Tuesday - Retracing My Steps
Today I revisited a trip I made with Delaine Buses in January, which took in the furthest reaches of their operating network. The difference today was that my son was in tow and the weather a little warmer. Operationally, the first trip to Spalding aboard the Tuesday-only journey on Service 302 was a single-decker rather than a double, but it was the newest example, a B8RLE with Wrightbus body. We travelled on the same two single-deckers working the Spalding-Stamford (203) and Stamford-Wittering-Peterborough (205), though snuck in a short trip around Stamford aboard a Wrightbus Eclipse Gemini-bodied Volvo B9TL working Service 201 between the two. This was a very comfortable experience sat in the upper saloon, and one which puts anything new that Alexander Dennis can produce to shame. Passenger wise, the Bourne-Spalding was as busy as previously, as was the Peterborough-Bourne (last leg). The Spalding-Stamford and Stamford-Wittering-Peterborough were both considerably busier, which was pleasing to see. The school holidays undoubtedly played a part. As we headed out of Peterborough Bus Station at 1330 we saw the 205, due out at the same time, still loading with over 30 on board. A Delaine Day Rover costs £5.80 for an adult, which is excellent value, though the child version (5-10) costs a rather excessive £4.50.
Wednesday - Topless in Springfields
I headed out to photograph a special working undertaken by Stagecoach East's preserved Bristol FLF in open-top guise, which was duplicating the 1015 departure from King's Lynn to Spalding on InterConnect 505. Its next working was a 'short' at 1157 from Spalding to Springfields in the town where the bus headed back to Peterborough. The event was something authorised by senior management at Stagecoach East, with a view to repeating it again if it is deemed a success. Locally, the preserved fleets of East Yorkshire and Stagecoach East Midlands have dwindled. East Yorkshire still has a couple of vehicles and Go-Ahead seems to be a firm who, like Stagecoach East, would use them to good effect, but what of the former Lincolnshire Bristol SC in the East Midlands fleet? I can't recall seeing that out and about in years.
Thursday - The National Railway Museum
Accompanied by both kids, I headed out to visit the National Railway Museum in York. Yesterday, while travelling to Norwich to sample one of Greater Anglia's Stadler trains, I noticed that former Great Western Railway HST 43002 Sir Kenneth Grange is now languishing in the sidings north of Ely. This train is in the original Inter-city 125 livery and worked one of the final ever departures from London Paddington in May. I'm sure I read it was to be added to the National Collection in York but now looks to have been dumped in the Cambridgeshire Fens for reasons unknown.
Friday - A North Lincs Jolly
I travelled to Grimsby today in order to meet with the lady organising the Heritage Open Day in the town on 14 September at which myself and two others who own preserved GCT buses will be providing a free shuttle service. Our destination was Grimsby Docks, specifically the Kasbah. There had been some discussion concerning the buses undertaking a three-point turn with passengers on board. I wasn't too keen on this as none of the vehicles have power steering. Fortunately a route on the Kasbah was agreed, which actually takes my Fleetline down a road that I visited back in 2003 and posted the bus specifically for a portrait photo with the Dock Tower in the background.
It was a very productive meeting. Equally enjoyable was my journey to/from Grimsby from home in southern Lincolnshire. I drove to Spalding and caught the 0854 EMR service to Lincoln. This departure is one of just two that use Platform 2. There is no step-free access to this location and so it is only used when both Up and Down trains are booked to pass at Spalding. We were well loaded and arrive in Lincoln punctually. The next train was at 1025 to Grimsby Town and was a little quieter on board. Most alighted at Market Rasen and when we arrived in Grimsby there was a large crowd waiting to board the return working at 1128.
I returned on the 1232 TPE service for Manchester Airport. I'd not travelled aboard on of their Class 185s since they were refurbished has part of their current franchise. They look very nice indeed. I was very impressed with the ambiance and the TV screen showing journey progress and connection times at the next key interchange point. This also removed the need for constant scrolling remarks about keeping an eye on your luggage and the 'Three Ses'. I alighted at Doncaster after what felt a very frustrating journey in terms of line speed. To my amazement I used to work with the driver in a former life and we chatted while congestion cleared to allow the train to cross the ECML to head towards Sheffield. The driver confirmed that there is no point on the South Trans-Pennine route where trains can reach their maximum speed of 100mph.
A LNER Class 91/Mk 4 at 1355 was next. It was booked for the same platform (3) but unannounced it pulled along Platform 1. I easily found a seat and before long we were heading at full pelt southbound. I'm rather indifferent about LNER's Class 91s. They're an 'okay' train; they undertake the job they were built for admirably and do seem a little too young to be replaced. A few have found new homes but the majority not. Three rakes of Mk 4 coaches now languish in sidings at Worksop. I arrived a few minutes after the booked 1446 in Peterborough and headed for the 1511 EMR '153' bound for Lincoln. This was the same train as that which I'd caught at the start of my trip (153379). We left punctually and were well loaded.
I can't help thinking that there really ought to be a more direct method of reaching Grimsby by train. If only someone had the hindsight to perhaps build a line from Spalding to Boston then maybe dissect the Lincolnshire Wolds to, maybe, Louth and then on the flat marshes to Grimsby!
28 August 2019
12 August 2019
A Sea of Nothing, A Second Lease of Life, A Short Hop & A Strike-Free Saturday
Sunday - A Sea of Nothing
August is upon us and I spent this weekend visiting my parents who are staying in a touring caravan near Martin, Lincolnshire. Today we took my children to visit Tattershall Castle. Naturally the option of public transport was discounted with it being a Sunday, so we drove the 5 miles by car. The National Trust is custodian of this fortified medieval stately home, saved from demolition in 1914 (its fireplaces had been ripped out and were ready to set sail to the USA before intervention saw them reacquired and refitted), and its entrance fee was a little steep (if you'll pardon the pun) considering you can't get to the very top "for the foreseeable future" due to rotting wood. Two entry fees were quoted - one devoid of Gift Aid (cheaper) and the other with it included (dearer). When I've previously donated to charities my request for the donation to be considered for Gift Aid has seen additional financial benefit to the organisation at no cost to myself, since tax is then waived. It appears this is no longer the case.
