available.

All the curious travel planner now needs is a good map.

There isn't one!

The county-wide diagram is poor; you will really need to know where places are to untangle the geographical inaccuracies. But it is better than nothing; and fbb waits with bated breath (he does a lot of breath-bating!) for the updated version from 26th August.

He may wait for some time!

Here are the timetables for a new town network in Melton Mowbray.

The timetables are in the same "house style" as above.

And a Sunday service, too. Wow.

And here is the list of services from the current on-line guide to all bus routes in the town.

Then we have, from the same source, a map for route 14, town service ...

... and, to the north of the town centre, route 15.

The MC services started in January 2025 and no map is provided!

Anyway, the positive news is that the County Council is spending some money promoting all the LC, MC and HC (Market Harborough) routes with FREE travel on Saturdays throughout August.

Maybe it would be a more useful promotion if the council got someone to draw you some accurate maps.

fbb will oblige for a VERY modest fee, paid to a charity of his choice.

fbb@xephos.com

So, assessment of Leicestershire's bus publicity ...

... but not very big good parts!

  Next Variety blog : Sat 9 Aug 

The Best 'O' Leicester(shire) - 3

A Brief Aside On Park And Ride

Looks impressive, doesn't it? But fbb has waded through a morass of confusion to prepare this blog. 

For some years the service has been operated by Roberts Coaches, they of the one-time 159 of recent mention! Some on-line pictures show one of their vehicles en route.

It is an older vehicle registered BU16 UMW.

But we would expect the new electric buses to be prominent on the County web site.

It is a different livery but the same registration. Never mind, eh? 

We are told all about the new electric buses - well, actually we are not. We are diverted to the Pelican Yutong site which gives info of all their electric bus types.

But from somewhere on-line fbb picked up that the new Park and Ride vehicles were type E12.

The spec seems to match the pictures of the motors in action!

So Where Can You Park And Ride?

There are THREE sites, colour coded GREEN, PURPLE and GREEN(!)

fbb is familiar with Enderby and Birstall, but Meynell's Gorse has not yet crossed fbb's intellectual Leicester path.

Confusion Of Colours : Nutty Nomenclature

Maybe the individual route maps can help?

Meynell's Gorse 103 (PURPLE) is GREEN on its map! It is on the Hinckley Road A47 close to the bridge over the M1. There is, however, no junction wth the M1.

In fact the site is just off the A47 ...

... a right hand turn off the B5380.

The 203 (GREEN) is at Enderby but colored PURPLE on its map.

It is just off the Narborough Road close to the M1 M69 junction and is labelled Grove Park. The whole junction set up is horrendous ...

... and fbb could not work out, c/o Google Maps, how to get to the distinctive Park and Ride stops on Smith Way. You might be able to pick out the label for Grove Park centre bottom above!

Here is one lavish stop ...

... Or is it this one?

Or is fbb missing something obvious?

The third site for the 303 (GREEN) is at Birstall on the Loughborough Road  coloured ORANGE on the map below!.

Unlike Meynell's Gorse (where Streetview did not venture in) and Enderby (where the location was unclear), the electronic cartography permits us to see the Ride bit in action ready to depart from a rather splendid terminal.

And there is good signage Although maybe a bit of hedge pruning might help the unwary to remember to turn left!t

Shortage Or Superfluity If Stops?

We note that, apart from a very occasional extra, the services run non stop from the Park and Ride sites to the city centre, terminating on the very edge of the main shopping areas.

Or maybe not? 

Elsewhere on the web we have these panels, three off: for 103 ...

... then 203 ...

... and 303.

Just in passing, what is a "route stop"? Is it different from "bus stop"? Surely "stops"  would do?

So one place says non stop, another says many stops.

Frustrating Fares Farce

We do have the privilege of a PDF file of a Park and Ride leaflet available on-line. This gives details of the fares.

£3.50 ain't bad these days, especially as parking is free. But the group travel at just 50p more is a real bargain.

Or is it?

Elsewhere on-line we have these fares.

The day ticket and the group ticket have increased significantly but now OAP concession holders travel free instead of £1 on the green leaflet.

It all seems a right mess!

fbb thinks the problems are as follows.

