Silliness At Swanley (2)

Silly Arriva Goes Downhill

But not like that; however amusing the idea might be (and however poor a paste-up - fbb is struggling with the minutiae of the new system!).

Herewith a panel timetable from ancient days.

Then a table hidden in Robert Muster's archive shows Arriva still running a 477 every 30 minutes ...

... and extended to Bluewater shopping centre. It must have been before 2022, because this happens.

The locals are far from happy.

Arriva was pleased to reinstate it.

Well, it would have to be reinstated as the MP told them to!

The same gang have campaigned, apparently, and cleverly have managed to stand in exactly the same pose as when the route was cut back. Clever PR eh?

And then Arriva un-reinstaten it.

At some stage in this messy and unhelpful tale, the frequency was reduced to hourly!

And, to conclude this sad saga of superb service (!) to the good people of Kent ...

... it is being obliterated.

It is fair to say that Arriva has not been very enthusiastic about promoting the service; indeed Arriva has not, in recent times, been enthusiastic about promoting any bus service, anywhere, ever!

Photographs on-line show a sorry collection of vehicles over the years with a wheel at each corner and no signs of quality.

Minibuses turned up occasionally with nothing offering any sort of wow factor.

There was, surprise surprise, a very brief period when Arriva managed branded buses.

... but branded., excitingly, in different colours.

fbb is not sure whether the coloured splodges at the rear had any local significance - or, indeed what the splodges were meant to signify anyway.

But it was earlier this month that a nail was formally driven into Arriva's self-adopted design-for-decline coffin. fbb has, as usual, added his thoughtful and considered comments.

We have made the difficult decision to withdraw service 477 following a sustained period of low passenger usage.

and a sustained period of under investment by us.

We have carefully explored all possible options to keep the route running, including a trial last year to extend the service to the local hospital and Bluewater shopping centre, but sadly, it is no longer sustainable.

but we didn't bother much with any publicity - it's all on-line you know!

Additionally, the introduction of a competing service on the Swanley to Dartford section of the route by another operator from 1 September has significantly impacted the commercial viability of continuing the route.

The rotters!

The last day of service will be 25 October 2025. We understand that this will be disappointing for those who rely on the service, this decision has not been taken lightly.

Somehow, customers didn't respond to our appalling on line web site and timetables; but lack of good maps didn't seem to attract them either; surprisingly our eclectic collection of barely average buses did not pull in the crowds. Our cunning plan to halve the frequency seemed to be off-putting to our remaining loyal customer.

Lots of Love : the Managers.

All very silly of Arriva!

But worry not, potential 477 users, the ever (un)resourceful Kent County Council are on the case.

 Next Silliness at Swanley blog : Weds 17 Sept 

Silliness At Swanley (1)

Not Silly Yet - Sense with 477s

There was no date on this London Country Area bus map found on-line; but a careful perusal shows a route 477 from Dartford (top) via Swanley (somewhere in the middle) and terminating at Orpington Goddington Lane and occasionally Chelsfield (bottom left).There is no date on the map, presumably because that piece of historic information was on the front cover which is not pictured!

For the record, the 477 still runs between Dartford and Orpington today!

Please also note that there was a route 431 at Chelsfield which ran from Sevenoaks to  Orpington.

The 431 timetable was never frequent ...

... latterly degenerating into a Monday to Friday only service

The Challenge of Chelsfield

To get to Chelsfield today you have either the R1 which doesn't go to Chelsfield ..'

... but serves Chelsfield station; which, obviously, is nowhere near the village (station left, village at PH, right).

The R1 runs every 20 minutes and was once part of the Orpington Roundabout network.

The R3 does serve Chelsfield village, NOT Chelsfield Station ...

... and also runs every 20 minutes.

Today's operator of both is Metrobus with no sign of any local branding.

Neither route materialises in the somewhat confusing Metrobus web site. It is a good web site if you already know where you want to go.

It has been a nightmare sorting Chelsfield out and it is only by the grace of Robert Munster's bus timetables, Ian Armstrong's London Bus Routes and, via Ian, Mike Harris' bus maps. The R1 and R3 are London buses RED routes.

London Buses web site? No proper maps, no proper timetables, so USELESS.

After a slight modern diversion via Chelsfield, we revert to history.

Back To GREEN

The "477" area was, from the formation of London Transport in 1933,  a Country green operation.

The 477 itself was operated variously from Dartford ...

... and/or Swanley depots. 

The picture below shows the last conductor operated 477 on its final trip to Swanley, shown with its proud but saddened clippie no linger clipping but lovingly clutching his ticket machine.

It looks as if they gave him a Routemaster double deck coach for his final day!

You can get a model of the Dartford garage ...

... which didn't change much in later days.

Sadly this iconic depot has been demolished.

The 477 continued under National Bus Company ownership ...

... and still ran to Chelsfield where the terminus was the historic Five Bells pub ...

/// quaint but ancient.