Having enjoyed the overall experience, aided by the glorious weather and the plethora of informative detail scattered at every level of this iconic structure, we headed into Tattershall village centre for an ice cream. Here a lone, wooden bus shelter can be found, whose main use is for passengers awaiting Brylaine Travel's InterConnect 5 bound in either direction (Lincoln/Boston). It was a picturesque location, so much so that a couple chose to sit inside the shelter while they devoured their lunch. I smirked a little, imagining how I'd break it to them if they were expecting a bus to turn up anytime soon. This got me thinking about Sunday local bus provision in this part of Lincolnshire. No CallConnect. No Brylaine Travel. No Sleafordian Coaches. No Centrebus. No Delaine Buses (north of Bourne). Tattershall receives just one 'bus' a day on Sundays in the form of National Express Service 448 (Hull-Grimsby-London), which is registered as a local stopping service so fuel duty rebate can be claimed, though a now closed loophole means concessionary bus passes are no longer accepted for free travel.
The couple waiting here would have had a shock if they did require the 448 as it doesn't stop here, but at opposing bus stops on the main road. In fact the nearest bus would be Stagecoach's InterConnect 56 (Skegness-Horncastle-Lincoln).
Thursday - A Second Lease of Life
Acquisition by Go North East of East Yorkshire Motor Services last year has seen transformational progress at a steady pace. One aspect of the continued evolution of 'East Yorkshire' under Go-Ahead ownership has been the transfer of EYMS vehicles away from their traditional operating area. Reading a recent edition of industry magazine RouteOne, a snippet was contained details of a new open-top service in Newcastle. Called the Toon Tour I was intrigued to learn more so did a quick online search and discovered that the vehicles working the service are some of the ousted open-top Plaxton President-bodied Volvo B7TLs that EYMS used to operate the Scarborough Seafront service. More details here.
Friday - A Short Hop
Crazee Bongos time today with my children. This is a very reasonably priced soft play area to the north of Sleaford and my kids and I are regular attendees. Time was we'd make a day of it and travel from Spalding to Sleaford by train and then Stagecoach 31 bus from Sleaford Station to the last stop in Sleaford, by Pride Park, where Sleafordian Coaches is based. The irregular service pattern of the 31 bus means we have to endure three hours within the walls of Crazee Bongos and while this isn't too bad (they have wi-fi and I have a laptop - many an edition of the LEYTR has been proof-read here!) sometimes it can be too long and my children start crying at everything as they're pooped. Today, we agreed a partial trip by public transport so I drove to Sleaford Station and we caught the 1355 departure on Stagecoach 31 bound for Lincoln.
Stagecoach offers a return fare for the short distance of approximately six bus stops. This costs £2.50. The ticket has a destination of 'East Road Rail', so I simply ask for this each time now, since requesting a return to 'the last stop in Sleaford' is sometimes met with bemusement. Usually the 'motive traction' is an integral ADL Enviro300 and I always promise my son a trip beyond the walls of Sleaford through to Lincoln, though we've never done this. Our return journey into Sleaford is usually more interesting since it involves boarding a lone 31X journey, which is formed of a double-decker as its return working conveys a large number of school pupils. I remember catching this in RoadCar days with LEYTR Archivist Peter Wombwell when MCW Metrobuses ruled supreme. Today it was another integral Enviro300 as the schools are closed. Disappointment all round - I never thought I'd say that at missing out on a trip on a Trident!
Saturday - Strike-Free Saturday
I made the most of the last day of my holiday by taking the kids on East Midlands Trains's HST to Skegness. The previous three Saturdays had seen trains in Lincolnshire as prevalent as buses to Tattershall on Sundays. Brief respite before next Saturday's strike action meant I didn't want to miss the chance to take the kids on a HST so close to their home.
Unbelievably every single opposing pair of doors in every vestibule in every coach had a security officer stood at it, preventing passengers from opening the droplight window and sticking their head out. A recent court case found owners of the Gatwick Express service liable for the decapitation of a passenger who **chose** to lower the droplight window and expose his head out of a moving train at speed. Was this a knee-jerk reaction? Surely not, since EMT operates hourly HSTs between Nottingham and London and don't fortify them with security guards.
It transpired that excessive foliage growth had frightened Network Rail into mitigation overdrive. Yet the manner in which costs on Britain's national rail network are calculated, it's probably cheaper to employ 15 security guards for a day than send an engineering train down the Skegness Branch to chop back overhanging trees.
We had two trips by bus. The first was aboard Candy, an ex-Grimsby-Cleethorpes Dennis Trident/Alexander ALX400 (17673 (BLZ 1423 (T373 FUG))) from Skegness Bus Station to Ingoldmells. Traffic was moving fairly freely within the town centre (for a Saturday in August) but it was Ingoldmells where everything snarled up. Operating this kind of route is a logistical nightmare, though financially rewarding. Hunts and Redbus were noted, though only one bus of each. We returned aboard an ex-RoadCar Volvo B7TL/East Lancs Vyking, 16910 (FX53 TXD) complete with roof. The 10-minute frequency had a gap of 24 minutes.
But those travelling were on holiday and in jovial spirits. Candy had speakers playing pop music through the top deck, which was a nice touch and reaffirmed how popular Skegness is as a holiday resort (a recent 'Barometer' column in the Spectator cited Skeggy as the third most popular seaside resort in the UK).