1 Too Many Web Sites!

There would appear to be Park and Ride web pages from Leicestershire County, from Leicester City, from Roberts Coaches and a separate set for Park and Ride. Surely only one site is necessary?

2 Unclear Changes!

It appears that big changes are coming in on 26th August, including a significant fares increase and loads of extra stops. fbb guesses that this has been brought about by a new tender, won again by Roberts.

It seems that these three routes have now become commercial services with financial risk taken by Roberts, hence higher fares, OAP concessions valid and additional stops to garner extra passengers.

It is not clear whether local short hop fares are offered for local short hop passengers.

But, because of messy presentation, the truth is hard to fathom for an outsider like fbb.

Surely, publicity should make it easier for newcomers and visitors to Leicester to travel without fear and confusion.

A potentially good quality Park and Ride has too much of both.

Abd, talking of confusion ...

 Next Best 'O' Leicester blog : Fri 8 Aug 

The Best 'O' Leicester(shire) - 2

Try, Try And Try Again

It is not always the very best policy to try and compose a blog after two days, Sunday and Monday, of Fellowship meetings plus one church prayer meeting on Monday Morning. Productivity and brain activity are not alway at the highest level!

Then fbb awoke at 0400 yesterday feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed. After a hot drink lovingly prepared by Mrs fbb, he settled down to sleep and awoke at the normal time feeling he had been spat out of the mouth of a Jonah-style great fish (it wasn't a whale!).

But during the nocturnal awake-ness, the old man found a timetable for Midland Red 687 between Coalville and Hinckley. It came from a 1973 timetable book, so 52 years old.

fbb is particularly amused by the dramatically enlarged Leicester area on the GB map. Leicester has annexed Birmingham and Chester?

fbb has downloaded the timetable in two chunks to preserve readability ...

... and here is the rest of the Monday to Saturday table from Coalville.

There was a more limited Sunday service, where only 688 journeys ran all the way.

The next timetable fbb has found appeared in this blog in 2015. The blog was about Rev Teddy Boston and his railway at Cadeby. fbb did not note the operator of what had become service 159. It is likely that Roberts Coaches had, by then, taken over from Arriva. On-line records do show, however, that Arriva was receiving tender payments (a subsidy) from Leicestershire in the latter days of their operation.

Here is fbb's 2015 timetable extract.

Latterly the frequency was somewhat reduced but still requiring a two bus operation by Roberts. Maybe the timings for the hourly service were just too tight?

But we need a map ...

... to help us establish some geographical "sitz im leben". Clearly the bus services will need to deviate from the A447, but how?

Here a health warning is necessary. With no old map from Midland Red and no full route quoted on any of the timetables, fbb has needed an educated guess - and his education in matters omnibological in rural Leicestershire is somewhat sparse!

But here is the 687 together with the 688 - the latter not mentioned by chum David.

The 2015 route 159 looks like this ...

... so it is the 687 with a wiggle to pick up a bit of the 688 at Newbold Vernon. This also appears to be the route of the resurrected service, now numbered LC6.

Here is the most recent Leicestershire "map" (don't laugh!) ...

... which pays scant regard to anything that might be called geography and is thus overly blessed with obscuration. But it shows a stylised 159, despite it having been withdrawn in February 2025.

So how does the new LC6 stand in terms of service offered.

Badly.

It is a "one bus in steam" service 6 days a week but a sad comparison with the 687/688 combo. The 2025 resurrection seems to offer a very poor service with no really convenient times for workers travelling to the two terminal towns also with trips allowing too little or too much shopping time in either.

It seems designed to fail; a phrase used in one of the many on-line comments.

The service starts at the end of this month and will be operated by Centrebus ...

... from whose web site fbb has obtained the above timetable.

But lots of "LC" prefixed services have been appearing in Leicestershire, so, as they say in all good soap operas ...

...Wass Goin' On?

More tomorrow - including a glimpse of pr*nt*d t*m*t*bl*s - but please don't mention the P T words or everybody will want them.

In the meantime, locals cannot wait for their brand new poor service which replaces their old, much better service.

The queues will be "round the block" on 26th August!

 Next Best 'O' Leicester(shire) blog : Thur 7 Aug