Peter Shipp, chairman of East Yorkshire Motor Services Group, writes:
Just yesterday I read in the bus industry trade press that the DfT underspent in 2010/11 to the extent that it was required to hand back to the Treasury no less than £543million.
This was after making the savings required of the Department in the first place and the Transport Select Committee, in its report published last week, has said that this is likely to have exceeded the total reduction in the money paid to the bus industry following the Spending Review.
In other words it seems that these very damaging cuts in payments to bus operators need not have been made. I believe that bus passengers who are losing their bus services and are seeing big fare rises, or will to do so very soon, have every right to be extremely angry to find out that these could have been avoided.
The Committee notes that the DfT accepted a budget cut of £683million and then under-spent on its revised budget by over £1billion, calling into question whether the in-year cut was necessary.
I'll have to start with an apology. Anyone expecting photos of a Busway-liveried vehicle travelling along the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway will be sorely disappointed, for Wednesday 22 February 2012 was one of those rare days when it rained continuously for hours on end and photography from within a misted-up Scania/Enviro400 was, at best, demonstrated by the photo below:
However, a number of photos either end of the Busway route were captured as well as a couple of videos of high-speed trains flying through John Major's home town railway station, so not all is lost. Talking of which, this is as good a place as any from which to start:
First things first and the proximity of the bus from Huntingdon station was very straightforward, being outside, beneath the huge viaduct carrying the A14 dual carriageway.
This was to be the bus on which I made my first Busway journey, Stagecoach in Huntingdonshire 15659 (AE10 HFC)
I've travelled on the leather-seated Enviro400-bodied Scania N230UDs before. Owing to the delay in the Busway's opening, Stagecoach operated these vehicles along the route of Service 55 which was the Busway Route B's predecessor. They boast 'air chill' and the timetable denotes this with a snowflake symbol. Their specification is no different from that specified by Transport for London in the Capital. On a hot day the interior of these buses will still become very unpleasant as the system is inadequate to cope with hot days and besides which all windows can be opened, preventing the air from being regulated. The Volvo B7RLEs with Wrightbus Eclipse Urban bodies are the ones to head for in the summer as they appear to have proper climate control fitted. More on that later.
There are three routes that use the Busway. Stagecoach operates the A & B, while Whippet operates the C (and very infrequent D). During the main bulk of the day, there are three buses an hour on both the A & B, offering a 10-minute frequency along the Busway, while the C runs every hour. Route B is the lengthiest, commencing from Huntingdon rail station and heading into the town centre before taking a circuitous route out via the Oxmoor Estate.
Huntingdon Bus Station
A decision must have been taken to route buses this way and increase the end-to-end journey time as more patronage would be carried than omitting the Oxmoor, heading direct to the next main point, St. Ives.
The heavens opened here and this was the view of the small bus station in the town centre. A hive of activity and we had to await a bay to come available, which delayed us by five minutes. Whippet's Route C commences from St. Ives (Hill Rise, thence the bus station, with peak time journeys extending to/from Somersham) and so there are four buses per hour from here to the St. Ives Park & Ride, which heralds the start of the world's longest section of guided busway (also the most controversial!).
St. Ives Bus Station doesn't seem fit for purpose. Whippet's Busway livery is virtually identical to Stagecoach's except the swoop towards the rear is replaced by the light blue dots.
Special guide rails either side of the lane ensure nothing as wide or wider than a specially-equipped Busway vehicle can enter, while a diagonal trench has been dug in the concrete base to ensure nothing narrower than a bus can enter, such as a car. Sadly, this is not effective in keeping bikes out. Stagecoach Route A commences here (though peak time journeys operate a direct route to/from Huntingdon and some to/from Somersham), so there are a total of 7 buses per hour from the St. Ives Park & Ride to Cambridge city centre.
Routes A & C operate the full length of this section of Busway, to the outskirts of Cambridge and along Milton Road into the city, while Route B turns off the Busway at the Orchard Park Estate and after passing through operates semi-fast along Histon Road and Castle Street to the city. Route A calls at New Square rather than Drummer Street bus station as it continues to Cambridge rail station and then on via the second section of Busway to Addenbrooke's Hospital and Trumpington Park & Ride; Route C also omits Drummer Street on most journeys in favour of New Square as it too extends beyond the city centre, though only to the rail station. Route B terminates at Drummer Street.
Route B's terminus is Drummer Street in Cambridge
Journey times on Route B, which is the Busway equivalent of Service 55, have actually increased following the Busway being used, by five minutes. However, the regularity with which Stagecoach in Huntingdon is able to operate the service is likely to be the main improvement. Route B is also the service that has the double-deck Scania/E400s allocated; Routes A & C have single-deck buses.
240V sockets are offered on Stagecoach's fleet of Busway vehicles. A nice touch (as well as the leather trim)
The timetable is a bit of a mess. Ray Stenning's Best Impressions may well have cornered the market with bus livery design, but they most certainly haven't done so with timetables. I can see they've tried to make things straightforward, but this hasn't happened. Whether this is the fault of Cambs CC or the operators is unclear, but there are a number of areas where confusion rules.
Where Best Impressions excels is with livery design and route maps. A very easy-to-understand diagram of the three Busway services, though variations are not shown, nor is reference made to the fact that operators' tickets are not inter-available
Firstly, the non-acceptance of tickets between Whippet (Route C) and Stagecoach (Routes A & B) is not actually spelled out at all. Both operators run their vehicles in an identical Busway livery, so unless you know where to look, the average passenger (who, let's face it, couldn't care less who's running) won't know who is running which service. The main Busway map shows a key that identifies Whippet as running Route C and Stagecoach everything else, but, again, it is not stated clearly that inter-acceptance of operators' tickets is not valid.
The last page of the Busway timetable states what all-day tickets each operator provides, but doesn't go far enough to state that key phrase: "Stagecoach tickets are NOT valid on Whippet services and vice versa". The timetable producer could cite that they have separated Whippet's and Stagecoach's timetables, which they have, yet they go and lump Stagecoach's and Whippet's Somersham services in the main Whippet Route C timetable, mixing things up completely.
It's a mess and I know I could do better in boring black and white.
Back to the Busway, though, and it is clearly a rip-roaring success. Using GPS we clocked all our buses operating at their top speeds along the fast sections. 56mph was the maximum speed we recorded. Even in the rain, patronage was very impressive at all times. The spectacle of having your own, dedicated linear route, devoid of any congestion whatsoever and being able to fly along at top speed is an incredible tool in encouraging modal shift. Small wonder, then, that the one millionth passenger was recorded last month, being reached in half the time estimated.
Leather trim as standard with Stagecoach's fleet, which are considerably older than the Busway itself
In the scheme of things, the buses being powered by a special bio fuel is low down in commuters' minds. Sure, it's perhaps higher than 30 years ago, but I often see schemes such as this as more a box-ticking exercise by local authorities. However, it is one less area with which opponents can criticise the Busway!
After spending some time in central Cambridge, the small contingent that had amassed for the day headed to Trumpington Park & Ride using one of the city's dedicated park-and-ride services. Cambridge has five orbital sites, with four linked through cross-city routes, while the one for which we were bound is the lone service that operates to the city and back.
