Today's Comfort - Part 4

 It's All On Line - Possibly?

The big problem with on-line information is that it is often undated and, even more often, not removed when it goes out of date. There is a fighting chance that regular users of a bus service will soon learn what it is up to, either from bitter experience when the expected journey doesn't turn up or from Mrs Miggins who caught it last Tuesday.

So, on-line information for the prestigious (?) C1 in Cardiff is abundant. But whether it is useful and/or up to date, involves  much greater challenge.

fbb is grateful to Cardiff correspondent Andrew for this helpful email.

A few thoughts for you. Up till a couple of years ago, the C1 ran every 15 minutes in the daytime (20 minutes on Sundays), with the last buses leaving at around 11 pm - indeed it made a point in its branding of being the bus that could take you home after an evening out. 

However it has been cut back to every 20 minutes throughout the day, with a much earlier finish, and no Sunday service. 

This is a timetable that fbb found in-line.

fbb notes that the service does not use Cardiff's new far-too-small bus station. Or does it? Well this on-line timetable also says it doesn't.

But Andrew writes ...

It has recently been diverted to serve the new (too small) Bus Interchange, which the 57/58 do not.

The C1 competes with the 57/58!

On the eastern leg of its journey it largely duplicates Cardiff Bus's 57/58; however it uniquely serves one area of Pentwyn and this now is deprived of Sunday buses. Timekeeping can be erratic on such a long route with several "pinch points" in Canton, the city centre and Albany/Wellfield Road. 

Adventure Travel would agree ...

... but the above information easily available when the message is over a year old?

fbb came across this link with no effort whatsoever.

Also easy to find is this ...

... and a different on-line timetable.

... which does mention the bus station. Apologies for the poor reproduction, but correspondent Andrew points out the most journeys are duplicated but with a different running time. He suggest the duplicates are to cater for slower journeys on schooldays but there are no notes to explain this.

Then fbb found this ..

... also hanging around in Adventure Travel;s mess, which is an item assuring us that the C1 will NOT use the bus station!

No matter, it is all on line!

Also on-line is Adventure Travel's full list of timetables which includes about a million school services which would hardly ever elicit and enquiry - usually the school knows. 

Sadly the list is in no discernible order which makes sure that looking anything up can be difficult.

Then there are the maps, where available.

None of this stuff is easy to find and, frankly, it would be so much easier if the potential passenger had a leaflet or two in front of him.

Memo to ComfortDelGro : when you next have an office staff training day, set then a few timetable search puzzles.

Or it is much easier on the App?

Maybe fbb will try, but he doubts that it will be any better.

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

This blog snippet is about:-

 D isoedience and  D ownfall

Quirky Answer : It certainly was NOT an apple. In the Bible, the original word used was for "fruit". The confusion reigns because in years gone by the English only knew two types  of fruit, namely those that grew naturally/ They were 'apple' and 'berry', so the obvious translation from ancient tongues had to be one of those. A tomato was a 'love apple' and a potato was an 'earth apple' and still is in many other European language.

Another white-skinned Western Adam and Eve?

Many Christians are more than happy to take the story of the Garden of Eden literally. That is not unreasonable as anthropology tells us that every human being was descended from one woman, "Mitochondrial Eve" ...

... and one man, "Y Chromosomal Adam" ...

... although current science has yet to locate them both in the same place. But descendants are difficult at a distance! The pictures are, obviously, a massive but realistic guess; and they are most definitely NOT white skinned!

Even if you want the story to be figurative rather than factually accurate, the message is still clear. Mankind was given the gift of free will, the ability to do right or wrong; the ability to make good decisions or bad. That's what makes us human!

So mankind makes bad decisions and is banished from perfection. Things become tough.

That's life from now on. Again, Christmas suggests an answer.

Quirky Question : What is an "ark"? Answer tomorrow.

