Weekend Odds (1)

Mirror Mirror On The Bus ...

... makes it safe for all of us!

When fbb was being taught how to drive a bus - by a splendid professional instructor whose services were provided free - he well remembers the importance of mirrors as being drilled into the slightly less rotund learners brain.

At every junction and whilst simply bowling along the open road the words "Murrrs" would be heard. (Isle of Wight argot for Mirrors!). Murrs are a lot bigger now, particularly on coaches.

fbb was also instructed to make it clear to the guy who was testing him by moving his head in an obvious (and uncomfortable way) to show clearly that he was "looking" rather than "glancing".

He passed!

Modern (but expensive) technology can replace murrs with TV cameras and screens on the widow pillars, first spotted on one of First Glasgow's new buses. An article in the trade press shows the set-up much better than that first passing remark in a press release.

The trade puffs suggest a three-way dramatic improvement -

- very impressive.

Pity, however, that this driver is going the wrong way down a dual carriageway! oops, sorry - it is not a UK product.

Snap Has snapped

Like demand responsive minibus services "Snap" was proudly vaunted as Uber for coaches. The idea was to collect together loads of individuals to make up coachloads for trips to big "entertainment" events and footy matches. Snap didd not run any vehicles but hired in as appropriate.

The Snap App revealed its demise.

Sounds good?

But it doesn't make money! Nevertheless ...

... there is always the possibility that folk will be willing to invest in something that is loss making, as per the stock market launch of Uber!

Talking of loss making, it is reported that at least two respected bus managers have (anonymously) commented that they can see no way that "Uber-style" demand responsive minibus services could EVER be commercially viable. Here is Leicester's Arriva Click outside Braunstone Leisure Centre awaiting an App call from  its eager passenger.

According to Leicester chum David (who goes swimming there) the vehicles lurk in the car park until someone makes a booking. Mostly, says David, there is always one resting there, occasionally three.

Pushchairs Versus Wheelchairs?

The question as to who has a legal right to the appropriate space on a bus led to a court case involving First. The outcome was only a partial clarification but the disabled contender seemed to be claiming that he had a greater "right" to limited accommodation than the rest of us.

As fbb has opined in the past, the provision of wheelchair space on the bottom deck is a noble achievement, but the lack of seats now "disables" a full bus for those of us who find climbing the stairs difficult or impossible. An empty wheelchair space is no consolation if there are no other seats. Thank goodness for tip up!

But a lovely picture (undated) popped up on-line recently. How to deal with pushchairs?

Opawa is in Christchurch, New Zealand, where, if the picture is to be believed procreation is particularly prolific. There is no photographic evidence that the contents of the prams are left in place!

Opawa is an inner suburb of Christchurch, New Zealand, located 2.5 kilometres south-east of the city centre. The name is a contraction of "Ōpāwaho", which, in Māori, means a place of ('ō') an outer pā or outpost ('pāwaho'). "Ōpāwaho" or "Opaawaho" is the Māori name for the Heathcote River in a loop on which the community sits.

Current bus services are route 28 (ORANGE) every 30 minutes ...

 ... and the Orbiter circular (GREEN) every ten minutes in both directions.

The network map shows how the two intersect.

There is plenty of on-line evidence to show that the pram-hooks were well used and fitted to all types of vehicle.

fbb Bludner

The picture of a route 99 Eastbourne to Hastings as used in yesterday's blog was actually a Southdown vehicle ...

... as was obvious from (a) the registration letters and (b) the word "Southdown" on the side; apart from that he was right. Try using your brain and your eyes, fbb!

What's In A Name?

Thanks to correspondent John fbb was made aware of a fascinating feature just off the route of Stagecoach (formerly Eastbourne Corp) routtes 5 and 5A.

Alight at the Southbourne Road stop on Churchdale Road ...

... walk a short distance along Southbourne Road and you will arrive at ...

... Ecmod Road. It is a short thoroughfare of ex Council property ...

... with the unusual name - and there it is on the map.

According to John (and fbb has no reason to doubt him) Ecmod is an acronym:-

Eastbourne

Corporation

Motor

Omnibus

Department

fbb has never seen this oddity in print, and it must be unique. As joyous a piece of Trivia as fbb's Sheffield favourite.

A main office of South Yorkshire Police is on  LETSBY AVENUE a road name added to a blank map by a opportunist officer when reviewing plans for the new premises; and adopted (knowingly or not?) by South Yorkshire Council.

 Next Sunday Odds blog : Sunday 7th July 

Exciting Expedition FROM Eastbourne (1)

fbb's big outing, whilst spending a few days with No 3 son, was from Eastbourne to Brighton. Back in the day this might well have been on a full fronted Southdown service 12.