We had one of the spare Enviro-400-bodied Dennis Trident 2s as it bore a two-tone grey livery, not one of the dedicated park-and-ride liveries. Stagecoach opted for dual doors on its park-and-ride buses in order to aid loadings when it upgraded all routes in 2007, ; hitherto they'd been using ex London dual-doored buses and not closed the centre door off upon their acquisition. This ro-ro flow of passengers must lend itself well to the city, whose buses have seen some of the fastest growth anywhere in the country over recent years.
The traffic congestion south along Trumpington Road was truly awful - worse than London. Annoyingly, the bus lane appeared to be causing much of it as 50% of the route has been given up to buses, but, as a result, the queue was back so far that our bus had to sit stationary for ages before we then creeped slowly forward and able to make use of the bus lane. We arrived at Trumpington P&R to see a Stagecoach Route A bus depart, so made use of the terminal building before the next arrived 20 minutes later.
Without a shadow of a doubt, the Volvo B7RLE with Wrightbus Eclipse Urban made my Busway experience. Coach seats with leather trim and full, operational climate control made for a genuinely upper-end experience. The route from Trumpington passes under a couple of low bridges, hence the use of single deckers on Route A, and the Busway starts pretty much immediately. A single-track section of Busway starts the route off, up to the first stop at Foster Road and then it becomes two-way, following the route of the former railway line to the railway station, although a spur has been built over the existing railway line to Addenbrooke's Hospital, where an anti-clockwise circuit is negotiated in both ways.
They are the jewel in the Busway crown for Stagecoach, in my opinion: the Volvo B7RLE. Stagecoach does not purchase such a quality chassis for their bus fleet anymore.
We were fully loaded by here and had a standing load into the city centre. As many alighted in the city centre as boarded (Route A stops at both Parkside and New Square) and then we headed non-stop north east along Milton Road. Only Whippet Route C makes a stop here, at a mid-way stop located at Union Lane/Arbury Road. The left turn at the Science Park onto the Busway was a very innocuous affair. Yet more were loaded and we departed the Regional College stop bursting at the seams.
Unlike other Wrightbus Eclipse Urban bodies, the ten Stagecoach purchased for the Busway only seat 41 (other seat up to 44)
To cater for demand during the evening peak, Stagecoach provides additional journeys on Route A, starting from Drummer Street and operating as normal to St. Ives P&R, then into the town centre before heading direct to Huntingdon. A number of standard departure timed Route As also extend to Somersham, though this is unhelpfully not shown in the Route A timetable! You have to look to Whippet's Route C timetable to see them.
Actual climate control. Note also that the windows do not open. The only problem here is if the system fails. These vehicles are worthy of a snowflake symbol in the timetable, but not their dual-deck sisters!
We were around 10 minutes late as we reached St. Ives Park & Ride, where our Route A bus terminated. The beauty of the Busway is that you can't be overtaken by a following bus, so we knew our Route B that should have been 10 minutes behind us, wouldn't have somehow snuck past. Sure enough, we waited only a couple of minutes before a Scania/Enviro400 arrived and took us the remainder of the way to Huntingdon station.
The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway is effectively on the doorstep of the LEYTR area. It is very accessible by train from Peterborough, taking just 16 minutes to the northern terminus at Huntingdon. Why it had taken me so long to sample the route is a mystery. I actually felt guilty! I won't be leaving it another six months before I return. As we all knew what we were doing, we didn't have any issues with the buses or the timetable today, but many others will have. This needs addressing.
I'd always assumed the main problem with overcrowding would be between St. Ives and Cambridge, but judging by the traffic hell along Trumpington Road in the evening peak, the non-stop parallel service offered by Route A (admittedly with the Addenbrooke's diversion) was the most overcrowded. Little can be done, however, other than increasing the number of journeys as double deckers cannot run here owing to the low bridges.
And talking of single deckers, I can't emphasise enough what a truly executive experience Stagecoach's Volvo B7RLEs offered, with their Wrightbus Eclipse Urban bodies, fully equipped with climate control. There must be a reason why this cannot be offered on the Enviro400; hopefully the sticking point isn't cost grounds, because the leather seating in the summer will become a sticking point of its own - quite literally.
Last week I made my first visit to the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway... in the pouring rain. I shall upload photos over the weekend. The blog has not gone into hibernation mode.
Until then, this is worth a look. Southern has uploaded a time-lapse video showing one of their Electrostars being refurbished in around three minutes!
Both Scotland and Wales were left reeling recently when their respective devolved governments announced a reduction in Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) of around 20%, effective from April. This means a further reduction of one quarter of the fuel duty rebate bus and coach operators running local services receive. Scottish and Welsh operators were given just two months to prepare themselves for cuts in revenue; English operators were given a little longer.
It was during October 2010 and as a result of the Coalition Government's Comprehensive Spending Review that English bus operators were told that they would see a 20% reduction of BSOG from April 2012. Currently, operators receive a 80% rebate on their fuel duty (Ken Clarke reduced it from 100% when he was chancellor in the 1990s).
There had been fears that BSOG would be cut altogether, but this wasn't so. English operators were quoted in the trade magazines at the time saying that at least they were given sufficient warning to prepare for the loss of revenue. A number suggested that fare paying passengers were likely to be stung by fare increases of 10%.
In the Grimsby Evening Telegraph last week, local bus operator Stagecoach Grimsby-Cleethorpes released details of the bus services it plans to either reduce or withdraw completely, as a result of the reduction in BSOG. Read the full story here.
Service 12 (New Waltham-Cleethorpes-Grimsby-Bradley Park) is in line for the chop. (Click to enlarge)
A large percentage of routes are potentially affected. But what of the lengthy preparations that operators in England were given? The list of potential cancellations/withdrawals reads as if the company were located in Aberystwyth or Kingussie!
One of the problems that Stagecoach Grimsby-Cleethorpes has is its zonal fare structure. Effectively, the operator charges just two cash fares for single journeys in urban Grimsby, Cleethorpes, Waltham and Laceby (and as far west as Healing on routes to Immingham). Sure, zonal fares are incredibly simplistic for both passengers and drivers alike and offer some great savings for longer urban journeys, but when fares increases occur, every single passenger in every corner of your urban operation is affected to the same tune.
This is simply unfair. Why, for example, should someone living in Waltham (the Bradley Road terminus is 6 miles from Grimsby town centre) see their fare increase to the same tune as someone who just wants to travel to the local hospital (2 miles)? There haven't been any recent fare rises in Grimsby, but they'll be coming soon. Surely someone who lives a whopping 4 miles further down a route should pay more to travel on the same bus? This makes eminent sense.
In line for the chop (it's already been cancelled with VOSA) is Service 12, which is particularly loss-making. I believe the town's zonal fares structure is, in part, responsible for this. In other towns and cities, devoid of zones, an operator could increase the fares on this route by a higher percentage, ensuring the reasoning behind the excessive hike is made known via the local media. Community spirit is then put to the test and there could be a turnaround of fortunes for the service. As it is, forming part of the Grimsby/Cleethorpes urban operation, Service 12 falls foul of the far-too-rigid zonal fares structure and so passengers here pay the same amount as they do on the very profitable routes, say LoZone 13/14.
