Beautiful Bus Stops ... BUT ...(3)

 No 3 Son Takes A Walk

He makes his way along Balcombe Road Haywards Heath which, surprisingly, wends its way to Balcombe of Balcombe Viaduct fame ...

... a k a Ouse Valley Viaduct on the London to Brighton main line. But he turns off along Old Wickham Lane, a Private Road and thus not visited by the Streetview noddy car.

The road soon fizzles out but first it crosses the aforementioned main line ...

... which is four track at this point, as pictured c/o Google Maps.

For reasons that are unclear, he does not linger on the over bridge observing the passing ferroequinological delights, but strides onwards to the gates and drive of Sunte House.

He notes, in passing, that the owners of the land called Sunte Park on the map ...

... have flogged off bits of land for posh housing. But Sunte House itself is well hidden.

Note the extensive grounds inc tennis court and the finely manicured lawns. There is even a bridge over a tinkling stream ...

... Claude Monet style. 

The house itself is pleasantly extensive ...

... but only has seven bedrooms. It has just been sold.

Wowsers! £4.5 million with only seven bedrooms; poor value surely?

Having partly observed how the other half lives (and spends!!), No 3 son and walking chum proceed until they exit the footpath ...

... on to Portsmouth Lane ...

... which doesn't lead anywhere near Portsmouth. But, opposite, is Sunte Avenue (which doesn't lead to Sunte House!) and two bus stops. When Streetview viewed, there was a passenger waiting.

Was that even a second passenger waiting by the fence, or has someone put a hat on the gatepost? He (or they) are waiting for Compass Travel route 30 ...

... effectively a Haywards Heath cross-town local service.

Note that buses are running eastbound only along Sunte Avenue, which may explain why the stop in the opposite direction has a comfy little shelter and road markings, but no bus stop flag!

The service is basically hourly, but messed up by peak time and school day only trips on Monday to Friday.

Saturday's schedule is easier to follow!

There is no Sunday service.

Like other stops in Haywards Heath, West Sussex council has spent considerable sums in upgrading bus stop pole and flag. As with stops at The Wheatsheaf, we have screens and a magic button.

The frame displays the timetable.

... and a local map.

Once again, No 3 son pressed the button. As before, the button merely repeated the helpful information (?) on the screens.

Bearing in mind there were no buses, as the walk took place on a Sunday, you might expect both screen and electronics to say "No buses today". But instead the screen display is shown below ...

And that is exactly what the electronic box announced.

It said,

"Please see timetable one five two eight".

Really!

Note to West Sussex council: have you spent your money wisely? It might have been cheaper to produce area timetable books like you did back then, and make them available locally.

At least he information would make sense.

Windows 2025

Yep! there was something very wrong with the carriage shed roof. At one end the skylight windows left a small gap at the top, as fbb expected ...

... but in the middle of the long roof ...

... the gap was huge! The roof had warped out of shape and fbb had not spotted it when he glued in the glazing!

An utter disaster. What would Bill Bodge and Fred Fudge have said.

"Bisto" would have been their policy.

 Next Variety blog : Saturday 10 May 

Beautiful Bus Stops ... BUT ...(2)

Pressing The Button (mini blog)

Routes 270, 271, 272 and 273 stride northbound across the downs from Brighton. The 271 and 272 combine to give an hourly headway between the seaside and Haywards Heath ...

... after which the routes separate.

Our particular interest is the 271 which uses "our" stop at The Wheatsheaf, Cuckfield. But we should keep the 270 and 272 at the back of our blog-reading mind.

On Sundays only a limited service on the 271 operates ...

.. and this is the sum total of the omnibological offering potentially available at that stop on the Sabbath, as No 3 son excitedly ...

... pressed the magic button on the pole outside the pub. So excited was he that he commanded his ambulatory associate to make a lavish video of his experience. Please note that the video is on a loop so you can enjoy it for repeated viewings. Deep joy!

Did you, as all good evangelists are wont to say, get the message? fbb has listened to it several times and has gleaned the following. 

Revised timetable in operation on routes 270, 271 amd 272 from 10th matwothosand and twenty infoitmetrodotceeohdotuk. fbb can split the gibberish into its constituent parts and hazard a translation.

matwothosand translates to may two thousand

infoitmetrodotceeohdotuk is more challenging but might be

info@metrobus.co.uk

A close look at one side of the the timetable flag ...

... reveals the original source of the garbled "information".

It is the same as displayed in a grey liquid crystal display on a light grey background, barely legible in sunlight but interpreted (for want of a better word!) by some poor electronics at the stop. The service is provided proudly by West Sussex council for those with "visual impairment" and those who may have "difficulty in reading".

But what about "reading" the timetable?

fbb suspects that the idea of those three panels, high up on the bus stop flag, is to display the next three buses due at the stop. fbb is confident of this because the garbled message we have found so helpful (?) is displayed scrolling in just one of the three panels.