By the time of the great Great Britain Bus Timetable it had become a 712, jointly run by Brighton and Hove and Stagecoach.

Back then the service ran every 20 minutes, seven days a week (Summer presumably). Things have moved on somewhat by 2019!

Stagecoach have backed out and there are three services here, each running every 20 minutes, all tun by the GoAhead company.

12  - Brighton to Seaford

12A - Brighton Eastbourne via Paradise Park

12X - Brighton Eastbourne

      (limited stop Brighton Newhaven)

This does give a bus every ten minutes between Brighton and Eastbourne (12A and 12X) with the 12s  joining the 12As to  give a bus every ten minutes all stops to Seaford. It is mighty impressive.

So it was that fbb toddled down to Eastbourne Pier to catch the 0945 service 12X to Brighton. He allowed himself plenty of time to find the stop but in the end the flags were clear. On the landward side of the road was the stop for the 99. One time, long ago, this was a Maidstone and District route ...

... now Stagecoach, but still 99.

A cluster of seniors was waiting for their day out to Bexhill or Hastings.

The 99 runs every 20 minutes and is on fbb's list for the next visit to No 3 son.

The stop for the 12A & 12X was on the opposite side of the road ...

... with one Brighton Bus boob. The blue and green sub-flad advertises a bus every ten minutes ...

... but this is incorrect. Only the 12X buses leave from the Pier whilst the 12As leave from the Winter Gardens, a tad further along the esplanade. Everything comes together at the Gildredge Road stop sort-of opposite the station.

Also leaving from the Pier is the Dotto Train ...

... also part of the Stagecoach oeuvre.

Eastbourne open top tours are, however, in the hands of Seaford and District with separate flags ...

... a tidy timetable in a frame ...

... and smart green and cream open toppers.

SEZ 404, onetime closed but with removeable roof ...

... was once part of neighbour Brighton and Hove's fleet registration T819 RFG.

But fbb's 12X was lurking in the distance ...

... as were nearly 30 seniors eager for the ride; 0945 being to first departure on which the pass is valid.

In passing, it is worth remarking that every 12, 12A and 12X that fbb spotted has a useful (and no doubt profitable) load. Again, very impressive.

But then Brighton and Hove does have a printed timetable book widely available and free of charge. It is an in-house production, A4 size and editor compiler Mike Cheeseman ...

... is to be congratulated on an excellent twice-a-year production.

But we are going on a very pleasant bus ride, made extra good as fbb was able to get a top deck front seat.

Pictures of scenery are disappointing in Blogger (something to do with the way the gubbins compresses the JPEG files, fbb guesses) so you will have to take fbb's word for the fact that, between Eastbourne and Seaford the views are gorgeous.

Here is part of the A239 ...

... climbing up on the downs and ...

... dropping down the downs to the Seven Sisters tea room and visitor centre. Here we pass a well loaded 12X on its way to Eastbourne.

The Cuckmere River maeanders gracefully towards the ocean ...

... as fbb's 12X crosses the narrow bridge at the eponymous Inn.

The bridge is both delightful and frustrating as a hindrance to Summer traffic. The bridge crosses a man made channel leaving the wiggles as a disconnected but much extended oxbow lake.

Seaford in a pleasant "suburban" setttlement where the service 12 short workings turn at the War Memorial.

It is also the terminus of a railway line from Lewes via Newhaven ...

... boasting a pleasant tradition station bang on the main street.

Trains run every 30 minutes from Brighton with excellent connections at Lewes for London etc.

Newhaven is not the most picturesque place on the south coast, but we are soon there and this blog will take a break before continuing to Brighton.

Part 2 of the ride from Eastbourne will come sometime next week.

 Next weekend odds blog : Saturday 6th July 

They Have A Cunning Plan

Both Baldrick and Blackadder were famed for their "cunning plans" which usually came to nothing or exacerbated the chaos; such is the joy of cleverly written comedy.

Manchester, too, has two cunning plans, each in the hands of two key characters.

One is Gary Nolan.

An ex Stagecoach man, he is director of "OneBus" an affiliation of all the bus operators in the city. He has a web site, a logo ...

... a slogan ...

... and a cunning plan.

Yes, that is good press fodder, but what does it mean? Here are his main proposals:-

These are all very noble and blindingly obvious aims and Gazza reckons they can be delivered by OneBus, a "voluntary" partnership between commercial operators and the PTE (the politcal body).

In the red corner, however, is the Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham.

He was a "career" Labour Party man and an MP until he won the battle for Manchester Mayor in 2017.

He has a logo and a slogan (Our Network outlined in pretty colours) ...

...  and he, too, has a cunning plan.