Service 12, as can be seen, covers a sizeable amount of Cleethorpes not served by any other service. (Click to enlarge)
Also mentioned in the article, specifically in the response by Stagecoach, is that concessionary bus pass reimbursement is not what it needs to be to make services commercially viable. These much-vaunted reimbursement rates are calculated on each route's average fare. The higher the fare, the more reimbursement received. So, by charging the same for someone travelling either 2 or 6 miles on the same bus, potential revenue is being lost, surely? Again, if the passenger travelling three times further paid a little more, the average fare would increase and so would the reimbursement payment for the free bus passes.
This could be remedied with the introduction of a third zone, the Outer Outer Zone. However, but then the elephant in the room needs to be acknowledged: Raising a £1.25 fare to, say, £1.50 is a whopping 20% increase, and with that kind of rise people will start turning away from the bus altogether. You're then in a Catch 22: increase the new zonal fare by too much and you'll turn people away; don't increase it enough and it will make little difference to the average fare for that route and so effectively be a wasted exercise as the reimbursement rate increase will be negligible.
Simply, once a zonal fares structure is introduced, it is a nightmare to remove - I'd go so far as to say commercial suicide. I don't envy any operator who has introduced one - usually during the Times of Plenty. They're offer a kind of perverse fairness, when in reality the underlying issues they possess contribute significantly to the response an operator can make to a particular loss-making route.
There is of course one other thing the operator could do, but I've hesitated to mention it as many seen it as a dirty word: cross-subsidy. Take some of the profit made from Services 9, 13, 14 and 45 and use what would be a tiny percentage to ensure the long-term operation of Service 12. North of the Humber, independent operator EYMS does it regularly and operates in precisely the same commercial, deregulated environment as Stagecoach.
A number of my friends despise everything the privatised bus industry stands for. As if that isn't bad enough, one found out that Stagecoach chief executive Sir Brian Souter had followed some of his literary works and even attended a speech he gave a number of years ago. To say my friend was horrified is an understatement. I'd initially missed the piece he forwarded me today. The email ended with a number of smiley faces and exclamation marks:
First Group's UK bus division has been having a rum old time of it lately. There have been numerous occasions when a depot has been summonsed before the local traffic commissioner over poor performance. The centralised structure was often seen as the problem, with reports claiming those at the top in their Aberdeen HQ had a say in fare increases in Barnstaple, for example. Last year's appointment of Giles Fearnley as the UK Bus managing director was seen as a step in the right direction. Fearnley was the man who split up West Yorkshire Road Car into four operating units at deregulation, so he is clearly someone keen on local identity.
Referred to as the 'Barbie' livery, First has used this scheme since 1998.
With an updated livery recently unveiled and local identities in the pipeline, things could be on the up for First. Sadly not. Well not yet anyway. There have been two public inquiries held into the company's operation recently. Scottish TC Joan Aitken issued the company with a written warning over maintenance issues at the company's East Scotland operation (which was even more embarrassing as this is where the transport giant is based) and most recently was North West TC Beverley Bell's inquiry into poor operational performance in Manchester.
During early 2011, VOSA officials recorded 26% of the company's bus services operating outside the permitted 'window of tolerance' (up to 1 minute early and up to 5 minutes late). First blamed the current economic environment and traffic delays. This did not wash with Mrs Bell.
My friend at this point underlined Mrs Bell's response (an entire paragraph) in red ink: "I don't think I would be saying it's difficult economic times if I made a profit of £14 million." She was speaking to the company's strategic development director, who she felt was in the wrong industry: "You are wasted in the bus industry. You should have gone into politics, but I don't do politics, I do evidence." The point was made to Mrs Bell that consistently unreliable services would not survive, to which she replied: “They damn well won’t survive because I will take them off you.”
To make the vein in Mrs Bell's forehead stand out even more, the company's service delivery director admitted that while £30 million is being invested in new buses nationally, he "hadn't got round to" addressing the punctuality issues concerning one particular bus service in the city. More triple red underlining then followed: "So when I go out and get a bus in the freezing fog, on my way to a doctor's appointment, it is in the knowledge that FirstGroup with £14m profits hasn't got round to it."
These are some of the strongest words I've heard a traffic commissioner use in many, many years. Bell is known as one of the more 'direct' TCs, but even by her standards, quite a sizeable strip has been ripped off the country's second largest bus operator.
The updated 'Barbie' livery, seen in Leeds, which was the location for the unveiling. Photo: Mark Smith
And that was it. My friend now refers to the North West TC as 'Sister Bell'. He isn't concerned about the ramifications that could follow. For example, Mrs Bell made it as clear as possible that she would be prepared to take commercially operated bus services from First Manchester. Whichever way you view this, the passenger will continue to lose out in the short term. Will the TC award the journeys to another operator to run commercially? Will they go completely? Uncertainty is never good for passengers and drivers alike.
But whatever you may think of First, they won't want another dressing down on this scale when the inquiry recommences in March. They've been given time to "get their act together" and report back to Mrs Bell. And report back they will. I can't see the company guaranteeing to maintain current service levels, though by hook or crook, passengers living in northern Manchester should see an eventual improvement by the summer.
A good friend of mine drives trains for a living, here in the UK. Understandably, he and his colleagues become a little perplexed when members of the public automatically criticise train drivers. Some colleagues of his believe this is jealousy - they can earn £60k a year with overtime, while others assume the travelling public somehow believes their train driver is personally responsible for their ever-rising fares or that he/she has deliberately caused their delay.
Occasionally, however, a story comes along that demonstrates a circumstance where train drivers don't help their image. The first story was featured on Channel 4's Confessions from the Underground, which (as I tweeted) was an hour-long show earlier this week based on petulance. Drivers, station managers and ticket barrier staff effectively moaning about aspects of their job that you'd expect when driving or dispatching trains and manning ticket barriers. The programme's producers managed to give the impression that their anonymous 'deep throats' were somehow implying safety is being compromised.
People who regularly use the Underground know all too well the problems the system faces. Again via twitter, there were 115,000 more people using the Tube each and every day last year compared with 2010, so capacity problems clearly exist. But these same people watching the programme won't fall for the views shown by London Underground staff. They just won't.
Take the example when one station dispatcher was moaning about a guy who had an epileptic fit on a train and how a doctor who had been sought and was attending to the person instructed him not to move the train. Cue a rant about dwell times and the knock-on effect that this will have with other trains for the next hour or so. An anonymous driver complained at having to leave his cab to look down the train before closing the doors and one employee manning ticket barriers said that she felt intimidated when large numbers of people approached the barriers she was manning.
The second story concerns Northern Rail's drivers, their union and health and safety. Overcrowding on the 0742 from Hexham to Newcastle was so bad that the Class 14x 'Pacer' had a second unit attached. However, prior to the journey commencing, the driver needs to walk from one end of the double-train to the other while in sidings (to allow a Glasgow-bound train to pass). Pacers units do not have interlocking corridors, so rather than walk between the join, drivers need to walk along the track and re-board at the other end. Just after 0700 hours, when the procedure takes place, it is dark and drivers union Aslef forbade the practice as it was deemed dangerous through insufficient light.