I'd done my research and a Skegness PlusBus was cheaper than a Skegness Dayrider (£4 vs £4.60) and afforded me the option of boarding other operators' services if I so wished. Despite the congestion, our drivers were courteous and dealt with the excessively lengthy dwell times at bus stops while those with luggage, kids, wheelchair, buggies (or all four) boarded and alighted.
07 August 2019
A Grimsby Meander
Visiting my parents at the start of this week, I unexpectedly found myself with a free afternoon and so did something I’d not done for a very long time, and availed myself of the town’s public transport network for a few hours.
I purchased a Dayrider from the driver of one of the two buses working Service 12 (New Waltham–Bradley Park). Immediately I noticed that if I were of the persuasion I could have purchased the ticket using a card or via the Stagecoach mobile application. In the case of the latter, my phone would have been my ticket, and I’d have scanned it by presenting it to the ticket machine on every bus I boarded.
Both buses working Service 12 were ex-First Volvo B7RLEs with Wrightbus Eclipse Urban bodies. They were both wearing a livery designed for use on InterConnect services. Not only does this mean pimping the Stagecoach corporate livery to display two shades of purple, it also comes with interior branding with the same purple theme.
We reported at the time in the LEYTR how it seemed strange that a small number of these buses were being painted into the InterConnect livery, but after having travelled aboard this particular one, it soon became evident that the InterConnect livery matches the purple First-inspired seating rather well. I assumed time and money had been spent replacing the interior trim from that specified new by First to that commonplace in similar aged Stagecoach buses. But no – dark blue leather seats and purple seat backs are the order of the day and this matches the exterior livery very well indeed.
Changes were made to the bus stops in Grimsby Town Centre during April, and now Service 12 circumnavigates the block comprising Town Hall Street, Town Hall Square and Osborne Street on two occasions to serve one of the bus stops at the Riverhead Exchange on Victoria Sreeet West. The bus I travelled on was 21270 (DK09 GYE).
Here we parted our ways, though I had mused on how Service 12’s fortunes had changed over the years. It was on this route that North East Lincolnshire’s first low-floor buses were introduced, in the form of Dennis Dart SLFs with Alexander ALX200 B37F bodies were introduced during July 1998: 401-3 (S401-3 SDT). These replaced Stagecoach standard Mercedes-Benz 709Ds with Alexander Sprint B25F bodies, two of which were used from a pool of ten based at Grimsby depot: 767-76 (N767-76 EWG). Following the acquisition of Traction Group, and the rehousing of RoadCar, Service 12 was briefly replaced by a bastardised Service X1, unbelievably seeing the route extend beyond its old western limit of Laceby on towards Humberside Airport and Hull. I vividly recall boarding an East Lancs rebodied Leyland Tiger in RoadCar livery for an end-to-end journey. It’s bizarre to think this coupling up of two routes so far apart on the operational scale was even considered let alone authorised, but then how large bus operations are run has changed considerably since 2005.
Service 12 was threatened with total withdrawal a few years ago but was retained following continued subsidy by North East Lincolnshire Council. The service is now operated around school contract obligations, viz: Bradley Park–New Waltham Mon to Fri hourly 0900-1400 and then a 1740 Grimsby–Waltham; New Waltham–Bradley Park Mon to Fri 0713/0900 then hourly until 1300 then a last departure at 1350. An improved timetable operates on Saturdays, broadly hourly end to end on both directions.
Town Hall Street Stop K was my next port of call. I’d anticipated my best chance of a double-decker would be on Services 9/10 (North Sea Lane–Waltham). Such is the rationalisation of high-capacity buses in Grimsby, that riding in the upper saloon in a Trident is something I never thought I’d have to plan to happen.
While I didn’t get the details of the bus working my next journey on Service 10, I did recall it being an ex-Manchester TransBus Trident/TransBus ALX400 and it seemed to motor very well. I was most taken by how quiet Grimsby Town Centre was. We had nothing in our path from Town Hall Street to the next bus stop on Bethlehem Street. These bus stops aren’t given a letter, but do accurately display the buses calling at them (there are two to choose from in both directions). From here, where a good handful boarded, it was over the railway using Deansgate Bridge and down Bargate. We didn’t stop again until the first stop on Scartho Road, jusr beyond Nuns Corner roundabout.
Here I noticed the Stagecoach Grimsby Guide showed Scartho Baths as extant, yet it had been pulled down a number of years ago. We stopped again at the Cemetary Gates and then turned right into the grounds of Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital. A single-deck Volvo B7RLE was waiting time in the bus lay-by headed in the opposite direction. Hereafter the route followed by Services 9 & 10 does not differ from that operated for decades by Stagecoach and its predecessor GCT. I didn’t fancy ‘waiting time’ at the Bradley Road terminus in Waltham, so jumped off on Waltham Road at the Fairway junction and crossed the road to catch a bus headed back into town.
To my surprise, this too would be a double-decker and also felt particularly spritely. 19011 (MX06 XAL), another ex-Manchester TransBus Trident/TransBus ALX400, worked the service. By my calculation we departed the Hospital three minutes early and bolted back into town, waiting time in Bethlehem Street, so that when we turned left into George Street, bound for our Riverhead Exchange timing point, we looked effortlessly punctual. It was our driver’s ‘coming off run’ and he had handed over to his ‘relief’ before I’d got to the bottom of the stairs.
I planned a trip along Cleethorpes seafront aboard one of the specially-branded Cleethorpes Seasider open-top buses, but the timetable rather unhelpfully offers a gap in service with the 1405 departure missing so the driver who’s out there all day can take a meal break. This meant there was no need to stay on Service 10 to Cleethorpes else I’d be dragging my heels, so I left at the Riverhead Exchange and headed into Freshney Place to purchase a bite to eat.
I had planned to complete my Cleethorpes-bound journey aboard the more circuitous Service 4, though a quick check of the timings showed that I’d now arrive at Cleethorpes Pier after the 1435 departure on Service 17 had left. Instead I continued aboard a Simplibus-branded ADL E20D/ADL Enviro200, details of which I failed to note down.