The others remained resolutely blank with nary a mention of any of the sparse 271 journeys soon (or later!) to appear at The Wheatsheaf.

It was useless "information" from the magic button!!

At least most of the few Sunday passengers could read the departure list in the frame ..,

... and, hooray for Metrobus, it shows timings correctly two minutes before the main High Street stop and time point in Cuckfield. So, although not real time, Metrobus' attempt to inform passengers was good, was working effectively, and would have been gazillions of pounds cheaper than the information NOT supplied by West Sussex.

No 3 son and chum continued their exploratory amble through some of the posher parts of Haywards Heath and came across a railway line, a very expensive posh "hice" and yet another bus stop with crackpot information provided by the electronics.

Concluding tomorrow.

 ===========================

Windows 25 - Part 2 : Let Us Spray!

fbb was well aware that painting his laser-cut card window frames would be tricky. Too much paint an they would go out of shape very easily. 

Mrs fbb made a suggestion.

Use spray paint, she urged; and a can was duly ordered from the South American River Basin. It came the very next day.

fbb set up a bodged paint booth on the bench outside the front door of fbb mansions and set to work. But, obviously (well, obvious now!),  the force of the spray tended to blow the flimsy fenestration far away where it should not have been blowed.

"Spray directly above," came the thought. OK until the drying windows stuck to the newspaper protecting the bench.

Railway modelling is such stress-free fun!!

Eventually rescued.

But a much bigger problem then materialised.

=========================

Offers a celebration of VE day by taking orders for some of its iconic models painted in a plain unlined wartime black.

fbb cannot confirm whether these locos actually ever appeared in the unadorned black livery. But one (or even all four!) would make an interesting, albeit expensive, adjunct to a model representing those dark days.

fbb was a little over two months old on VE day!

 Next bus stop blog : Friday 9 May 

Beautiful Bus Stops ... BUT ... (1)

The Bad Old Days

Some readers may well remember those bad far-off days when most buses in, say, West Sussex were operated by (shock horror) one bus company called Southdown. 

What a quaint and old-fashioned idea that was. Not only that, but before the onslaught of computer technology and the internet, you had to buy a timetable book where you could find all the bus timetables for the area.

Even after the disaster of privatisation and deregulation in 1986, many county councils produced comprehensive books of timetables as here for West Sussex.

West Sussex also had their own Traveline (clever name eh?) where, for the price of a local call, you could speak to a person who knew where the buses ran because - they lived in the area and worked for their local council.

Of course, they did not have the benefit of large regional call centre technology (also called Traveline).

West Sussex did produce a booklet for the whole county detailing all the Sunday services.

It was possible to plan a pleasant Sunday out using this very weak and outdated technology. Oh, how we struggled with it!

They also produced a map ...

... which showed all the bus routes in the county, the above example being from an incredible quarter of a century ago. Now, as we all know, 

IT'S ALL ON LINE!

So, with the benefit of modern technology, West Sussex offers the bemused and befuddled traveller ...

... a map which is so much easier to use than all that tedious unfolding of a large sheet of paper. Or is it?

And it gives real time information. We must try that!

And timetables?

You get a link to Traveline. Must try that!

And printed material? Don't bother to ask!

The Good New Days

Recently West Sussex have spent loadsa money on upgrading its bus stops. And so we sent our intrepid reporter to The Wheatsheaf, Cuckfield ...

... to investigate.

O.K., No 3 son was out for a walk on Sunday and spotted things; sending pictures back to fbb mansions! 

So here is the aforementioned hostelry.

Its bus stop just peeps in centre right. But when Streetview chuntered past, it looked like this.

All you got was a pole, a flag showing the operator and a railing to lean on.

Opposite the pub, almost hidden in the hedge, you got the bonus of a timetable frame ...

...with nothing in it!

All that has changed!

The stops have shiny new bus stop flags ...

... on a square bus stop pole, not round, like the old fashioned stuff.

 There is a well-stocked timetable frame.

The top table is for Metrobus route 271 ...

... which wends its way from Brighton to Crawley.

Observant readers will note that Metrobus even explains why there might be a blank space against a particular departure hour.

It is good to have that explained for every day-set as here with fourteen times on a Sunday. fbb would have struggled to work out why there were these gaps.

It might have been better for the public if Metrobus had posted a timetable in the frame!

So congrats to Compass Travel for doing just that.

Above is the 31/31A from Uckfield to Cuckfield ...

... with a more legible timetable extract below.

And the less frequent 62 ...

... from Crawley to Haywards Heath.

Compass Travel is a good local operator that has expanded significantly in recent years. It provides good information (including maps!) and operates a well cared for fleet with regular renewals.

fbb does wonder why the Compass  timetables in the frame look different from the extracts which were taken from the company web site.

But passengers waiting at The Wheatsheaf have a technological bonus. They have a push button.

Fortunately, No 3 son pressed the button to find out what might happen.

Continued in tomorrow's blog.

 Next bus stop blog : Thur 8 May