So dangerous that the second unit was removed just before Christmas and the single unit operated as per usual.
You can imagine the local furore that ensued. Trying to be fair, though, walking along the track is something that passengers are repeatedly told not to do as it is dangerous. Ballast is very uneven and a risk assessment would surely flag up the possibility of twisted ankles or worse, should the driver fall. But then drivers are required to walk along the track when they need to contact a signaller; they're also required to walk along the track when inspecting suspicious objects or to remove minor debris - which can all occur in the dark.
Local MP Guy Opperman soon sussed the public mood and offered to purchase each and every Northern driver a torch, with money from his own pocket. Opperman even raised the issue in Parliament, likening the Pacer with the Leyland National bus, though I'm unsure why as the hazards bus drivers face when leaving their cabs are altogether different. And although the Pacer was loosely based on certain exterior elements of the LN, it is absolutely nothing like a bus.
Aslef both agree in principle to longer trains yet cite H&S issues when this occurs. The local press claimed that this was rubbish and that Northern Rail was dealing with drivers who just wanted an argument, that it was industrial relations not the need for additional lighting that saw the agreement end. Can you believe that Northern managers even offered to walk with the drivers and shine the way with torches?
But, the month-long dispute ended suddenly on 23 January when, I assume, someone put a rocket under both sides, and an 'understanding' was agreed between Aslef and Northern, which permits drivers to walk along the track from end to end, though he/she must do so with all passenger lights on and carry his cab lamp.
Having a reasonable insight into the rail industry, I have tried to be as fair as possible, but there are some occasions when people are plainly wrong. They're wrong. They do not have the support of anyone other than their union.
The role of a train driver is massively overlooked by those they convey, it really is. You can't just walk into the job and be competent within 6 weeks like you can a bus driver or some guards. Training never ends. Route knowledge and emergency procedures are incredibly in-depth and all encompassing. They are paid their generous salaries because they come into their own when things go wrong. But for someone with this level of skill, knowledge and dedication to then go and have a moan at Channel 4 or to refuse to walk along the ballast when it's a bit dark is guaranteed to give their profession a bad name. They may think it somehow enhances how dangerous or difficult their basic conditions are, but it gives the opposite effect.
Luckily those offending drivers are tiny in number, but as we've seen it takes but a handful to sully the good name of an otherwise very professional and respected role.
For the sake of even greater balance, I put the above to a LEYTR subscriber who is a full-time train driver and his response is posted in full below:
On the whole I agree with you. I also appreciate you giving a balanced view. Trying to think about the issues: Re the Northern issue, I might be wrong here but I don't know of many passenger train diagrams where a driver is required to walk along ballast as part of their shift. Of course they may get down to use the signal post telephone or inspect the track but these usually out of course situations. All depots have authorised walking routes nowadays - a precedent has been set it seems.
Concerning the tube driver [having to rarely leave their cab to check down a platform] this is something closer to heart. It would be like a bus driver having to physically leave the bus at every stop to check if it was safe to depart. Driver Only Operated trains are usually CCTV equipped (internal or external) or 'look back'. Getting out of the cab is for emergencies only such as CCTV failure. In such an eventuality a dispatch person should be provided or if it's a faulty train it will soon be taken out of service. Remember the story of the Merseyrsil guard now being done for manslaughter because a drunken teenager fell between the train and platform. If it was found that degraded dispatch was taking place which lead to the accident there would be hell to pay.
In fact this very thing happened to a LOROL train where someone fell underneath it after it departed and the company was subsequently fined despite following all the correct procedures. We train drivers have to be particularly conscious about doing our jobs professionally. A bus driver in Newcastle on £8 an hour doing 50 hours could be excused from occasional bad driving or looking tired or not smiling etc. On the railways, staff - especially drivers - have no such excuse.
Independent transport consultants TAS has revealed that Stagecoach is the cheapest bus company in Britain for weekly travel. The headline-grabbing figure quoted is that on average the company is 17.5% cheaper than other operators, meaning those who buy Stagecoach's weekly Megarider tickets save an average of £150 each year.
A recent radio advert on Lincs FM would suggest HQ in Perth has given permission for this data to be given as much publicity as possible. And why not? Stagecoach's average weekly Megarider (or local equivalent) is £13.27; the average of all the others surveyed was £16.09. That's a marked reduction, in the range of 20%.
Yes, I know we could all give a number of fares charged by Stagecoach that are particularly expensive, but that is for another day. Stagecoach is patting itself on the back for offering the cheapest weekly tickets - and by a not inconsiderable amount, it would seem. My only observation is that Stagecoach is often the only operator to provide such an unlimited weekly ticket in a particular area/along a certain flow and so what other operators' ticket options do you compare it to, if one isn't offered?
But, it is these weekly tickets that have the greatest potential to entice motorists from their cars. Offering a ticket with as few strings as possible makes travelling by bus that little bit more straightforward. Coupled with a decent frequency and buses running when potential newcomers want them to, the cost of the weekly Megarider needs to be not slightly cheaper than a week's petrol, but considerably more, in order for the conversion to be seen as an almost 'no brainer'.
Stagecoach was compared against its contemporaries, including smaller groups such as Veolia Transdev, a host of independents and a number of municipals.
Where I would argue with the report is when it states: "Stagecoach consistently has the lowest weekly ticket price and gives the highest discount compared to single fares." The two ought not to be compared. No one - not even the bus novice - buys ten singles every week. Single fares are also jacked up artificially high in order to maximise the average adult fare paid on a route. Keep the singles higher than they would otherwise be and your average fare will be higher than it would otherwise be and that sees a higher concessionary bus pass reimbursement rate than you would otherwise receive.
I know I said I'd save it for another day, but while I'm flowing along this vein, single fares on a number of large operators' services can be extortionate - often due to the margins on the unlimited weeklies being so low. I recently travelled precisely 4.8 miles in an urban environment on a Stagecoach citi service and paid what I believed to be an expensive sum of £2.90. Ten of these (i.e. there and back, five times a day) is £29, so the £13.50 weekly Megarider ticket being sold by that depot is almost 60% cheaper.
Best compare like with like, not against singles.
Stagecoach won the accolade that last time TAS undertook their survey in 2009. Theoretically, the larger the company, the greater the benefit from efficiencies of scale and so the cheaper the day-to-day running costs. Provided this is passed onto the passenger, headline-grabbing awards such as this can be won.
Occasionally I'll read something that concerns me. This is usually because the author knows his subject matter and outlines diligently a major flaw in a subject or highlights continued ignorance of the part of people who should know better. On this occasion Passenger Transport dedicated 5 pages for Go North East's former managing director Peter Huntley to write at length about the Competition Commission's Inquiry into the competitiveness of the bus industry.
If you follow the bus industry, it won't have escaped your attention that there's been a row brewing for over a year now as, in the midst of recession, the Office of Fair Trading said it was referring the industry to the Competition Commission as it believed there could be a case of the industry no longer operating in the competitive manner that was envisaged in the early 1980s.