Last year the frequency of this service, which is linked at both ends of its route with Service 4, was downgraded from a bus every 10 minutes to one every 12. This is a shame since these two routes were the catalyst for one of the largest every investments in Grimsby and Cleethorpes’ transport network in 2006, when in conjunction with North East Lincolnshire Council and a grant from the DfT’s KickStart fund, their frequencies were increased to a bus every 10 minutes and I had the pleasure interviewing Sir Brian Souter in the Old Market Place, who cited ‘magical qualities’ on buses operating to this frequency in terms of ridership and revenue. Reducing the frequency saves two buses in total.
The route Service 3 follows to Cleethorpes is unchanged from that dating back many decades (though the route was previously known as 3F under GCT and early Stagecoach operation and 13 following KickStart funding (when LoZone branding was applied) in 2006). GCT had a 3A equivalent which is effectively the route to Cleethorpes undertaken by Service 10 – running via the Bus Depot, Victoria Street North, Lock Hill and Grimsby Docks (though the ‘10’ omits the latter – as do all bus services now).
I was told the ‘F’ in 3F stood for Freeman Street and this is the equivalent route to Victoria Street North. How different the north end of Freeman Street looked today, with the wholesale demolition of flats and retail premises! We then passed Riby Square, infamous in scheduling circles at Chesterfield in the early days of Stagecoach operation, as those tasked with producing driver schedules at the Derbyshire HQ felt Riby Square (terminus of Services 1, 2, 7, certain journeys on 45 and late evening/early morning journeys on 8, 8X, 9 & 9X) was some kind of massive transport hub, only to be rather taken aback when informed it was historically the Red Light capital of Grimsby.
All bus stop lay-bys have been filled in along Grimsby Road in Cleethorpes and so buses now slow the traffic down at each and every bus stop they use. Cleethorpes High Street has changed a little in this direction, as the bus stop – now a lay-by – is located before the Cross Street roundabout. I assume this is a recent change as it caught out two passengers. I alighted at Sea Road, the end of which points towards the town’s Pier.
To my horror one of the two Cleethorpes Seasider buses was a dastardly ex-First Volvo B7RLE! The open-topper on duty was Lolly, the yellow-based Volvo B7TL/Wrighbus Eclipse Gemini also new to First and for its first season at least operated with First seat trim in the lower saloon. ‘Sister’ Splash, a blue-based similar B7TL/Wrightbus was not out.
Fortunately, the 1435 departure was worked by Splash, which in technical terms is 16962 (YJ04 FZC). Sat in the upper saloon at the rear I couldn’t help noticing a benc seat from a GCT Fleetline. It wouldn’t look out of place in my GCT Fleetline (113 (MBE 613R)). I suspect that vandalism has led to Stagecoach requiring a replacement cushion and/or vinyl and they have spares of GCT’s dark-blue vinyl.
Just under a decade ago the route taken in Thorpe Park was changed so that the Fitties chalet park was omitted. I understand this was due to a hump-back bridge immediately after the Yacht Club that grounded low-floor buses, but two years ago I walked this route and there was a locked gate here, preventing all traffic front crossing it. Since then, a shorter route is taken with buses entering Thorpe Park by what was traditionally the exit route, passing the main reception where an impressive water park is now located, and following the winding road through a sea of static caravans to what was traditionally the old terminus of the route at the top of Chestnut Grove at what is the Recreational Centre.
The Cleethorpes Seasiders have their own timetable and publicity leaflet, which includes four different vouchers for reductions in various activities in Cleethorpes. A map is shown, which details various attractions along the route, though the name of the road through the centre of Thorpe Park is incorrectly shown as Anthony’s Bank Road, which it’s not. The frequency of Service 17 is now very simplistic and Stagecoach should be congratulated for not overly complicating the timetable as they had previously; in fact GCT ran such a complicated timetable for Service 17 that an A4 timetable folded in half was needed to contain all the detail.
Today, and since the Cleethorpes Seasiders were introduced, Service 17 operates to a half-hourly frequency from 0900 to 1900 with the annoying gap in the middle of the day when the 1405 ex Cleethorpes Pier and 1430 ex Thorpe Park is omitted. Buses run from April to September on Saturdays, Sundays and all North East Lincs school holidays.
Service 17 continues to accept the standard Dayrider and DayriderPlus as well as the weekly Megarider equivalents. PlusBus tickets are also accepted and a round trip fare of £1.80 is also offered. It’s pleasing to see the route isn’t being used as a financial pawn where certain otherwise standard network tickets are not accepted.
Back at Sea Road two things took my breath away. First was that the toilets there now require payment of 20p to enter (c’est la vie) but that this can only be made by credit or debit card! I’d dutifully searched my person for loose change only to discover that it was in vain as it was my flexible friend the barrier required.
Second was that proudly displayed in a North East Lincolnshire Council branded notice case is a Bus & Rail Map from 2009. Yes, a decade old, which shows the old route taken by Service 17 in Thorpe Park and the Fitties. Was this a joke? Perhaps a forgotten-to-be-buried time capsule? It was decade old; it pre-dates both of my children and is still proudly displayed in its own very prominent glass display case.
Trying to fathom quite how and why this should have been missed for the past nine summer seasons, I nearly missed my next bus. This was another ADL E20D/ADL Enviro200 with Simplibus sub-branding for the recently amalgamated Services 5/6, which has established a 10-minute frequency between Grimsby and Wybers Lights via Grimsby Auditorium and the Willows. Of course during the early years of deregulation, GCT was flooring the route with a bus every 5 minutes in addition to the RoadRunner ‘bread vans’ being run by RoadCar.
