Macclesfield’s streets have been getting dug up again and it’s a reminder of what was going on around this time last year when traffic light renewal was under way. About that time, there seemed to be some gas works ongoing too and it is gas mains renewals that are causing the disruption at the moment. The powers that be seem to have focussed their attention around the roundabout at the intersection of Churchill Way and Cumberland Street/Hibel Road. So far, that doesn’t seem to having much effect on the buses that I use though services to Kerridge (the bus used for that service now displays its destination and the vehicle has gained a cherished registration mark too; what was wrong with the standard issue 54 one?), Bollington and Upton Priory surely can’t have escaped the build up of traffic caused by temporary traffic lights. Of course, it would be best if this sort of thing went away for a while but that might be why signs have appeared about a few weeks work lasting for eighty years afterwards. Only time can tell if that promise comes to pass with the rigid plastic pipes that they seem to be using.
Posts Tagged ‘Buses’
New paintwork and other changes
In Buses, News, Observations on January 27, 2010 at 12:47 pmSince the Wright-bodied VDL’s and DAF’s that underpin the 27 Macclesfield-Knutsford service were brought into use, they have sported a Cheshire County Council specified navy and orange livery. This morning, I spotted one of them wearing a new silver, yellow and green livery, of the same kind that was brought into use by Cheshire East Council. Repainting of buses mightn’t sound a priority activity but I suppose that paintwork gets shabby over time and there’s never any harm in changing colours while you are freshening up things.
Increasing capacity is of higher priority than painting things and that brings me to the sight of double decker buses on the Macclesfield-Bollington route. When I first moved to Cheshire, the route benefitted from the introduction of new Plaxton Mini-Pointer bodied short wheelbase Dennis Darts. At the time, they stood out in a fleet full of Mercedes minibuses and old arthritic Leylands, Lynxes and Olympians. Since then, the world has turned and Dennis Darts are the dominant type with double deckers and other longer single deckers being in the minority. With that in mind, it is interesting to see the 10 getting larger capacity vehicles of an age older than those brought into service back in 2000. It’s always good to see more people using buses but it would be better if they got to travel on newer vehicles as well. That increase of passenger numbers must have helped the 130 too and an increase in usage is apparent to eyes that remember how many used to be on those Leyland midibuses that were operating on the service ten years ago.
On an advance in mobile ticketing
In Buses, News, Ticketing on December 8, 2009 at 12:28 pmMobile ticketing has been with us for a little while now with Scottish Citylink and National Express offering the option to text tickets to any GSM-enabled phone. Arriva seems to be taking things a step further with GPRS and allowing the opportunity for users to download an application onto their phone that is then used to buy a range of tickets. Following registration, it is the phone that does the work and has the required payment details. It’s all secured with a PIN and nothing is stored on Arriva’s servers. However, you do need a compatible phone and cheapskates like me with old bricks (I have my old Motorola from 2000 in mind here) or even recently acquired inexpensive bog-standard phones (like my Nokia 1661) are outside the loop for this means of buying day, weekly and monthly tickets. You’d think that every smartphone would be part of the offer too but that’s not so. In a way, it’s understandable that iPhone users are not served with Apple’s iron grasp of its App Store but Blackberry users are still waiting too. What this implementation illustrates is the need for a more standard computing environment for mobile phones because their platforms are even more diverse than the desktop PC world that gives me the machine on which I am writing these words. Arriva’s idea is a good one but it’s partly stymied by diversity in technology but that’s not the fault of any transport company.
November traffic toil
In Buses, Happenings, Observations on November 6, 2009 at 12:23 pmIt’s an oft discussed topic but you do get to wondering how things might be if we didn’t bother with winter time and stuck with its summer counterpart all of the year around. I am led to believe that summer time continued into the winter months during WW2 with double summer time coming into force when BST usually would hold sway. By all accounts, everyone got along and it looks as if it would have been the least of the troubles that anyone faced.
However, I have noticed that November evening traffic is blighted with disruption from time to time and wonder if not putting back the clocks would help. There was an occasion when an overturned lorry between Alderley Edge and Wilmslow severely disrupted my journey home from work, delaying it by next to 90 minutes. We may have satellite tracking of buses (Cheshire East Timeline) these times so you can stay indoors until the bus is near but it is too easy to let disbelief take over when buses don’t seem to be moving at all and go outside to make sure of getting home; the onset of darkness concentrates the mind. That’s how it appeared on Tuesday night and the tracker hadn’t packed in as suspected but traffic had backed up to an horrendous level because of road works due to the construction of the Alderley Edge bypass and some work on the B5087 within that village itself.
That bypass should help avoid instances like those described above but you can get closures on the M6 too so I wonder how it would cope with the motorway traffic. It goes without saying that the village of Alderley Edge cannot take the onslaught with its pedestrian lights, junctions and school and such a situation had me keeping an eye on the Highways Agency website for a while (the BBC’s Travel News website is a useful port of call too). Cheshire East Council’s bus tracker easily dispatches that habit to history and things do seem to calm down in December. Nevertheless, it is striking how traffic chaos still occurs from time to time during an economic recession.
