Comments for On Trains and Buses

Comment on Still some council support forthcoming after all by John

John — Sat, 18 May 2013 11:45:24 +0000

Of course, it’s a matter for Cheshire East Council too and there’s a local town councillor on the case. Cancelling a whole day’s service is a serious action to action and needs some good explanations too, especially when a certain Mrs. Bell gets involved.

Comment on Still some council support forthcoming after all by Jen

Jen — Sat, 18 May 2013 11:10:59 +0000

Forgot the say in my previous post regarding the 300 service High Peak have suspended services on that route for two consecutive days due for ‘operational reasons.’ It’d be interesting to see whether the Traffic Commissioner takes any action in relation to that.

Comment on Still some council support forthcoming after all by Jen

Jen — Sat, 18 May 2013 11:08:38 +0000

John – that might be down to tendering rules. Bakerbus had operated a five year contract on the Mon-Sat 27 service and then a second 5 year contract before losing out to High Peak in 2007. If Cheshire County Council decided to look at a Sunday contract when Bakerbus were half way through one of their Mon-Sat contracts or they didn’t want to commit to 5 years of funding for Sunday services then it would have needed to be a separate contract. As it was the Sunday service didn’t run in summer 2012 as a result of the Cheshire East funding cuts but the High Peak contract continued until autumn 2012.

Comment on Still some council support forthcoming after all by John

John — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:00:35 +0000

Did the council get itself stuck in a one timetable per contract rut? Letting the whole service in one piece would have made more sense instead of adding on a summer Sunday and bank holiday service if there was money available, which is how it looks from the way that they were going about it. Of course, the subject of the abilities of bus companies and councils when it comes to publicising bus services contains many examples of poor PR…

Comment on Still some council support forthcoming after all by Edd

Edd — Fri, 17 May 2013 19:26:40 +0000

What made the weekday and Saturday Tatton Park exclusion worse on the 27 service when it was hourly is the buses had a long layover at Knutsford Bus Station so they could have run to Tatton Park and back, kept an hourly frequency and only required two buses.

There also used to be a different route that had only a Tuesday and Friday service with one morning service from Sandbach-Holmes Chapel-Knutsford-Rostherne (Tatton Park entrance)-Altrincham and an afternoon service in the other direction. Whitegate Travel were the last bus operator to run that service as a H50 route but it previously run under other operators including BakerBus, Star Line Travel and for a short period Roadliner Travel – who used over sized 50 seater coaches on the service.

I’ve found the old 27 Sunday and Bank Holiday timetable here: http://www.bakerbus.com/downloads/bus_routes/d38bee175690072d70e9a8272b243d1b.pdf (found by Google – there’s no link to it from the BakerBus website) It’s clear that the Tatton Park exclusion during the RHS show wouldn’t have been due to extra traffic meaning the turnaround would be too tight as two of the services had over an hour turnaround time.

One thing does stick out like a sore thumb about that timetable. If you ask people in Knutsford what’s the main benefit of a Macclesfield bus a lot of them will say it’s the location of the nearest proper hospital. Now that timetable shows people from Knutsford could make a return trip to Macclesfield hospital on Sundays and Bank Holidays provided they wanted to arrive at 12:17 and leave at 14:53. Also why did the council publish a separate leaflet for that service? Anyone who picked up the Monday-Saturday one would have thought there was no Sunday service at all.

Comment on Still some council support forthcoming after all by John

John — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:33:06 +0000

That Tatton Park exclusion didn’t just apply to Sunday journeys for the 27 but also to those on other days of the week too. That was clear when journeys were extended into Tatton Park for the usual Monday to Friday service. It made it look as if the RHS show organisers wouldn’t leave buses come into their site when it would have made most sense. When you see what Ulsterbus is doing for the Balmoral Show in Northern Ireland at the moment (or what Lothian does for the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh every June), you do wonder what some people are thinking.

Comment on Still some council support forthcoming after all by JC

JC — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:01:20 +0000

Knutsford is sort of in a position where it’s a bit far north in comparison to D&G bus’ usual operating area but also a bit far south in comparison to their sister company’s usual operating area South Lancs Travel. However, if they want to try serving Knutsford then one needs to operate a bit out of their usual area and as D&G bus currently serve Macclesfield, they are probably the best choice out of the two to serve Knutsford.

The D&G Bus 300 service did seem to be registered commerically with the registration accepted on the same day as the High Peak cancellation was accepted. Therefore, it sounded like there was either some dialogue between the two operators or that High Peak made Cheshire East council aware of their intention to cancel and Cheshire East informed bus operators of the details in the hope of avoiding it going out to tender.

The 300 evening service is contracted to Tomlinson Travel. I’m not sure of the date it is set to go out to tender assuming no-one registers it commerically or that Cheshire East don’t strip them of the contract.

One thing regarding the 27 Sunday service is they put in big letters on the timetable that it does not serve Tatton Park when the RHS show is on – the day when it would probably have got the most usage otherwise!

The comment posted on ‘Fix My Transport’ relating to why Cheshire East council don’t see Knutsford and Warrington as towns which need to be connected by a bus: http://www.fixmytransport.com/campaigns/fix-this-run-a-6-days-a-week-at-more–2

Comment on Still some council support forthcoming after all by Carl

Carl — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:06:36 +0000

That’s exactly what I have been saying to Poynton Town Council about the P1 as it hasn’t been attracting sufficient passengers for various reasons but is an important link for residents in Middlewood/Higher Poynton. They have agreed to distribute timetables to all households now when the 3 month service review occurs in June.

Comment on Still some council support forthcoming after all by John

John — Mon, 13 May 2013 08:49:49 +0000

Agree with you about the Sunday services. However, there was a summer Sunday and bank holiday service between Macclesfield and Knutsford that never seemed to be well used so these things need better publicity than popping a few timetables into a library if they are to succeed.

Comment on Still some council support forthcoming after all by Carl

Carl — Sun, 12 May 2013 14:34:08 +0000

No, I cannot imagine they were the most popular services but they were a nice added bonus for the area. The Sunday service would have looked better if there had been journeys for people seeking to get to Langley/Macclesfield Forest for leisure but alas the position of Arriva’s depot made 1 way operation a better idea.