The amalgamation of Services 5 and 6 has seen no buses serve the grounds of Asda at Hainton Square. Service 6 now terminates at Riverhead Exchange and appears to head back out as Service 5 to Immingham County Hotel. Each route provides a bus every 20 minutes which is an enhanced frequency for the Immingham trunk route compares to that enjoyed historically. Wybers Wood, at the end of Service 6, receives a worse frequency now than in previous years when Stagecoach and RoadCar where happily providing a bus every 15 minutes. In fact, following the acquisition of Traction Group, an undertaking was imposed on Stagecoach by the renamed Monopolies & Mergers Commission that forbade them from reducing the frequency of what was Service 16 for a specified period of time.
Yet this Simplibus sub-branding was rather lost on 37199 (YY64 GVA) today as it was to transport me on Service 4 to Fiveways.
I had a thoroughly enjoyable trip round a small network of the Grimsby network. The Stagecoach Guide covering all operations here was freely available on most buses and is dated April 2019 (actually it embarrassingly states “rom April 20190”) and contains the network map on one side and all Simplibus timetables on the rear. The production builds on what was very much a RoadCar Superbuzz concept, with obvious Stagecoach corporate elements added.
A trick is missed with no mention of the Cleethorpes Seasiders – it looks as though Thorpe Park isn’t served this year – but the fact such a Guide is being maintained is excellent. Carrying loose timetables around is now a thing of the past and publishing the timetables for all urban services in the same publication does prevent the operator frequently changing timings for fear of rendering the Guide out of date far too soon.
The Phone ‘n’ Ride service is also promoted, and this has been operated by Stagecoach since the start of August, using four Mercedes-Benz minibuses new to Stagecoach South East for the Little & Often concept. I saw two out and about today – one was sporting Stagecoach corporate livery and the other in a dedicated Phone ‘n’ Ride livery.
A special HolidayRider ticket is offered during school holidays that enables those under 19 to travel for £2.10 in the DayriderPlus area. An adult Dayrider is £3.60 and a DayriderPlus is £4.30 (includes all points Healing to Immingham inclusive).
To summarise – all buses were punctual, clean and all bar one offered a large supply of the Grimsby Guide. Lolly had a large number of free badges on offer for children to collect. Traffic seemed light for a Monday in August and drivers were all courteous, waiting for passengers to get to the first vacant seat before pulling away.
Grimsby’s buses have always been some of the cheapest in the country and the £3.60 Dayrider remains excellent value. I do worry that branding is more a theoretical exercise than a concerted effort to promote a route and it is baffling what InterConnect livery has been applied to buses that are only ever allocated to non-InterConnect routes.
I purchased a Dayrider from the driver of one of the two buses working Service 12 (New Waltham–Bradley Park). Immediately I noticed that if I were of the persuasion I could have purchased the ticket using a card or via the Stagecoach mobile application. In the case of the latter, my phone would have been my ticket, and I’d have scanned it by presenting it to the ticket machine on every bus I boarded.
Both buses working Service 12 were ex-First Volvo B7RLEs with Wrightbus Eclipse Urban bodies. They were both wearing a livery designed for use on InterConnect services. Not only does this mean pimping the Stagecoach corporate livery to display two shades of purple, it also comes with interior branding with the same purple theme.
We reported at the time in the LEYTR how it seemed strange that a small number of these buses were being painted into the InterConnect livery, but after having travelled aboard this particular one, it soon became evident that the InterConnect livery matches the purple First-inspired seating rather well. I assumed time and money had been spent replacing the interior trim from that specified new by First to that commonplace in similar aged Stagecoach buses. But no – dark blue leather seats and purple seat backs are the order of the day and this matches the exterior livery very well indeed.
Changes were made to the bus stops in Grimsby Town Centre during April, and now Service 12 circumnavigates the block comprising Town Hall Street, Town Hall Square and Osborne Street on two occasions to serve one of the bus stops at the Riverhead Exchange on Victoria Sreeet West. The bus I travelled on was 21270 (DK09 GYE).
Here we parted our ways, though I had mused on how Service 12’s fortunes had changed over the years. It was on this route that North East Lincolnshire’s first low-floor buses were introduced, in the form of Dennis Dart SLFs with Alexander ALX200 B37F bodies were introduced during July 1998: 401-3 (S401-3 SDT). These replaced Stagecoach standard Mercedes-Benz 709Ds with Alexander Sprint B25F bodies, two of which were used from a pool of ten based at Grimsby depot: 767-76 (N767-76 EWG). Following the acquisition of Traction Group, and the rehousing of RoadCar, Service 12 was briefly replaced by a bastardised Service X1, unbelievably seeing the route extend beyond its old western limit of Laceby on towards Humberside Airport and Hull. I vividly recall boarding an East Lancs rebodied Leyland Tiger in RoadCar livery for an end-to-end journey. It’s bizarre to think this coupling up of two routes so far apart on the operational scale was even considered let alone authorised, but then how large bus operations are run has changed considerably since 2005.
Service 12 was threatened with total withdrawal a few years ago but was retained following continued subsidy by North East Lincolnshire Council. The service is now operated around school contract obligations, viz: Bradley Park–New Waltham Mon to Fri hourly 0900-1400 and then a 1740 Grimsby–Waltham; New Waltham–Bradley Park Mon to Fri 0713/0900 then hourly until 1300 then a last departure at 1350. An improved timetable operates on Saturdays, broadly hourly end to end on both directions.
Town Hall Street Stop K was my next port of call. I’d anticipated my best chance of a double-decker would be on Services 9/10 (North Sea Lane–Waltham). Such is the rationalisation of high-capacity buses in Grimsby, that riding in the upper saloon in a Trident is something I never thought I’d have to plan to happen.