Bus companies are of the opinion that the CC simply does not understand the industry. They point out that no official recognition has been made by the CC that the main competitor to the bus is the private car. Plenty of busmen have detailed their misgivings of the inquiry (LEYTR chairman Paul Hill is no exception) but in my opinion, none more so than Peter Huntley in his Passenger Transport piece.
His article centres on his two-day experience being grilled by the CC Inquiry. It is littered with phrases like "... I, once again, struggled to move us back from economic theory to reality"; "Go North East was apparently damned for competing but was equally damned for withdrawing from competition where this proved not to be profitable."
Free of the corporate shackles, Huntley is able to offer us an insight into the process from someone at MD level. Watered down theories such as: "Frustrated by past inability to actually identify collusion there was a determination to explore every contact made with anyone else in the bus industry over a full five-year period" are stated, questioning the Inquiry's raison d'etre.
Huntley's article set about answering seven hypothetical questions. The first of which gave a flavour to the article: 1. The Competition Commission had already decided that it was going to find 'evidence of collusion' before it started this project and was simply looking for the easiest background to 'sex up' the 'evidence' of this. Second was: Despite the evidence of substantial and growing direct and indirect competition between operators, the commission decided to ignore any evidence that did not accord with its predetermined view of collusion.
Huntley's Go North East had done a 'route swap' of sorts in the Tyne Valley (the official term is a 'back to back' parallel purchase) with neighbouring competitor Arriva, in a deal fully endorsed by the OFT who was satisfied that 90% of the competition between the operators would continue as a result. So unlike other bus company MDs, Huntley and his Arriva counterpart were quizzed more vigorously by the CC as two supposedly competing companies had sat down and orchestrated who would have what route.
This is not lost on Huntley who sets about wording his seventh and final question: The fear and concern of the North Tyneside Quality Partnership proposals that the commission expresses is in direct contrast with the similar initiative to co-ordinate and improve overall service to the public in Oxford, which has been praised by our public transport minister, Norman Baker.
That someone who held a position of managing director can be left with such an impression of the CC's inquiry genuinely worries me. Huntley left Go North East officially on New Year's Eve so is able to write without being parochial to his former employer. Yes, this is one man's view but it is not only representative of the industry as a whole, it goes beyond the misgivings bus companies have whom I've spoken to. I am genuinely concerned that we have a Competition Commission that does not adequately know what competition is.
The final word to Huntley: "An independent evaluation commissioned by Stagecoach, Nexus and ourselves showed that Nexus [Tyne & Wear PTE] could save money, the public could have better services and longer term sustainability could be delivered. But my colleagues at Stagecoach, who have more than enough experience of the Competition Commission, wisely assessed the risk as too great".
The CC is so impenetrable that trend-setting maverick Stagecoach is running scared!
They'd never admit it publicly, but the closure of the A4 Hammersmith Flyover immediately before the Christmas was an early present for First Great Western and London Underground. Commuters will only sit in effective gridlock for so long before they feel no alternative other than to leave the car at home and get the train. With the prospect of the Flyover being closed for much of January, long-term contingencies will have been forced upon regular travellers.
Forcing a die-hard petrol head to leave his/her motor vehicle at home and being forced to consider an alternative is the holy grail for the Department for Transport and transport operators - especially when public transport is the only real alternative (no point car sharing when road gridlock is the issue). Under any other circumstance, the car user's civil liberties would be infringed, under the Hammersmith situation this isn't an issue.
The M4/A4 route into London runs parallel with the Great Western Main Line and considerably higher than normal loadings have been recorded into/out of Paddington. First, who operates the Great Western franchise, already operates most of the country's top 10 most overcrowded trains, so the prospect of many thousand more to convey in the peak periods must be literally incomprehensible.
A Class 166 Turbo Express approaches London Paddington. Photo: AndrewHA
Although the Flyover is open to light vehicles today, just one lane presents itself in either direction and the area is still reportedly very busy indeed. It will be interesting to learn the retention levels seen by FGW and London Underground in the area when the route is open in full.
There may be some who are pleasantly surprised at the relative convenience of the train/Tube to the car, though I reckon you'd have to be someone working flexi-time in order to avoid the arm pit-to-nose conditions at the most popular time of the day. Others may see how much money they've saved by leaving the car at home and buying a season ticket of some description. We hear lots of complaints when regulated fares rose by 6%, but more often than not the fare paid is significantly cheaper than using a car to make an equivalent commute.
If only additional capacity had been in place to make the morning peak less barbaric on commuters, the retention levels will almost certainly be higher than they're likely to be. Almost 1,000 days had passed before the DfT made the announcement of an additional order for more carriages on Southern services.
The departure from London Paddington out west hasn't changed since the line was built in 1838. In his Bradshaws Guide of 1866, George Bradshaw wrote:
On departure of the train, it threads the sinuosities of the station at an easy rate, and we have time to notice the metamorphosis that has taken place in the environs of the line; walls have become green embankments, embankments diminished into hedges, and hedges have grown into avenues of trees, waving a leafy adieu as we are carried past. The increasing velocity of the train now conveys us rapidly into the suburbs of the metropolis - past Kensal Green Cemetery on the right, Wormwood Scrubs on the left, and a transient glimpse is obtained of the London and North-Western Railway winding its course towards the midland counties.
The route at first lies through the Thames Valley, then, after passing the elevated plains to the north of Marborough Downs, it gradually descends down into the fertile and picturesque valley of the Avon. Emerging from a slight excavation, we come to an embankment crossing Old Oak Common so named form its having been the site of a thick forest of oaks. The village of Acton, which lies to the left, is linked to the metropolis by one almost uninterrupted line of houses, through which the North-Western Junction Railway passes, connecting the North-Western Railway with those of the South-Western.
A very different view is seen from the carriage of a District Line train, of course!
It's not really an issue on the trains as most tickets are purchased in advance and on occasions when guards do sell a ticket, they accept payment by card, but in the bus industry there still is an issue surrounding correct change.
Perhaps it's not as bad nowadays as it was. Bus operators now rather cheekily charge fares rounded to the nearest 5p or 10p and increase by this amount even when this is way in excess of inflation. There is now a sizeable proportion of travellers who do not pay at all to travel, though often it was those over-60s who kept a bus driver in a good supply of small change. The mass uptake of great value all-day tickets within urban areas, that can be purchased from the driver, has limited per person cash transactions each day. There are a few operators who've always opted for an exact fare system, offering no change. These operators haven't increased in number though.
The reason I've been pondering the whole 'giving change' thing came following a trip within the LEYTR area that a friend and I undertook. We caught a bus service where the fare was £1.85. We were only to make one journey on that operator's service that day so an adult single was all that we needed. I boarded first and gave the driver two £1 coins as I didn't have £1.85 exactly. The driver asked if I had the 5p - I did - and duly handed it over, to then receive a 20p coin as my change.
Unbeknown to me, when my friend boarded next, he too offered two £1 coins. Like myself, the driver asked him if he had the 5p. Sadly, he didn't, so the driver said he was unable to give him all his change and presented him with a 10p coin. My friend was unaware that seconds earlier I'd given this driver a 5p coin, as requested, and the driver chose not to give this back out.