Our Network will be an integrated, simple and convenient London-style transport system; allowing people to change easily between different modes of transport; with simple affordable ticketing and an aspiration to have a London-style cap across all modes; with orbital routes that allow people to travel around the city region, as well as in and out of the city centre. Cycling and walking and bus will be accessible and convenient for short journeys, with interchanges and transport hubs enabling people to easily transfer to tram or train for longer journeys.

Our Network will also be built on the principles already governing Metrolink: convenient; affordable; sustainable; accessible and accountable:

Convenient: Reliable and regular services.

Most services in Manchester are already regular. Does he mean frequent or even more frequent?

Affordable: Integrated fares and ticketing across bus, rail, tram and bike hire.

Sustainable: Zero emissions and powered by renewable energy.

Accessible: Fully accessible to all residents both at stops and on transport modes.

Accountable: Run for the people of GM and locally accountable.

In many ways the two cunning plans are much the same. But our Andy sees his as being delivered by a system similar to Transport for London, whereby the political authority has total control of network and fares with commercial operators taking on franchised services.

But at a recent "launch", the big reveal was of his "tube map" of the future transport network. It was a multicoloured magnificence illustrating Andy's plan for improving the Manchester public transport system.

It bore no resemblance to any variation of the London Tube map which was designed to make things easy to follow!

First on the big screen came the trams in YELLOW (with fbb splitting the diagram into two halves) ...

... above showing an extension to Port Salford, a little spur, perhaps to Salford Shopping Centre at Pendleton (?) and what appears to be a more direct route to Manchester Airport.

The eastern "half" proposes a branch to Middleton ...

... and a short onward leap to Stalybridge.

Is it the same as the PTE's plan for the future of Metrolink?

Of course not.


Then Andy added his revised bus network in PALE BLUE. This time fbb only shows the eastern half because, unless you are (a) an expert in Manchester's existing network, (b) have an mind-meld entry into Andy's detailed thinking and (c) understand how this has been translated into a very stylised diagram, it is simply too hard to fathom.

The mayor is keen to emphasise that he would be adding lots of orbital routes enabling folk to travel between communities without going into the city and out again. Would that be a bit like the Trans Lancs Express?

Mr B is, of course, quite right. Services like this are unlikely to be a valid commercial project, so a PTE take-over (or the present system of tendering) s the only way of delivering them.

Back to the map. We add in trains in RED.

There seem to be a lot of train lines in the Wigan area but fbb cannot explain where they all go.

Finally the presentation added tram trains in dotted yellow and red.

Very impressive. (sorry about the soft focus but this bit was badly produced on-line)

How did the other cunning plan person (Mr Nolan) respond. We know, obviously, that he does not want franchising, he and his OneBus want to retain commercial freedom (and profitability - although for one former OneBus cohort - First - that seemed a long way off).

Nolan also reckons that the bus operators have done a good job so far.

Other opponents have expressed concerns that they mayor is proposing to spend his first 500 million on cycling provision (nothing on trains and buses) and others have wondered how his whole raft of bus, tram and train improvements is going to be funded.

Cunning Plan man Andy Baldrick (sorry, Burnham) explains it all.

The Government will have to pay!

Yeah, right!

But Mr B needs to remind his various audiences that "Government Money" is our money, taxpayers money. Are the taxpayers of Manchester willing, one way or another, to pay the high cost of franchising as in London. In the Metropolis, public transport costs the residents about £760 million every year on their tax bill and the London mayor is trying to reduce that sum.

How? Amongst other ways, by reducing London's bus services.

It seems highly unlikely that Mayor Burnham's piggy bank will be filled by any government of any colour, although expect promises at the next General Election from at least one key player!

With all this taradiddle going on, you can perhaps understand why First have thrown in most of their towels in Manchester.

They have a few buses left in Manchester, but will First hold 'em in Oldham?

fbb (and the more well informed industry watchers) think a loud resounding "unlikely".

What have GoAhead and Rotala let themselves in for?

In case you missed this; added to yesterdays blog at about 0900:-

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STOP PRESS  - BREAKING NEWS

Yellow Buses (Bournemouth) was sold by Paris City Transport (RATP) to its Management on Monday 1st July "for an undisclosed sum". Yet another "big group" is "rationalising its portfolio of bus businesses", i.e. getting out quick!

How long will it be before the new directors sell the business on to a different "big group". A nice picking for Stagecoach OR First, especially as neither like GoAhead (Wilts and Dorset/More/Salisbury Reds) very much and might relish the opportunity of giving then a thrashing!

Or maybe not if rumours of mounting losses are correct!

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Tomorrow, a wonderful coastal bus ride.

 Next Eastbourne blog : Friday 5th July