While I didn’t get the details of the bus working my next journey on Service 10, I did recall it being an ex-Manchester TransBus Trident/TransBus ALX400 and it seemed to motor very well. I was most taken by how quiet Grimsby Town Centre was. We had nothing in our path from Town Hall Street to the next bus stop on Bethlehem Street. These bus stops aren’t given a letter, but do accurately display the buses calling at them (there are two to choose from in both directions). From here, where a good handful boarded, it was over the railway using Deansgate Bridge and down Bargate. We didn’t stop again until the first stop on Scartho Road, jusr beyond Nuns Corner roundabout.
Here I noticed the Stagecoach Grimsby Guide showed Scartho Baths as extant, yet it had been pulled down a number of years ago. We stopped again at the Cemetary Gates and then turned right into the grounds of Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital. A single-deck Volvo B7RLE was waiting time in the bus lay-by headed in the opposite direction. Hereafter the route followed by Services 9 & 10 does not differ from that operated for decades by Stagecoach and its predecessor GCT. I didn’t fancy ‘waiting time’ at the Bradley Road terminus in Waltham, so jumped off on Waltham Road at the Fairway junction and crossed the road to catch a bus headed back into town.
To my surprise, this too would be a double-decker and also felt particularly spritely. 19011 (MX06 XAL), another ex-Manchester TransBus Trident/TransBus ALX400, worked the service. By my calculation we departed the Hospital three minutes early and bolted back into town, waiting time in Bethlehem Street, so that when we turned left into George Street, bound for our Riverhead Exchange timing point, we looked effortlessly punctual. It was our driver’s ‘coming off run’ and he had handed over to his ‘relief’ before I’d got to the bottom of the stairs.
I planned a trip along Cleethorpes seafront aboard one of the specially-branded Cleethorpes Seasider open-top buses, but the timetable rather unhelpfully offers a gap in service with the 1405 departure missing so the driver who’s out there all day can take a meal break. This meant there was no need to stay on Service 10 to Cleethorpes else I’d be dragging my heels, so I left at the Riverhead Exchange and headed into Freshney Place to purchase a bite to eat.
I had planned to complete my Cleethorpes-bound journey aboard the more circuitous Service 4, though a quick check of the timings showed that I’d now arrive at Cleethorpes Pier after the 1435 departure on Service 17 had left. Instead I continued aboard a Simplibus-branded ADL E20D/ADL Enviro200, details of which I failed to note down.
Last year the frequency of this service, which is linked at both ends of its route with Service 4, was downgraded from a bus every 10 minutes to one every 12. This is a shame since these two routes were the catalyst for one of the largest every investments in Grimsby and Cleethorpes’ transport network in 2006, when in conjunction with North East Lincolnshire Council and a grant from the DfT’s KickStart fund, their frequencies were increased to a bus every 10 minutes and I had the pleasure interviewing Sir Brian Souter in the Old Market Place, who cited ‘magical qualities’ on buses operating to this frequency in terms of ridership and revenue. Reducing the frequency saves two buses in total.
The route Service 3 follows to Cleethorpes is unchanged from that dating back many decades (though the route was previously known as 3F under GCT and early Stagecoach operation and 13 following KickStart funding (when LoZone branding was applied) in 2006). GCT had a 3A equivalent which is effectively the route to Cleethorpes undertaken by Service 10 – running via the Bus Depot, Victoria Street North, Lock Hill and Grimsby Docks (though the ‘10’ omits the latter – as do all bus services now).
I was told the ‘F’ in 3F stood for Freeman Street and this is the equivalent route to Victoria Street North. How different the north end of Freeman Street looked today, with the wholesale demolition of flats and retail premises! We then passed Riby Square, infamous in scheduling circles at Chesterfield in the early days of Stagecoach operation, as those tasked with producing driver schedules at the Derbyshire HQ felt Riby Square (terminus of Services 1, 2, 7, certain journeys on 45 and late evening/early morning journeys on 8, 8X, 9 & 9X) was some kind of massive transport hub, only to be rather taken aback when informed it was historically the Red Light capital of Grimsby.
All bus stop lay-bys have been filled in along Grimsby Road in Cleethorpes and so buses now slow the traffic down at each and every bus stop they use. Cleethorpes High Street has changed a little in this direction, as the bus stop – now a lay-by – is located before the Cross Street roundabout. I assume this is a recent change as it caught out two passengers. I alighted at Sea Road, the end of which points towards the town’s Pier.
To my horror one of the two Cleethorpes Seasider buses was a dastardly ex-First Volvo B7RLE! The open-topper on duty was Lolly, the yellow-based Volvo B7TL/Wrighbus Eclipse Gemini also new to First and for its first season at least operated with First seat trim in the lower saloon. ‘Sister’ Splash, a blue-based similar B7TL/Wrightbus was not out.
Fortunately, the 1435 departure was worked by Splash, which in technical terms is 16962 (YJ04 FZC). Sat in the upper saloon at the rear I couldn’t help noticing a benc seat from a GCT Fleetline. It wouldn’t look out of place in my GCT Fleetline (113 (MBE 613R)). I suspect that vandalism has led to Stagecoach requiring a replacement cushion and/or vinyl and they have spares of GCT’s dark-blue vinyl.
Just under a decade ago the route taken in Thorpe Park was changed so that the Fitties chalet park was omitted. I understand this was due to a hump-back bridge immediately after the Yacht Club that grounded low-floor buses, but two years ago I walked this route and there was a locked gate here, preventing all traffic front crossing it. Since then, a shorter route is taken with buses entering Thorpe Park by what was traditionally the exit route, passing the main reception where an impressive water park is now located, and following the winding road through a sea of static caravans to what was traditionally the old terminus of the route at the top of Chestnut Grove at what is the Recreational Centre.
The Cleethorpes Seasiders have their own timetable and publicity leaflet, which includes four different vouchers for reductions in various activities in Cleethorpes. A map is shown, which details various attractions along the route, though the name of the road through the centre of Thorpe Park is incorrectly shown as Anthony’s Bank Road, which it’s not. The frequency of Service 17 is now very simplistic and Stagecoach should be congratulated for not overly complicating the timetable as they had previously; in fact GCT ran such a complicated timetable for Service 17 that an A4 timetable folded in half was needed to contain all the detail.