I made my friend aware of this and he wasn't too bothered that he'd paid £1.90. I wouldn't have been too bothered either, had the fare been advertised as £1.90 (or £1.80!). We were both aware that no operator has any legal obligation to offer change, but virtually all do so in order to attract patronage, rather than turn it away - something Nottingham City Transport, Lothian Buses et al must surely do to some extent by no offering change.
So the driver was 5p in the black. He may have dutifully paid in that amount over at the end of his shift, but I bet he didn't. It was also pretty obvious that my friend and I were travelling together. The driver just didn't care that we would work out what he'd done: needlessly keeping the 5p.
This is a relatively minor story and while only 5p is involved here, there are occasions where 8 kids all want to buy £2.60 returns and each present the driver with a £10 note. If the driver doesn't have any £5 notes, a total of 48 coins need giving out in this batch of transactions. That's why the way forward is something I've only recently come across: the No Change Voucher.
Municipal Grimsby-Cleethorpes Transport never had anything like this when I was growing up, neither did NBC-operated RoadCar; that was until the latter acquired the Almex A90. A No Change ticket could then be issued to a passenger where the driver could not offer sufficient change. This ticket would then effectively be worth cash to any RoadCar driver and the passenger had the confidence that he/she wasn't 'being done' or had to make their way to the company's HQ with a hand-written IOU from the driver. The irony here is that sometimes this would mean paying to travel on one of the operator's buses.
That's not to say these vouchers don't have their pitfalls. I once caught the Oxford Tube at Marble Arch and every single one of the 6 passengers in front of me were given a No Change Voucher as they boarded. They were all headed to Oxford and the driver told them to approach any Stagecoach in Oxfordshire driver there for the change. This wouldn't have worked if they were London-bound, unless another Oxford Tube driver was able to oblige. That's assuming there was one there.
In a non-aggressive manner, the No Change Voucher does reinforce to passengers the onus they have of providing the correct change whenever possible. Like Peter Kay's Brian Potter (Phoenix Nights) said about garlic bread, "I've seen it. It's the future!"
An interesting point in one of the railway magazines was made recently, on the subject of why, perhaps, the government shouldn't let European state-owned railway companies operate UK rail franchises simply because they offer the best financial bid.
They have no real brand identity outside their own company and so have nothing to lose if things don't go as well as they'd hoped or as well as their predecessor had operated the franchise. The powerful flip-side is that with SNCF or Deutsche Bahn operating a UK franchise, their subsidiary is effectively guaranteed by the French/German state, so defaults such as those that have occurred with the East Coast franchise would be unthinkable.
Keolis is a French transport company in which SNCF (the state railway company) has a majority share. Keolis has a minority share in the Trans-Pennine franchise with First holding the majority share. Photo: GodsFavouriteAngel
Virgin Trains is making the case for retaining its West Coast franchise. Although an extension was awarded, it is fourth in line to be re-tendered and obviously Mr. Branson would like to retain his sole UK rail franchise (in which Mr Souter's company has a 49% stake). The Virgin brand means something to many UK rail travellers, whereas whatever name Abellio or Keolis or DB call the West Coast franchise should they win it will be meaningless at first.
The Chinese and the German states hold the concession to operate London Overground. MTR Corp (Hong Kong) and DB Regio (Germany). Initially, it was a venture between MTR and British firm Laing Rail, but Laing's parent (Irish) company chose to sell to the German state railway company at the end of 2007. Photo: Darlo2009
The desire and will to continually improve and innovate, some would argue, would be lower in the mindset of a parent company thousands of miles away, with no brand image to protect and improve upon. Virgin has a very strong brand indeed, a global super brand no less, that it wants to both protect and improve upon. This is a view its shareholders will agree with. There is no merit in allowing the Virgin brand to just stand still or stagnate. This translates into poor financial performance in a number of ways.
At the end of 2011, the decision to award the short Greater Anglia franchise to the Netherlands state railway, Abellio, was made by the DfT. Abellio Greater Anglia will commence operation from February. Ironically, Abellio's operation has a name that reflects the franchise better than the current operator chose a number of years ago, when National Express chose to name operations 'One'. Photo: SouthWesternRailways
Abellio or SNCF, for example, have no shareholders and some would argue they would simply operate the West Coast franchise as a box-ticking project, doing everything asked of it and nothing more. Branson argues that Virgin Trains (as a direct consequence of the Virgin brand) will do far more than the bare minimum and points to past successes as proof (they said they wanted to introduce tilting trains and followed through with the Pendolino; they said they wanted to run a 20-minute frequency to Manchester and Birmingham from London and this was introduced at the end of 2008).
Would Abellio et al go that extra mile to improve and enhance their image in a country where they are not known? Would they fight their corner as much when in discussions with the DfT, as Virgin, Stagecoach, First, Go-Ahead and National Express have done? It is an interesting question that I'd hitherto not considered. You could also ask whether Virgin Trains would be as vociferous had they another rail franchise to fall back on if they were to lose West Cost.
Northern Rail is a joint venture between UK-based Serco and the Netherlands state railway, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, or Abellio. Northern has seen considerable success, winning the 2007 Public Transport Operator of the Year Award, so perhaps allowing a European state-run transport company the opportunity to run a UK rail franchise could result in futher awards? Photo: Bubblin40
I think most people would agree that the best financial bid is not always the best overall bid. Value-added elements need taking into account. Home-grown brands are good examples of this. There is absolutely no merit in any British company devaluing its image through a lacklustre performance.
28 May 2011 saw all bus services operated wholly by government-run Gibraltar City Buses cease charging passengers to travel. At the same time the network was redesigned different parts of the colony were linked. To coincide with this came the visible sight of virtually all bus stops in Gibraltar having a personalised flag, shelter and decent height kerb. Timetable information is now evident at all stops - something that had been woefully inadequate on previous trips.
There are numerous cities in the UK that don't conform to this level of provision and the buses operating there want to charge you to travel.
Is this one-in-the-eye for privatisation? After all, the only bus service in Gibraltar that is operated by a private company is the only route that charges a fare. A very low fare, admittedly. City Buses also operate on this route as well and charge the same low fares. It's no coincidence, though, that this is the route that links the airport with the centre. The main reason for the introduction of the free bus network is an attempt to improve traffic flow in the city and the reduce the number of car journeys being made. Gibraltar is rumoured to have more cars than there is space on its entire road network, and congestion is a serious issue - evident immediately upon leaving the airport!
Destination displays have deteriorated somewhat since I last visited. To the point that boards are needed to be put in the window.
Curiously, for every passenger that boards, a ticket needs to be issued. The 'pass' button is not pressed, as would probably be the case here. Consequently, there is a continual stream of tickets that leads from the Wayfarer TGX machine to a plastic bin in the driver's cab. Sadly, passengers are not given the ticket.
Another route where passengers aren't given a ticket is the plethora of bookable minibus tours 'up the rock'. The coach park is the place where the fleet of over 50 of these Toyota minibuses are parked overnight. They're owned and operated by Blands Travel - the parent company to Calypso Travel. A number of smaller people carriers are privately owned and operated on tours to the top of the rock and double up as taxis in the evenings.
