Apology to Houstons
Yesterday, fbb expressed the thought that the company web site was "challenging" to use. It isn't! fbb was just being screamingly incompetent.
There was a blob next to each service in the list. When the old bloke actually looked, it transpired that the blobs were a PDF logos. Prodding these delivered the timetable.
Note also the iffler of a printed timetable booklet!
Apology to Mr Shayshutt : Your new book will be reviewed tomorrow.
Back to Dumfries and Galloway
The table immediately above (Dumfries local route 8) is the same as Houstons on-line version shown immediately under the 'Apology' heading. Of course, the Dumfries locals used to be run by Stagecoach.
It seems thar the D & G collection of tendered services all appear in this spreadsheet format.
Route 520 used to be operated by the Council's own bus fleet ...
... as was the 555.
Apparently, the 555 warranted a 'proper' bus.
Traveline tells us that the 555 is still operated by DGC and fbb can guess what the letters stand for.
At one time many services were in the hands of sweet purple and blue buses labelled SWTrans ...
... but many of these vehicles were operated for SwTrans by ...
... Staagecoach. The Stagecoach SwTrans bus above is on route 415 via Port (NOT Fort!) William.
Have fun with that one (timetable extract below)!
Here is the usual unhelpful Traveline map.
Have fun matching that to the timetable!
Traveline now allocates the route to our old friend DGC with no mention of SWTrans.
fbb remembers seeing an occasional 415 trundling past the quaint holiday cottage the gruesome twosome occupied in Whithorn.
Does SWTrans still exist?
Here is an undated SWTrans timetable downloaded as a graphic from the interwebnet ...
... and here us the 517 from the D & G web site.
Traveline offers DGC as operator and agrees with the council on the timetable.
So does SWTrans exist? Probably not as a bus operator. The sainted Wikipedia explains all - sort of!
SWestrans (The South West of Scotland Transport Partnership) is a group set up by Transport Scotland to determine and deliver better transport, both locally and nationally, and to act as a catalyst for regeneration of the region's economy.[1] There are six other similar groups covering the rest of Scotland which were created under the Transport (Scotland) Act 2005. SWestrans covers the Dumfries & Galloway council area.
Tell us more.
Effectively part of Dumfries and Galloway Council, SWestrans is officially labelled as a Statutory regional transport partnership. It makes plans, through its Regional Transport Strategy then lobbies the various government departments that are responsible for the Scottish Transport network and takes decisions devolved on transport policy for the council
So it is all DGC!
So there!
Before leaving this outpouring if omnibological obfuscation, fbb MUST draw his readers' attention to a very special bus service in Dumfries and Galloway.
It concerns DGC/SWTrans route 115 which should run to the destination community with the shortest name if any bus terminus in the UK.
The 115 runs from Dumfries to ...
Ae.
Eh?
On maps it is a village of just TWO letters! Sadly, the road sign adds a descriptive word ...
... as does the bus destination blind!
Note that the SWTrans liveried bus above is operated by Houstons!
fbb suspects this geographical appendage has been appendaged because the occasional visitor is flummoxed by the nomenclature brevity and is thus afeared of communication problems.
It is pronounced "ay" as in the letter 'a'!
The village is sweet ...
We have, so far, met the above wagon c/w BP 'shield' logos - and the same wagon without!
The logo was smaller as was the end-on lettering.
... but the timetable is, as is often the case with rural services in Scotland, somewhat complex.
Much to his regret, a regret unrequited and not likely ever to be otherwise, the old man was never in Dumfries long enough to do any requiting on the 115!
It us fair to say that Dumfries and Galloway DOES post timetables on its web site, Houstons DOES produce a printed timetable book ...
... and Traveline and the Council both agree on the detail.
BUT it is all very scrappy, difficult to unravel and lacking a network map. Importantly, it is well-nigh impossible to know whose bus you are looking for!
The area desperately needs a comprehensive timetable book and a map. There used to be a map ...
... and a set if area tinetable books.
Nut never no more!
Up steps Keith Shayhutt to fulfill one of the urgent needs.
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The B P Freightliner Saga 3
fbb bought the latter as one with logos was simply unobtainable. But fbb's logo-less wagon did have BP shields on one end of each tank, the end opposite the ladder.
There was another similar model with a totally fake livery ...
... and a BP version with different BP logos.
The shield is wrapped in a green square.
Confused.com!
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D & G Timetable Book blog : Weds 26 Aug
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