Today, and since the Cleethorpes Seasiders were introduced, Service 17 operates to a half-hourly frequency from 0900 to 1900 with the annoying gap in the middle of the day when the 1405 ex Cleethorpes Pier and 1430 ex Thorpe Park is omitted. Buses run from April to September on Saturdays, Sundays and all North East Lincs school holidays.
Service 17 continues to accept the standard Dayrider and DayriderPlus as well as the weekly Megarider equivalents. PlusBus tickets are also accepted and a round trip fare of £1.80 is also offered. It’s pleasing to see the route isn’t being used as a financial pawn where certain otherwise standard network tickets are not accepted.
Back at Sea Road two things took my breath away. First was that the toilets there now require payment of 20p to enter (c’est la vie) but that this can only be made by credit or debit card! I’d dutifully searched my person for loose change only to discover that it was in vain as it was my flexible friend the barrier required.
Second was that proudly displayed in a North East Lincolnshire Council branded notice case is a Bus & Rail Map from 2009. Yes, a decade old, which shows the old route taken by Service 17 in Thorpe Park and the Fitties. Was this a joke? Perhaps a forgotten-to-be-buried time capsule? It was decade old; it pre-dates both of my children and is still proudly displayed in its own very prominent glass display case.
Trying to fathom quite how and why this should have been missed for the past nine summer seasons, I nearly missed my next bus. This was another ADL E20D/ADL Enviro200 with Simplibus sub-branding for the recently amalgamated Services 5/6, which has established a 10-minute frequency between Grimsby and Wybers Lights via Grimsby Auditorium and the Willows. Of course during the early years of deregulation, GCT was flooring the route with a bus every 5 minutes in addition to the RoadRunner ‘bread vans’ being run by RoadCar.
The amalgamation of Services 5 and 6 has seen no buses serve the grounds of Asda at Hainton Square. Service 6 now terminates at Riverhead Exchange and appears to head back out as Service 5 to Immingham County Hotel. Each route provides a bus every 20 minutes which is an enhanced frequency for the Immingham trunk route compares to that enjoyed historically. Wybers Wood, at the end of Service 6, receives a worse frequency now than in previous years when Stagecoach and RoadCar where happily providing a bus every 15 minutes. In fact, following the acquisition of Traction Group, an undertaking was imposed on Stagecoach by the renamed Monopolies & Mergers Commission that forbade them from reducing the frequency of what was Service 16 for a specified period of time.
Yet this Simplibus sub-branding was rather lost on 37199 (YY64 GVA) today as it was to transport me on Service 4 to Fiveways.
I had a thoroughly enjoyable trip round a small network of the Grimsby network. The Stagecoach Guide covering all operations here was freely available on most buses and is dated April 2019 (actually it embarrassingly states “rom April 20190”) and contains the network map on one side and all Simplibus timetables on the rear. The production builds on what was very much a RoadCar Superbuzz concept, with obvious Stagecoach corporate elements added.
A trick is missed with no mention of the Cleethorpes Seasiders – it looks as though Thorpe Park isn’t served this year – but the fact such a Guide is being maintained is excellent. Carrying loose timetables around is now a thing of the past and publishing the timetables for all urban services in the same publication does prevent the operator frequently changing timings for fear of rendering the Guide out of date far too soon.
The Phone ‘n’ Ride service is also promoted, and this has been operated by Stagecoach since the start of August, using four Mercedes-Benz minibuses new to Stagecoach South East for the Little & Often concept. I saw two out and about today – one was sporting Stagecoach corporate livery and the other in a dedicated Phone ‘n’ Ride livery.
A special HolidayRider ticket is offered during school holidays that enables those under 19 to travel for £2.10 in the DayriderPlus area. An adult Dayrider is £3.60 and a DayriderPlus is £4.30 (includes all points Healing to Immingham inclusive).
To summarise – all buses were punctual, clean and all bar one offered a large supply of the Grimsby Guide. Lolly had a large number of free badges on offer for children to collect. Traffic seemed light for a Monday in August and drivers were all courteous, waiting for passengers to get to the first vacant seat before pulling away.
Grimsby’s buses have always been some of the cheapest in the country and the £3.60 Dayrider remains excellent value. I do worry that branding is more a theoretical exercise than a concerted effort to promote a route and it is baffling what InterConnect livery has been applied to buses that are only ever allocated to non-InterConnect routes.
02 August 2019
Bizarre Warning, A Trip to Nottingham, Franchising in Manchester & An Ops Director Writes...
Monday - Bizarre Warning
The rail industry has often been criticised for failing to appreciate the extremely favourable position in which it finds itself; namely managing growth. Virtually all other areas of public transport - specifically the bus industry - continues to manage decline of patronage. Yet for the first time in my lifetime I saw a sign at Peterborough station today that attempted to deal with the demand for rail travel over the August Bank Holiday weekend in the most stark of manners: DO NOT TRAVEL TO LONDON.
Wow. Just don't travel, okay? This is easier said than done. King's Cross station is closed for the first major blockade of the station throat's remodelling, which will eventually see the redundant bore of Gaswork Tunnels reinstated. Therefore no trains will be calling at King's Cross over the August Bank Holiday weekend. This is of course an optimum time to undertake these mammoth works. A contact at East Midlands Trains said they were running a reduced service along the Midland Main Line to/from St. Pancras, so capacity alternatives aren't as forthcoming as they might otherwise be.
These works have been on the cards for some time and there will have been many board meetings to best discuss the way forward. Advising passengers not to travel appears to have been chosen as the best option. Wow, just wow.
