Monday Variety

Andy's Handy Plan De-livered!?

If in doubt - paint it yellow!

Even the bikes!

And here is Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham showing off his new mellow yellow revolution for Manchester's franchised public transport.

What is even more exciting is that young Andy has got a real bus to show us all. Although the sticky label has been peeled off for the above PR revelations, it looks like something from the Diamond (Rotala) stable seen below with label.

It used to look like this, seen on route 8 to Bolton.

The repaint is also en route to Bolton ...

... on a service that used to be in the hands of First Bus - and route branded, no less.

But here is the key question.

IS IT THE RIGHT YELLOW?

It looks much more akin to the current Metrolink yellow with tints of primrose ...

... rather than Andy's Easter daffs more yellow yellow.

Hey ho!

The word on the street is that young Andy is readying himself to take over from Keir Starmer when the latter fluffs the 2024 election (or maybe before, if the string-pullers think "Keir no Fear"!). So what might happen to the golden boy's golden plan then, eh?

Currently the early franchise "winners" are operating the existing network and are invited to make proposals for improvements and/or changes "soon". That's right; companies like Diamond and GoAhead have won franchises with no idea of what they will be operating in the future.

Really weird things happen in today's bus industry!

The Strangeness Of Slough

First Bus still have a presence in Slough.

Service 7 (MID BLUE) runs to Heathrow via Langley; Service 8 (PALE BLUE) runs to Heathrow via Eton and a very indirect route; Service 4 (ORANGE) runs straight from Maidenhead to Heathrow.

Thames Valley Buses (formerly and partly Courtney Coaches but really Reading Buses in a thin disguise) also serves Slough.

The company runs the 12 (MID PURPLE) sort of jointly with First, the 15 (DARK PURPLE) to Eton and Eton Wick, the 5 (PALE GREEN) to Cippenham and the 2 (GREEN) via Datchet. 

Both operators are making changes from 2nd/3rd April.

Thames Valley tell us about changes they arr making "one week ago on 1thh March" ...

... which are shown elsewhere as upcoming.

The date in March might be the date when the announcement was posted - confusingly! But the changes do not apper to be significant.

But, despite the less than earth shattering changes, there is a new timetable booklet from Thames Valley containing a new map.

It is an excellent production and really helpful to existing and future passengers.

First's changes are significant.

Service 4 - Cippenham | Slough | Langley | Heathrow Airport

This service will no longer serve Maidenhead and will now terminate at Cippenham Green. The service will continue to operate every 30 minutes, but there will be more journeys between Cippenham Green and Slough at the weekends. 

Service 6 - Maidenhead | Slough | Knolton Way

The route will be extended to serve Maidenhead. The route between Slough and The Frithe will now operate direct via Wellington Street and will no longer serve Upton Hospital. The service will continue to operate hourly. 

Instead of running half hourly to Maidenhead, service 4 will terminate at Cippenham but will remain every 30.

Maidenhead will be served by extending service 6 (YELLOW on First's map) but only every hour.

There is, apparently, no new map and no printed timetables.

Good innit?

But a twitterer has twitted a picture of First's on-bus publicity for the revised service 4.

It lauds the diversion of the 4 into Cippenham (but direct along he main road) which might be seen as a poke at Thames Valley who run the existing service from Cippenham to Slough but via a slow wiggly route.

And who has done the twittering.

A smiiey-face First Bus manager? Well, erm no! He is none other than ...

... boss of Reading Buses and thus ultimately in charge of Thames Valley.

Why promote on-line a service which might hurt you? there are, oif course, two possibilities.

Either young Robert is having a sulk OR is laying a trail of clues for a take over by Thames Valley of First's rather weedy operation in Slough.

Whatever, the whole situation is a mess and utterly discouraging to the users of the fragmented and, in First's case, badly publicised public transport.

Really weird things happen in today's bus industry!

Burnham's Bee Network - a P.S.

Andy's bright new look is to be branded the "Bee Network" complete with rather weedy looking bees.

fbb has a question. Has the Greater Manchester PTE heard of Mr Burnham and his effusive enthusiasm for upgrading Manchester's public transport.

Apparently not!

Here is a picture from Roger French.

Rog captions his picture thus: "Lots of brightly coloured leaflets to encourage people to travel by bus".