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

 Next Metro blog : Friday 5th December 

Today's Comfort - Part 3

 A Very Ordinary Bus Company

Adventure Travel was established in 2008 and at that point, was called ‘New Adventure Travel Ltd’. Providing high-quality coach hire and land transport solutions, the company started with just 4 vehicles but has now grown to be one of South Wales’ leading transport providers with over 150 vehicles. With depots in Cardiff and Swansea, we cover a large area with bus service routes, getting customers from A to B.

The brand on the buses was NAT and a blue and white livery was adopted.

The blue remained after the later  rebrand.

There was a bit of an onslaught on Cardiff City with routes with a large "X" on he sides and X route numbers. The "X" was, reputedly, for Cross City and certainly not for Xpress!

Largely, Cardiff's city bus saw off the competition although one such route now remains. 

We will return to this "C1" branded route in due course. The route number becomes two letters in the logo Cross  C1ty.

In mid-2018, the business was acquired by the international transport conglomerate, Comfort Delgro. 12 months later in mid-2019, the business rebranded as ‘Adventure Travel’. For a while the blue and white remained.

To draw attention to the significant changes that had been enacted as a result of new owners, new management and a new approach to passenger transport in South Wales. A new magenta brand was announced, although it was adapted into ‘Bws Blackberry’.

Magenta?

Buses were brought in from Metroline London to cover an increasing schools bus business ...

Here is the bus above now with Metroline ...

... and before the London takeover it was, of course ...

...with First London!

Despite the red buses for schools, it is fair to say that, under ComfortDelGro ownership, Adventure Travel has become less of an adventure and more of a reliable well presented company with smart vehicles ...

... of assorted sizes!

The company operates the TrawsCymru T6 ...

... with which readers may not be too familiar. It is something of a marathon between Swansea and Brecon with a running time of nearly two hours. This is just a snippet of the Monday to Saturday timetable ...

... which offers an hourly services for most of the day.

Certainly ComfortDelGro would appear to be positioning itself for a strong bid for a chunk of the aspirational nationalisation franchise policy of the Welsh government.

Maybe their on-line publicity could do with a bit of tweaking, however, as we shall see tomorrow.

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

This blog snippet is about:-

 C onsidering  C reation

Quirky Answer : Conventionally you would say that nothing was created on the seventh day when "God was pleased with what he had done and so he rested". Maybe it is better to say that God created rest, a day free of pressured work, as a gift to mankind.

But surely the idea of an infinitely powerful God, a 'being' existing outside of our universe and unlimited but our restrictive laws of physics, might need a day off - well the idea is ridiculous. Of course if you are misled by silly cartoons ...

... or even but great art ...

... into making God into a human, then understanding Creation is hard.

Obviously those Biblical "days" are remarkably close to modern scientific thought, ridiculously close considering they were first written down about 3,500 years ago.  And, certainly, the Bible makes no attempt to describe these God-days as periods of 24 human hours. The actual Bible words are "evening and morning", surely a poetic or philosophical description of "a period of time". 

An infinitely powerful God does not need a human definition of time in which to do his stuff.

However long a God-day might be, creation was ALL GOOD.

Odd, is it not, that Adam and Eve are very white skinned Europeans? More misleading art?

But it didn't stay that way and things are certainly not "all good" today.

God's eternal answer is revealed at Christmas.

Quirky Question : What tasty item led Adam and Eve to disobey?

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

 Next Comfort blog : Thursday 4th December 

Today's Comfort - Part 2

Did You Spot Citylink?

Yesterday we met Citylink Ireland, but readers will be more familiar with Citylink in Scotland.  The brand was created in 1985 to absorb express services operated by companies in the Scottish Bus Group. 

Competition with Stagecoach led to a joint venture under privatisation until quite recently.

Under ComfortDelGro ownership the Stagecoach bit was bought out by the slightly more senior party, so it is all now under the ultimate authoriy of the Singapore based conglomerate.