In November of last year, akin with other tourist hot spots here in the UK, 'winter' timetables were introduced that saw a slight reduction in frequencies, but they are nonetheless favourable. It was during November that I made yet another trip to the city, this time with some friends, totally oblivious that we would have free rides throughout our stay.
There are four of these Mercedes-Benz/Unvi minibuses for use on Service 1 to Moorish Castle Estate and Willis's Road. They have wheelchair access to the rear. At one point the road is so bad that the back of the bus grounds on the tarmac.
No additional vehicles have been purchased, and the restructuring of routes last May saw shorter journeys, so higher frequencies could be introduced on the most popular ones. Owing to the narrow streets, low arches and tight bends, only midibuses can be used on the vast majority of routes. These take the form of 18 Dennis Darts with Caetano Nimbus bodies, seating 27 (new in April 2004). A smaller batch of 3 Mercedes-Benz/Unvi minibuses, seating 14, are used on the 'uphill' Moorish Castle services (new in 2010) . They're all impeccably well turned out, considering the terrain.
Tight, very tight. Hence why nothing larger than a midibus can be used on the vast majority of services in Gibraltar.
On Service 5 - the only route that charges a fare - Calypso Travel operates alternate departures in between City Buses' throughout the day. This runs from the Spanish border (Gibraltar Airport) to the city centre (Market Place) and then onto Reclamation Road. Additional 'shorts' operate between the Airport and Market Place. Fares on this route are a bargain - £1 single, £1.50 all-day ticket for the route and £6 for a ten-trip ticket that must be used within 7 days. No other service operates to/from the Airport so you can't cheat the system.
City Buses operates this nearly-new crew vehicle. The Toyota seems to be the most popular choice for the people carrier in Gibraltar.
To coincide with the revised network, a hitherto lesser-used couple of bus stops in the old Market Place have been revitalised, with five bays constructed and an information office. This now acts as the city centre bus station. Strangely, it is neither referred to as a 'bus station' or the 'market place' but 'West Place of Arms' in all the literature.
I do believe that this bus is something of a rarity - it once operated in Baghdad! Sadly it wasn't in service when we visited in November, but does see regular use during the summer months.
It'll take quite some time to 'bag' all the Darts, though. Even longer to bash all the 'deckers used by Calypso - they're the only 'deckers used in service. City Buses has a pair of 'deckers used for school contracts and a coach, that passed me before I could get my camera out, being driven by a driver under instruction.
Operation of services, while running to the frequencies advertised, only have one timing point - that of the start location. Even cross-city services do not have a departure time from the West Place of Arms (bus station). You just turn up and wait. Luckily never too long and, let's face it, getting a free ride means you're not going to be too put out having waited 30 mins.
A trip to Gilbratar will not disappoint anyone with an interest in buses and coaches. Provided you can get a cheap flight (meaning a requirement to book many months in advance) I can heartily recommend The Bristol Hotel (the city's longest established). We did flights, petrol to Gatwick, airport parking and three nights B&B for £180 each. You probably wouldn't want any longer than three nights there. A trip to Charlie's Steakhouse is also a must. Order a chocolate dessert and see why!
Interesting to read Barry Doe's column in the latest RAIL magazine, in which the Fare Dealer is clearly struggling to supply fare deals as he wrote almost solely about something very close to my heart: the problem with mobile phones ruining journeys on public transport.
While Barry's experiences covered trains (and were far less unpleasant than those I've experienced on the top decks of buses), I agree completely with his sentiment of the phone taking over the user's life. Loud conversations were the subject of Barry's ire; for me it is people - usually teens - choosing to play their music out loud. Those who've travelled by bus, regularly sitting in the upper saloon, will know what I mean.
I can cope with those who have headphones in but have the volume cranked up to damaging levels as at least they've bothered to consider others and plug them in. Where I intervene and usually cop a mouthful back for my trouble is when people think it acceptable to blurt out their playlist for all to hear, seemingly without regard for their fellow travellers.
I always politely ask them to plug some headphones in, rather than a blanket: "Can you turn that off please?" as it seems less harsh. Often you're greeted with a silent glare but they conform. They know it's unacceptable, that's why. Very occasionally they're apologetic - these are the minority who think that just because it is a double decker the sound gets lost somehow - and can immediately see this is not the case. Mostly, though, you get cocky remarks, but usually silence prevails.
Obviously I never say it to a gang, nor do I impose my wish on people who've been on the bus longer than I have.
On trains, I like Barry never travel in the Quiet Coach as I do not trust my fellow travellers to abide by the rules. And the guards understandably want a quiet life (if you'll pardon the pun) so loathe enforcing the rule. I once travelled from St. Pancras to Derby with Midland Mainline and a chav sat in the Quiet Coach and played his music out loud. He was politely asked, by myself, to put the music on headphones, and although the music was turned off, he opted to stare at me from Leicester onwards, eyes burning with hatred and rage.
I fear that in urban areas by bus, the battle is lost. Ideally the playing of music out loud on buses needed nipping in the bud 5 years ago, when music players became commonplace on mobile phones. Rural journeys fair better. It is a very brazen individual who dares play his/her music out loud on a single decker. There's also no way of knowing which journeys are likely to have these mobile disco lovers on board. As an example, three weeks ago myself and a LEYTR subscriber travelled to Hull and back using Stagecoach in Lincolnshire/Grimsby-Cleethorpes. We travelled on a 6 buses and not once did it happen. Yet last May I made one journey on the Stagecoach X3 from Newark-Lincoln direct (immediately prior to its withdrawal) and parents allowed their kids to have their music playing out loud.
While music blurring out loud may be a low point of travelling on public transport, an undisputed high is crossing the Forth Bridge by train. I've done it countless times, which made the same edition of RAIL a fascinating read as editor Nigel Harris captured a number of very rare shots from the bridge that can be viewed on the magazine's website. I'm very envious indeed!
Click to enlarge. For a further 29 images, click here.
It suddenly occurred to me this afternoon that Monday marked a momentous occasion in the UK's transport calendar, for it was on 2 January 1981 that British Railways ran its last Deltic-hauled passenger train. It would be 15 years before a Deltic hauled another passenger train, through from this point on, charter services only.
The Deltics were ostensibly replaced by the High Speed Train, or InterCity 125, which while being record breakers themselves, haven't always found favour with rail enthusiasts. A friend of mine, for example, refuses to travel on them, referring to them as 'trams', while another (as I recently discovered) refuses to take a photo of one as "they replaced the Deltics!"
Just imagine!
In homage to the Deltic, below is a video I shot during August 2010, as 55022 Royal Scots Grey hauls a charter train north along the East Coast Main Line through Essendine, Rutland.
One of my favourite transport stories over the past few months is of the re-opening of a former freight railway line along the West Side of Manhattan. Just over a decade ago, the elevated line was pencilled in for demolition, but this was fought by the Friends of the High Line, who were formed in 1999.
If you're familiar with Manhattan, the High Line runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking district, through to West 34th Street (between 10/11 Avenues). It offers a fascinating view from above as it snakes through the high-rise buildings in New York's most famous borough.
Demolition was planned primarily to remove the eyesore of rusty struts and bridges from view, though with the nature of the route being as it is, replacing the structure with housing or retail outlets was always going to be problematic as they too would need to be elevated. I suspect very little persuasion was needed to twist the City of New York's arm to consider an alternative to its destruction.