Tuesday - A Trip to Nottingham
I took the kids to Nottingham today to collect my car which unceremoniously died on Friday. It transpires the Volvo dashboard has no option to show the driver that the alternator has stopped working and that the main battery is slowly being drained of life. Yet the Volvo dashboard so keenly informs the driver of other, considerably less important elements of the car's set-up such as there being no seatbelts used in the rear when there is no-one sat there. The cost of the alternator should surely rival that of a commercial vehicle (though not my Grimsby Fleetline since she has a dynamo!) but to get to the garage in question meant a trip on the tram.
My children have recently become acquainted with the concept of tram travel and so Nottingham's system was next on the list. While the fares structure appears to have been forever thus, I was rather dismayed at the limited options for those undertaking a short hop. Effectively, the single fare is £2.30, be it one stop or from end to end. There is a £1 short hop fare between the railway station and university and stations in between, but the garage I was headed to was in Wilford, so we were headed in the opposing direction. Yes, we could have walked it, but the weather was exceptionally mild and punctuated with cloudbursts one would associate with the Mediterranean.
Return fares don't exist. You're forced to purchase a Day ticket costing £4. I've written about this before - it's a clever trick first instigated in the bus industry to offer a fares increase by stealth. Fortunately we'd be driving back, so just a £2.30 single for me and a child single for my 5-year-old son were all I required.
The trams really are great. Their acceleration is phenomenal and the air conditioning worked a treat. NET dispensed with conductors some years ago (did it coincide with the extensions to Toton et al?) so teams of revenue protection are out and about. During our short journey we saw two teams plus a pair who seemed to be 'stationed' at the station, which is a particularly busy stop for those a little disorientation and in need of the best ticket.
Wednesday - Franchising in Manchester
I've been catching up with my industry magazines and have been reading in greater depth the decision by Manchester's Mayor, Andy Burnham, to position Transport for Greater Manchester so that its preferred outcome concerning the continued operation of local bus services is for the Franchise model, over Quality Partnerships with local bus operators. Nexus initially stuck its head above the parapet a few years ago when the North East PTE chose to make changes to the legislative framework for franchising to be introduced here, but this was successfully fought by operators and the whole sorry saga ended up in court.
The arguments both for and against have barely changed since the decision by Nexus to walk away from Franchising. The key concern for operators is that local residents are not being properly told about the costs of setting up and maintaining such an enormous area of regulation. London was, though is no longer, offered up as the utopian model, but ridership here is falling year on year as the money TfL is awarded has been reduced. In a dystopian society, passengers are fleeced by local operators who run when they want to and charge what they like. Profits are not invested but creamed off and passed onto faceless shareholders. While some elements of the last two sentences rather eloquently summarise how the privatisation of the bus industry has played out, they miss the value for money that private operators bring to the table. Nexus had to admit that it could not replicate what Go-Ahead, Stagecoach and Arriva were providing in the North East and I fear TfGM will have to admit the same. But then could greater expenditure on local buses be something residents would be happy with if it redressed the balance and that greater frequencies were afforded certain routes that are seen to be lacking, at the expense of busier corridors that seem flooded with buses?
The LEYTR Stig, who holds a senior management position with TfL, composed a blog for this site a year ago in which he attempted to show how there was a link between the desire to leave the EU and the renationalisation of the railways. The broader message contained within his text was that these two seemingly juxtaposed subjects could in fact be replaced with any opposing subject matters provided the public feel strongly enough about them. I'd counter that operation of local bus services is rising up the leader board as shown by the decision by Manchester (Liverpool has also threatened the same) to take commercial bus services from private operators and make them bid for the rights to run routes designed by the state. The continued perception of a bus industry that doesn't cut the mustard - whether it can be demonstrated or not that value for money is being delivered - will only play into the hands of its detractors.
Similar to the cataclysmic warnings about the effect leaving the EU could have on the UK economy and that renationalising the railways would deliver services run using the same model as employed by Thameslink, Southern & Great Northern, many otherwise rational and sensible people simply no longer care. Using TfGM as a barometer, I fear the bus industry could be heading the same way.
Friday - An Ops Director Writes...
No sooner had I composed yesterday's entry than I came across a letter published in industry magazine Route One. Penned by Stagecoach Manchester's Operations Director Matt Kitchen, the text was a polite sideswipe at Mayor Burnham's desire to introduce franchising in the metropolitan area. Using GMPTE's document Trends & Statistics 1982 to 1991, Mr Kitchen was able to outline the state of Greater Manchester's buses in the lead up to deregulation and five years of public ownership that followed. He cited the average fares increases in the years as follows:
1986 - 13%
1987 - 9.9%
1988 - 10%
1989 - 10%
1990 - 9.4% and 12.7%
This equates to an increase in fares of 86.6% in five years when inflation rose by 33.3 over the same period. Annual patronage dropped from 358 million journeys in 1982 to 290 million journeys by 1991, totalling a loss of 68 million journeys in 10 years.
Increasing costs and declining patronage was the cause of the fares rises. Revenue decreased in real terms from £130m to £105m (using 1991 prices). Mr Kitchin ended by citing the so-called cheap fares associated with publicly-run bus networks: £12.30 was the cost of a weekly ticket, and that was according to 1991 prices - this would cost £25.94 at today's prices. In 2019 an AnyBus weekly ticket costs £19 - that's 26% cheaper.
I've long suspected the editors of trade magazines are passionately opposed to franchising (if nothing else to show sympathy to those operators to pay their wages) and so no response was given. I'd like to see a map showing network coverage. How well was the whole of Greater Manchester covered in 1991, when patronage was declining and fares rising faster than today? You see, those with whom I converse and who are all for franchising readily admit they would be more than happy for the network to run at a loss provided network penetration was improved from that of today, where 'corridors' have exceptional service levels at the expense of the less commercially viable stuff. I'd venture turning the clock back to 1991 to those with these views is a perfectly legitimate decision the Mayor should take.
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