By way of revision, Citylink operates some stunning frequencies on the 900 between Glasgorw and Edinburgh ...

... plus an equally stunning headway from Glasgow to Edinburgh Aiport.

Services from the two big cities to Aberdeen and Inverness have been improved progressively over the years, but the delights of Citylink are the routes to the Highlands and the Western Isles.

These combine luxury coaches with what are, effectively, the local buses, as here with the sevice between Inverness and Skye.

The fleet is regularly updated with some stunning motors.

The batch below was celebrating the 40th birthday!

If you have never done a tour with Citylink, then you really should. You will see some glorious scenery in excellent comfort, with reliability and good value fares.

The Other Biggie - Metroline

This was one of the companies set up in preparation for the privatisation of London's red buses. It was a management buyout and expanded by acquiring several smaller companies that materialised in the early days of the big change from the gargantuan London Transport.

The lure of big bucks in the pocket led to its sale to ComfortDelGro in year 2000. Further acquisitions followed including Armchair, Westbus and three First Bus depots. Current operation includes part of the Suoerloop network.

Keep Westbus in mind!

In a rush of blood to its corporate head, Metroline won a contract for a large heap of Bee Line routes in Manchester. The win was largely at the expense of Stagecoach which threatened to sulk! Bus watchers are of the view that Metroline overbid and may struggle to make money.

Unlike in London, there is no mention of the operator name on the vehicles.

fbb was very excited to find a Metroline page on-)ine packed with helpful stuff for passengers (?) ...

... which proudly promised timetables!

There aren't any! 

Transport for Manchester posts them for its area, if you can find them; whereas Transport for London maintains its usual cloak of secrecy.

Independent Web site providers do better.

And Westbus?

Confusingly you will find pictures of this operator's vehicles, but beware; there is (more correctly, was) a Westbus in Australia, also part of ComfortDelGro. 

The UK Westbus, as its name suggests (?), runs coaches ...

... and has been around for yonks in various guises.

Whilst it may have run buses in the past, it is now a high spec coach operator ...

... with some smart posh deckers.

ConfortDelGro has one other urban bus operation in the UK, an operation that is more "normal" that the others - but still a bit of an adventure.

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

This blog snippet is about:-

 B elief and the  B ible

Quirky Answer : There are 66 'books' in the Bible, of which 39 come before Christmas in the Old Testament; 27 are in the New Testament which sort-of starts with Christmas. There are 929 "Chapters" in the Bible, but some, like Psalm 117 are very short.

That's it - but you could hardly call it a "chapter" - it is a single verse Hebrew song. Psalm 119 is defined as the longest "chapter" and it is a VERY long ditty at 176 Bible verses, all about how good and important the Scriptures are for peoples' wellbeing. 

But it does go on a bit!

There are 23,145 "verses" (i.e. small chunks). Some are very small as in "Jesus Wept" (John's Gospel, Chapter 11 verse 35), others are much longer. 

The divisions into Chapters and Verses came long after the text of the Bible was written and were added to help readers find their way around. They are not part of the original.

Of the 929 chapters, only four tell the "Christmas Story"; Luke has two which focus, amongst lots else, on the Shepherds ..

Whilst Matthew is a Wise Men man.

Despite the Bible words being very clear on the page, most illustrations get it completely wrong. The shepherds did not see the star and the wise men did not visit the stable.

That's the big trouble with the Bible. Most people only know little bits of the stories and, over the years, those little bits have been modified, prettified and falsfied.

And how come we have turned those four Christmas chapters (out of 929) into the mega knees up that fills our shops, fills our lives, fills our stomachs and empties our pockets from October each year?

To make sense of the nonsense we need to understand more.

And a warning; what we might believe doesn't change anything!

To make real sense of our beliefs we need to understand more.

Quirky Quiz Question : What did God create on the seventh "day"? Answer tomorrow.

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

 Next Comfort blog : Wednesday 3rd December