There has been a long tradition in the UK of converting former track bed to cycle paths. It is relatively cheap to do and has the added benefit of allowing the track bed to once again carry trains in the future - something that those campaigning for the Oxford-Cambridge line (that received money for a partial re-opening last month) wish had occurred towards the Cambridge end of the route, where the track bed has been built on and so the partial re-opening is from Oxford to Bedford only. The Woodhead Line is another former (electrified!!) line that was closed but has remained untouched, save for one tunnel bore, could re-open to alleviate trans-Pennine congestion.
Back Stateside and the High Line would be considered a very new line by British standards, being constructed as late as the 1930s. Freight trains operated until 1980 and by 2002 the local authority officially offered its support. The entire route has been fully landscaped and offers a tranquil park setting where visitors can walk, cycle or just lay out on grass and catch the sun. The whole 13-mile High Line structure has been converted and is fully wheelchair accessible.
Construction on restoring the High Line began in 2006, with the first (southern) section opening in 2009. It wasn't until 2011 when all sections were open. Current estimates show that around 3 million people are expected to visit the High Line during 2012. For me, what it offers, while no longer being anything vaguely railway-like, is the area of calm amidst one of the world's most bustling metropolises.
I say 'we're back', it should say 'I'm back'. There has been a change to the composition of the LEYTR committee, which will be evident from the next magazine (due out at the start of February).
There have been many transport stories that I'd loved to have commented on since the last blog entry on 21 November, but sadly other issues have taken preference. Twitter is a very useful stop gap, which I've been making more use of recently. If you have recently converted to twitter, @LEYTR is our address.
There are a number of different videos online that show the rather unusual arrangements at Gibraltar, with planes taking off across the main road into/out of the overseas territory. On our recent visit, we managed to locate another vantage point, less used to record take-offs. What is most impressive is the proximity of the canoist to the Airbus A320 as it fired off down the runway at 180mph.
Today a new record was broken by rail. First Great Western operated a 5-carriage HST between Cardiff and London in 1:36. While this was an improvement of just 1 minute on the current record, it was done to demonstrate the advantages that electrification would bring to Wales, as a similar end-to-end journey time would become the norm.
The train departed Cardiff Central at 1221 and arrived in London Paddington at 1357.
This is not the first record-breaking run that First Great Western has undertaken recently. A Plymouth-London record was broken a year ago.
Once again, another record was broken by a stalwart of Britain's railways, the High Speed Train, known to many outside the industry as the InterCity 125. These workhorses really have proved their worth, operating many years beyond their intended use. Some are being considered for their second mid-life refurbishments.
It is likely that once electrification comes to the Great Western Main Line, they will be all but retired, with new bi-modal trains considered as their replacement.
I've read reports that some may be retained for Penzance/Plymouth-London services.
The Class 43 High Speed Train should be congratulated in equal measure with the people at First Great Western and Network Rail for today's record run.
I've not blogged for a while, so thought my long overdue contribution ought to be something very impressive. Well, to me, anyway. I suspect this may well be my favourite piece of journalism of the year.
In issue 673, railway magazine RAIL lead with a new service introduced by Chiltern Railways. It forms part of their Evergreen 3 project, to upgrade the main line between London Marylebone and Birmingham Snow Hill for it to enable running at 100mph, as well as seeing extensive remodelling at three main junctions.
As a consequence of the line speed increase, Chiltern is now able to operate certain London-Birmingham trains with an end-to-end journey time of 90 minutes. This rivals Virgin Trains' journey time between London Euston and Birmingham New Street. Chiltern's fares are significantly cheaper, too.
In addition to the upgrade, the increased line speed and the faster journey times, Chiltern has also re-branded everything on the route 'Mainline'. Most trains are the Class 168 Clubman units that have plied their trade along the route with Chiltern for many years. On top of this, there is now the Mainline Silver from which to choose. These trains are generally loco-hauled rakes of Mk3 coaches, which offer more legroom as standard than Virgin offers in any of its trains. The Mainline Silver trains additionally offer a special business class ('Premium Economy') section, which Chiltern goes out of its way to say is not 'first class' but a kind of business class area where travellers can get on with their work and for a fraction of the cost of upgrading to first class with Virgin. Chiltern does not currently offer any First Class travel.
£20 is the supplement for Premium Economy, for which travellers receive a larger seat, a table and at-seat, non-complimentary refreshments.
RAIL's article certainly wasn't gushing in praise, but did cover two pages, detailing the improvements, with quotes from all parties, including Virgin, who now charges £20 more for an equivalent business class anytime return between London-Birmingham than Chiltern (although Virgin's substantial menu in first class is all free - and this includes alcohol).
The new Mainline and Mainline Silver services certainly seem like a step in the right direction, offering choice to passengers who've otherwise only considered another train operating company for 'fast' travel between England's two largest cities. One operator's price is now less than the other's an a 'third way' is offered for those who want to travel in the ambiance afforded in First Class but who do not want to pay the (sometimes) eye-watering prices.
Then, in the following edition of RAIL, I read Barry Doe's thoughts on Chiltern's new Mainline and Mainline Silver services. He didn't pull any punches - even the headline stated: "Casual... vague... probably the worst rail timetable I have ever seen..."And, let's be fair, he has seen quite a few.
Hats off to RAIL for allowing one of their regular columnists to show both sides of the story - especially when the 'other' side is portrayed in such a negative light.
You're probably thinking that Barry's criticism centred around the new services' timetable: it's design, its layout and some small areas of ambiguity that could be straightened out at the next reprint. Sadly not. A summary of criticisms are below:
- The timetable is now in two books, which completely omit a number of train journeys altogether - The standard Mainline trains offer only a catering trolley until 1437 ex London and until 1155 ex Birmingham - The Mainline Silver timetable is "ambiguous - indeed contradictory as to whether the kitchen is open or not" for the at-seat, non-complimentary food served in Premium Economy - Chiltern's website states "On morning trains we will serve freshly cooked... bacon rolls" - the implication that this is for all services (even the Class 168s) - Business class is officially known as 'Premium Economy', Barry claims this is simply First Class, despite Chiltern's protestations: "You pay extra, have a First Class seat and First Class inter-available tickets and rovers are accepted" - Upgrade to Premium Economy is £20, yet on two journeys it is only £10 and on two others it is free - The 0005 Friday-only departure, shown in the timetable, is for a train that actually departs at 0005 on Saturday mornings
While you can easily criticise Barry's views on a number of railway (and bus/coach) related issues, when it comes to tickets, validity and timetables, you simply cannot. In the latest RAIL, Adrian Shooter, Chiltern's chairman, has written to the magazine to address Barry's claims. He addressed but two satisfactorily. One timetable book will replace the current two and the 0005 'FO' train is shown with Friday's late-night departures as passengers still consider this departure as a Friday night journey.
A cracking piece of journalism when you look at both pieces together; RAIL's first piece (by business editor Philip Haigh) was extensive and detailed the main improvements, which the second piece (by Barry Doe) highlighted the problems passengers are likely to encounter. The only disappointment is that both pieces were in one, much larger, article.