Buses ran every 30 minutes all the way in London country bus days.

So, London Country South East became Arriva via Kentish Bus.

Arriva's 477 will feature tomorrow. 

 Next Silly Swanley blog : Tues 16 Sept 

Sunday Snippets

Bits and pieces that have arrived in the fbb in-box recently, but which don't seem to deserve full blog status.

Tesla Trepidation

As far as fbb can tell, Mt Musk's company is stepping back from its promise to make and sell fully autonomous cars; that is cars where no human intervention at all is required when making a journey other than, obviously, telling the vehicle were you want it to go.

It is not clear what "Full self driving (supervised)" actually means. It may mean that the car self drives happily BUT you have to sit in the driver"s seat, just in case.

That is probably a good thing for driver, passengers, pedestrians and the long term future survival of any vehicle. And yes, it will certainly make spending oodles on a Tesla not-quite-autonomous car something of a waste of money!

Stevenage Suffers

Thameslink and Great Northern are much, much slower. There is another problem. Passengers making short but speedy journeys from Kings Cross to Stevenage will then alight leaving seats free for those boarding.

No alighters may imply no seats for those wishing to join and travel northbound.

Needless to say, LNER is unmoved by the MPs protestations. It is equally unmoved by anger caused by its potty new fares system which neither fbb nor most of their customers can understand.

Whatever happened to standardisation and simplification under not-so-Great British Railways? Is fbb alone in feeling a distinct chilliness in the air as future nationalisation is (not) being implemented. The age old phrase of "moving the chairs around on the Titanic" comes to mind.

Well, it seemed a good idea at the time?

Athelstan - Athelstan Who?

We have no idea how reliable the picture is; it looks as if he were one of the monarchs posing for his picure to be used on playing cards!

Athelstan was an Anglo-Saxon king and the first ruler to be recognized as King of England, reigning from 925 to 939 AD, after unifying the kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia and conquering the Viking kingdom of York. He achieved this through military victories, most notably the Battle of Brunanburgh in 937 AD, and expanded his authority to include the whole of Britain. 

Nobody knows for certain where Brunanburgh was either! Anyway, the enigmatic and slightly mysterious Athelstan now has a ferroequinoligical claim to fame.

And the obligatory gaggle of school children all joined in the fun!

Nice crowns, kiddies!

Do You Remember Cinema Coaches?

fbb cannot say that he does; but a variety of these converted passenger vehicles was used at various times on the network. The above example is parked at Stranraer.

They were used on various promotional tours projecting good old 16mm publicity films. Did they last into the digital age? Surely not.

The good news is that one has been rescued, fully refitted and is now preserved. 

Maybe one of the model railway companies will produce an accurate scale mode in OO with a tiny screen at one end simulating actual films but via a USB input cable from a phone or laptop.

One thing IS certain. If one is made it will surely sell for a ridiculously huge sum of money and, what is equally certain, is that wealthy old men will buy one and drool over it as it languishes in their display cabinet.

Talking of Model Railways 2

The 900th celebratory issue popped through fbb's letter box last week. Apart from a few extra pages of nostalgia, the magazine was as varied and well produced as normal. Part of that nostalgia was illustrations of the covers of all the hundredth editions.

fbb was scared by this one.

What was scary was that it came out in 1959 ad was one of the first Railway Modellers that your author bought! He remembers it well, NOT! In a future blog, he will use the resources of the magazine archives available from Peco to see just what the 14 year old chubby but not yet f fbb was reading.

One product that he remembers and purchased was the range of Airfix kits.

fbb quite enjoys the nostalgia of being able to spot these kits, many of which are still available today from manufacturer Dapol.

Two Fancy Footbridges Feature ...

The 900th edition has an article about a narrow gauge model called Tan-y-Bwlch. It is a slight re-imagination of the former Festiniog Railway terminus. 

The real station has a footbridge now and the model has two.

One is very obviously a "kit bashed" Airfix model (now Dapol) ...

... whilst the other is somewhat disguised.

The bridge deck is home made, but the steps and bridge supports are clearly Airfix.

They are both very obviously still the same base model after at least 66 years of production.

Deep Joy!

More Internet Nonsense

The jet above is apparently passing about 30 feet above families enjoying some down time in a park near Heathrow. They seem oblivious to the plane, its noise and the danger of its too low approach.

That's because it is FAKE!

Here is the plane approaching the landing strip over the trees and some distance away.

Now it is closer and will pass high over the trees. 

The video clip which provided the stills follows the plane against a clear sky and loses the trees, so a direct comparison is not possible.

But the landing is normal and no more frightening than any noisy approach to Heathrow might be.

Ain't the internet just good, solid and reliable - NOT!

Tomorrow ,and for a few days, solid fbb (too solid some would say) will be examining green buses, blue buses, yellow buses and as yet colour  unspecified buses.

 Next Silliness at Swanley blog : Mon 15 Sept