Will the new Bee network be a taste of honey or a painful sting in the posterior for the hapless passengers of Manchester?

Really weird things happen in today's bus industry!

York Has An Excellent Map

(extract only shown above) The interwebnet implies that printed copies are available.  ...

... but fbb doubts it.

It is undated so we cannot guess whether it is current. It looks reasonable from a distance, but, upon closer exploration, look at service 12 from Monks Cross (a shopping centre with oodles of parking) in the north of the city ...

... to Woodthorpe in he south.

According to the map it is operated by First Bus ...

... and there is one doing it!

Oh no it isn't!! It is now operated by Transdev.

And here is an extract from their timetable.

But it won't be from  Monday 3rd April!

From then it will be run by GoAhead East Yorkshire.

So the map is not up to date but ...

IT IS ALL ON LINE

Really weird things happen in today's bus industry!

Tomorrow, for a bit of sanity, we go back to Hungary.

REMINDERS

This week, fbb & Mrs will be preparing and presenting the next in their monthly double-up fellowship meetings (described by a wag as "Sunday School for old people"). They also have a Church prayer meeing today and fbb's final eyeball stabbing on Thursday.

Apologies for any blogging inadequacies that may evolve.

Also (as eyes do get tired) some typos might not get un-typoed until 0730 while the fbbs' morning tea is brewing. The old codger is doing his best!

 Next Budapest Metro blog : Tuesday 28th March 

Traveline To The Rescue? Or Maybe Not?

But Before Bicester - Hot News

Except that in the Macclesfield, Winslow nd Oswestry area - we won't.

Arriva North West don't tell you about Oswestry!

Oddly, fbb has never discovered what the "extensive activity to turn round" these depots was. He must have missed the house-to-house leaflet distribution, the racks of publicity in the enquiry offices in the main towns, the special fares offers an the powerful branding all designed to encourage lapsed passengers and new customers to a well publicised network.

Oh? There hasn't been any? Just some service cut backs? But it was all on line.

This is a hefty chunk of withdrawals.

Surely it cannot be long before Arriva ceases to exist?

Watch this space!

Traveline Bicester Route 24...

... which, thanks to the crackpot reliance on electronically created PDF timetables doesn't even feature Bicester in the heading. But it does feature Weston on the Green TWICE in a confusing timetable!

There is also an all stops version of the above ...

... and, in a cornucopia of omnibological beneficence, an HTML version as well which is far too big to be shown on a humble blog. It is also too big to be read on-screen; in fact it is not clear what its use might be.

Readers may remember that this route's predecessor, the 250, ran through to Oxford every hour (admittedly via a different route), so the new service is paltry by comparison.

Hallmark was taken over by Rotala and branded Diamond.

But there are no maps on Traveline.

One useful feature is that a Traveline timetable offers a link to the bus operator, in this case Grayline Coaches. If searching independently make sure you get the right line of gray.

It is the slightly tatty one you want.

But there is no bus information on the Grayline site whatsoever.

Great!

So no map anywhere for the 24.

Belay that adverse comment, fbb; Roger French has drawn one.

The Grayline vehicle that Rog rode upon, prior to his "in yer face" blog, was certainly better looking than the Grayline web site!

The bus carries "branding" for the E1 which runs from Bicester to Elmsbrook - nother splodge of new housing.

But there is a mystery with the route of the 25 into Oxford. This is what Roger wrote ...

... implying an official non-stop run into the city.

But Traveline shows all stops ...

... and Grayline's bus stop timetables (NOT departure lists - HOORAY!) make no mention of any restricted travel along the line of route.

The notes are all about days of operation.

If you did search the wrong Gray Line, this is where you might go ...

... but you probably wouldn't start at Bicester!

Despite the poor and unclear publicity, fbb supposes that the positive, a replacement service and NOT an "Uber style" DRT but a real bus, will be welcomed by the few passengers who have not moved away, bought a car/bike/horse or died since the 25/25A ran that way.

Of course, if you go back far enough you could catch a train at Wendlebury Halt. It might even have been one of these!

The halt closed in 1926 as it was uneconomic - surprise, surprise.

A station building remained in the late 50s ...

... but, looking from the level crossing, all has gone today!

Tomorrow, its the turn of the 25 to Heyford Park.

 Next Bicester bus blog : Thursday 2nd March