Weekend (And A Bit) Mixture (2)

Another Northern Nostalgia Nicety

Remember GoAhead's contract coach in OK Motors livery?

Well, here's another, but slightly odd.

Charterplan was the coaching arm of Manchester PTE so it is bemusing to see the livery on a coach owned by GoAhead (North East).

Did they get the Charterplan name from a dusty filing cabinet opened after the takeover of First's Manchester depot? Charterplan vehicles appeared in a bewildering variety of liveries incorporating Manchester orange and the later brown.

Some had the fleetname in bold black - but not many.

Coming soon, a 2020 version of Armstrong Galley's livery (when fbb can find the picture!) The company was best known for its innovative and competitive "Shuttle" which ran from

 LONDO  to  NEWCASTLE 

or was it

 LONDON  to  EWCASTLE 

??

Talking of Maps ...

This delight was doing the Twitter rounds recently. It is at Essex Road, once on the "Northern City" underground line between Finsbury Park and Moorgate.

It was later cut back to Drayton Park (with bus connetion) to allow for the building of the Victoria Line.

It is now served by "proper" stopping trains from the Herford Loop ...

... which will start from Stevenage when Notwork Rail have finished to new platform ...

... due for opening Summer 2020.

Oh, yes, that twittered picture?

Some glorious NetworkSouthEast branding  (clic on the pick for a larger view)!

Apparently the station is due a facelift soon, so this beauty may well disappear. The station has had many "faces" over the years.

Metropolitan Railway then

Underground Northern Line

Network SouthEast

First Rail WAGN

Great Northern Thameslink

Who next? LONDON OVERGROUND?

Seats In Manchester

GoAhead North West (i.e. the central Manchester bit of First as was) has already had two goes at a smart new livery. Both versions were sort of grey and sort of blue with sort of oddly spaced diagonal lines in orange.

Double Deck

Single Deck

The second attempt has big blue MCR letters ...

... with a bluer blue and a lighter grey but still retaining the orange diagonals. A single deck version is branded for "Orbit" ...

... with a darker blue, and orange wedge and yellow diagonal. OR is that new livery versions 3?

Whatever - the company has just announced its new seat moquette.

It is grey and (erm) grey with scattered orange lines as per the diagonals (except on "Orbit" where they are yellow.

Two blues would have been nicer than two greys, surely?

Clever And Pertinent
CIE (Republic of Ireland Railways) have adorned a hoarding with a very neat and meaningful poster adjacent to one of their railway lines.

Very true.

Are You Sitting Comfortably?
A small collection of tweeted pictures of seats on London Underground stations. branding and "house style" were one of the great contributions made by the great Frank Pick to travel in London.

Frank Pick Hon. RIBA (23 November 1878 to 7 November 1941) was a British transport administrator. After qualifying as a solicitor in 1902, he worked at the North Eastern Railway, before moving to the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL) in 1906. He was chief executive officer and vice-chairman of the London Passenger Transport Board from its creation in 1933 until 1940.

Pick had a strong interest in design and its use in public life. He steered the development of the London Underground's corporate identity by commissioning eye-catching commercial art, graphic design and modern architecture, establishing a highly recognisable brand, including the first versions of the roundel and typeface still used today.

Even something as humble as a platform bench had to be "designed".

Here are a few (not all from Frank's era.)

Somehow the modern metal replacements (creators of the pimpled posterior!) do not suggest the same quality of service!

Tomorrow, fbb is expecting a report on how well (or how badly) the road closure and temporary bus arrangements are working out in a certain northern city. 

And apologies for the poor layout of the first item on this posting. The blogger software decided, unasked and in an arbitrary manner to refuse to accept the normal text alignment instruction - but only for that particular part of the blog. It worked fine everywhere else!

Computers are such fun.

P.S. Mystery? Poor formatting on fbb's laptop but, apparently, OK on fbb's phone.

Weird!

 Sheffield Diversion blog : Tuesday 3rd March 

Weekend (And A Bit) Mixture (1)

Une Très Bonne Idée

From today, all public transport in Luxembourg is free with the exception of First Class travel on trains. To put this in context, the whole nation has a poulation of something over 600,000 - about the size of greater Sheffield!

The politicians accept that the cost will fall on the taxpayer ...

