The Best O' Leicester
In 2020 Arriva took ove route X6 between Leivester and Coventry after Travel de Courcey went into administration. The X6 was then every 90 mins Mon to Sat only.
Nowadays we associate Arriva with retrenchment, service reductions and sales of unprofitable bits of their business.
But the X6 is something of a success story.
It now runs every hour Monday to Saturday and has recently gained extra peak and later evening journeys.
There is a respectable Sunday service.
It has benefitted from coaches in a very un-Arriva-like livery.
As well as extra journeys, the X6 now runs a simple timetable with trips that ran via an alternate route withdrawn. Everything goes that same way.
Sadly the latest livery is boring blue Arriva ...
... with a brand "sticker" added.
That is the good news. The bad news is the complete lack of printable PDF timetables on line; the above scrollable table is all you can get.
Of course there are no useful maps; only incomprehensible cartography created by poor-quality bought-in software.
As usual with Arriva, it is easy to work out where the bus goes if you know where the bus goes and have a top-grade knowledge of the Leicester street map!
It is a real pity that an improving service is let down by inadequate and poor quality publicity.
Worrying At Westfield
We are back at Westfield, West Lothian. Google Maps shows two bus services at the tatty and information-less bus shelters in the village. Route 6 is tendered by West Lothian Council ...
... and runs from Westfield (map, top left) ...
... south to Whitburn and Avonbridge.
There are, however, evening journeys on service 29 ...
.... operated by McGill's Midland Bluebird
... which helpfully take you south to Bathgate (but NOT Whitburn!) or north to Falkirk.
Even more helpfully, West Lothian produces no timetables, not even for it's own tendered services! You are referred to Traveline Scotland ...
... which fails to mention the 29!
A similar route was operated by Bluebird's predecessor ...
... First Bus.
Good, innit?
As well as the computer driven 29 table, Midland Bluebird also offer a PDF of the complete timetable (extract only shown here) ...
... and full map which emphasises the limited evening service via Westfield.
But what, our readers may ask, led fbb to the West Lothian Westfield.
'Twas this article:-
It seems a lot of money, but a noble decision, to fettle up a viaduct that is utterly disused.
It is slightly worse than that. The passenger service via Westfield ended in 1930! But, if you follow the line of the viaduct towards the village ...
... you can spot the site of the station to the north of the road ...
... and, across an acute diagonal, a splurge of grass where once chuffed the very occasional train.
Bad News For New Operator
Readers will remember fbb's report on this new operator in South Yorkshire.
This statement has appeared on the company's Facebook page:-
It is with sadness we report that last night there was a fire at our depot, resulting in us losing a large amount of our vehicles. This incident is under investigation, but the cause has been deemed as accidental and deems no risk to the wider community.
During this time, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to everyone involved in responding to the incident to help us continue our services for our communities.
Impact on our services
Earlier today we let you know that services 63 and 43 would unfortunately not operate today (31st October).
We understand the inconvenience this disruption has caused, and for that we apologise.
What’s happening now
We remain determined, resilient and rely on teamwork. Despite the circumstances, we are proud to confirm that we have secured sufficient vehicles to restore our scheduled services, thanks to the hard work of our team and support networks.
From Sunday (1st November) our services will resume as planned, this includes service 43 and 51.
From Monday we expect all our services to operate as normal, with no disruption anticipated.
Thank you for your patience and understanding during this time.
Should any unforeseen operational issues arise, we will communicate this at the earliest opportunity using our Facebook page and website.
We look forward to welcoming you all onboard tomorrow.
So congratulations to the whole team on a quick and positive result to what could have been a much worse disaster.
Cottage In Situ - Possibly
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Screaming AbDabs Department
fbb couldn't get the sound to work on his laptop. The sound was jiggling the little jiggly bit that said sound was making a noise, but it was doing it silently.
Checked that internal speakers were working on laptop. OK.
Checked the 500 places where you can adjust the volume. All OK.
Called technical support (No 3 son) who tried it all again.
Tried on Mrs fbb's laptop. Silence.
Downloaded a different video. Beautiful sound!
Tech support looked at the Video Download App.
Whaaaaat?
It had apparently re-set itself to download videos SILENTLY - i.e. without sound.
This is how it should be:-
This is how it was:-
Question : Why would any sane person, or even fbb, ever want a sound video without sound?
Answers on a postcard to the usual address.
Re-downloaded video - all O.K.
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More Oddities Tomorrow.
Next Variety blog : Tuesday 3rd Nov
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