... but the system is already heavily subsidised.

Car ownership in Luxembourg is the highest in Europe as per this diagram which shows cars owned per 1000 of the population.

Another thought provoking statistic shows the percentage of GDP (all the lolly the nation earns) that each nation spends on its public transport. 

We are always ready to bleat about our fares being the "highest in Europe" (they aren't always!!) but from a taxpayer's point of view we get a very cheap deal indeed.

This would make it much more painful to, for example, make buses and trains free in Sheffield.

Maybe a brave government (when might we get one of those?) should have a go. We are anxious to reduce emissions and extend our "green" credibility, aren't we?

Well maybe we are if the Government (i.e. the taxpayer) doesn't have to foot the bill and we can bask in the political myth of "low" taxation!

Best Birthday Card?
Dangerous to assert, but the card from our Isle of Wight correspondent (who likes the epithet "senior") combined fbb's interest in public transport with another of his occasional enthusiasms - although the series which ends today has been, mostly, VERY disappointing - namely a certain Science Fiction series on the telly.

"Full right up, mate - but there's another one behind!"

Livery Delivery North East.
Bus 685 runs all the way from Newcastle upon Tyne to Carlisle and is operated jointly by Arriva and Stagecoach.

In more recent times it has been blessed with a dedicated livery applied to the vehicles of both operators. Here is Arriva ...

... and here is Stagecoach. Spot the difference!

But a recent tweeter posted this picture of a "Cross Pennine" branded bus going to ...

... Whitley Bay from Newcastle.

Unless fbb's geographical knowledge has detereorated at a similar rate to his knee joints, he is fairly certain that a trip on the 306 does NOT cross the Pennines. Not much point in branding your buses, Arriva, if you use and confuse by going in the wrong direction. It doesn't, as they say, create desire!

Bad house point.

Livery Delivery South West
Exeter has three "normal" Park and Ride services. They are colour coded as from Honiton Road - RED ...

... except when it is yellow!

Then there is Matford in a tasteful BLUE ...

... and Sowton which is GREEN.

But when fbb was in Exeter on Tuesday last he saw two "green" Park & Rides; one was PINK ...

... and the other was WHITE.(white!)

Not so much creating desire as creating confusion?

All three are in the hands of Stagecoach; but there is a fourth operating on Mondays to Fridays only from a well-hidden Digby site to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.

It is currently in the hands of independent Dartline.

This service also calls at the same Sowton site as the Stagecoach GREEN but, obviously, only runs to the Hospital. The buses are BLUE to avoid confusion with the Matford Park & Ride.

To help all and sundry understand, the Hospital service (which calls at Sowton P&R) starts from Digby P&R ...

... which is but a short step along the road to ...

... Digby AND Sowton railway station!

The two are very close.

Exeter City (Stagecoach) buses call at the Park and Ride AND the station ...

Route H, of course (!) runs via the Hospital!

But, according to the map NOT route D!

Except that route D is timetabled at the Park and Ride AND the Station.

Of course, the confusion is easily explained (?) - route D turns into route H somewhere in Digby and route H turns into route D.

Just to clarify matters, however, route I and J DO serve Digby but do NOT run via either the Park and Ride OR the station. They pass happily through the stops at Tesco, also served by D/H and H/D.

Maybe the older map is a tad more helpful but it is pre I/J?

Isn't bus travel so very straightforward?

Don't bother to answer!

Diamonds At Bolton
Rotala's Diamond bus bought First's Bolton depot and services. The company has just announced a huge order for brand new buses.

The order is for 163 new vehicles of which 128 Streetdecks will be for the Bolton business.

In view of the uncertainty of the future of commercial bus operation in Manchester, consequent upon Mayor Andy Burnham's decision to go for a London-style franchised system, this would seem a very courageous decision.

But Rotala are between a rock and a hard place.

As part of the take-over of First's business, they have only agreed to lease vehicles from the outgoing incumbent. Sooner or later they have to replace these.

The big buy is brave indeed, but probably necessary. 

Let's hope for Rotala's good and Manchester's stability Diamond have got their sums right.

Watch this space!

Nice to see, however, a launch accompanied by a preserved Bolton Corporation bus.

Nice.

 Next Weekend Mixture blog : Monday 2nd March