Bikes on buses
In Buses, Coaches, Observations, Trains on November 4, 2009 at 12:12 pmI remember making a return journey between Charleville and Cork in Ireland when a passenger just popped a bicycle into one of the coach’s side lockers and it was carried without further ado. When I had the idea of doing the same on an outing from Edinburgh to Fort William, I was thwarted because carriage of bicycles on buses and coaches is not the norm. The phrase that lingers in my memory, regardless of whether it actually was said that way or not was “This is not a train”. Undeterred, I secured my bicycle and left it after me to enjoy a wonderful day out. The change of plan was no spoiler though the it did alter how I spent the day.
There are some who might say that the above contrast between Irish easygoing helpfulness, the same type that allows the carriage of forgotten luggage on a service coach from Galway to Dublin without charge or facilitating the retrieval of a case left on Dublin’s LUAS tram system by myself and I half-asleep after an early morning flight from Manchester, and British adherence to process and procedure. While I cannot doubt Irish helpfulness, I am more inclined to attribute the differences in outcome to differences in legal systems.
Whatever the cause, non-carriage of bikes by buses and the paucity of accommodation for them on trains (a story for another time) has fostered the growth of my interest in hillwalking at the expense of cycling. Ironically, it is in the types of places where I go walking that there have been innovations when it comes to carriage of bicycles by buses. In the Yorkshire Dales, trailers have been attached to Dennis Darts for the purpose. In other places, you see the use of racks mounted on the back for the same purpose and the X94 that goes between Chester/Wrexham and Barmouth comes to mind but there are others. Having bicycle pens within the buses themselves is another way of achieving the same and I have vague recollections of this being done in Snowdonia and the northwest of Scotland. On the subject of vague recollections, I have another one of seeing a photo in Buses magazine where seats have been replaced by a place to put bikes on what appeared to be a double-decker.
Though none of those ways to carry bikes on buses are widely available, there is an argument in favour of making that happen. After all, having a bicycle in a wheelchair or buggy space on a low floor bus is likely to cause a nuisance and you couldn’t even get one on the older step entrance vehicles. Then, there’s the prospect of breaking up a bike to carry it on a National Express coach service and that sounds like something that you would do if you were carrying one on an airplane. Of course, there are those folding bikes that people sneak onto commuter trains at peak times as luggage but is that really ideal for that day out in the countryside exploring its quieter roads? All in all, it’s a state of affairs that encourages car use but remains a tough nut to crack whichever way you go about it.
What about adopting a bus shelter?
In Buses, Suggestions, Trains on October 27, 2009 at 1:57 pmAll this talk about the cutting of public spending does cause one to wonder about where the axe will fall and what effect will be felt by public transport. It might be that rather than being detached service users, we might need to have more of a helping hand in its provision. After all, it wouldn’t be without endless campaigning that the likes of the Settle-Carlisle railway line survived and we may need to brace ourselves for what we find ahead of us. Speaking of that railway, its supporters do contribute to the upkeep of train stations along the route, some of which were closed at one time. On a wider scale, community rail partnerships have their place and that looks certain to stay with the spectre of spending cuts looming in out futures.
That level of community support of the railways, especially rural ones, has made me wonder about the same for our bus network. This becomes more pertinent when you see smashed up bus shelters like the one that I saw in Heaton Chapel last Saturday or the when bus service information boards attract the attentions of the bored (graffiti and cigarette burns are a particular nuisance). Extending this further, some shelters need a general clean and that only can help to make bus travel more appealing. Even in times when tax revenues were higher, a quick look around often proved that the state could not be everywhere and CCTV systems are not a substitute for local human action. That will become more so if the U.K.’s public sector debt is to be reduced from its current level. The result of this thinking is that I get to wondering about adopting a local bus shelter and keeping an eye on it, maybe even giving it a clean every now and then. It seems that no one else has had the brainwave so I’m sticking it out on the web to provoke perhaps a little thought. Maybe, if we all kept an eye on things, then we might save some of the cash that is spent on righting the results of moments of drunken and bored madness or even give rise to the idea that bus shelters are not mere infrastructural outposts but are part of a given community. Admittedly, this is blue skies thinking but, without a bit of that, where would we all be right now? After all, a bit of civic mindedness can make a real difference to an area.
A junction in need of traffic lights?
In Buses, Observations, Suggestions on October 22, 2009 at 12:23 pmOne of the things that amazes me about Cheshire is where you can find footways and traffic lights. Sometimes, these are as far from dense urban areas as you can hope to get. The traffic lights at Bosley Crossroads are typical of the type as perhaps are those at Monk’s Heath. That’s never to say that they are not needed but it is telling how dense traffic can get on Cheshire’s roads at times that even rural locations are afflicted by the malady.
On the other hand, it can amaze one where there aren’t any traffic lights either. For example, having one at the junction of Green Lane and Alderley Road (A538) in Wilmslow would surely help the 130 on its way to Macclesfield during the rush hour. The possibility that really comes to mind is the staggered junction between Priory Lane, Macclesfield Road (B5087) and Prestbury Road near between Upton Priory and Prestbury. I was reminded of this twice when come home from work on my bicycle because with busy filter lanes, someone could take a chance when they shouldn’t and anyone on a pedal cycle cut come off badly as a result. The Connect 19 passes the way too so visibility mightn’t always be what it should be. Of course, you should never pull out of a minor road onto a major one when you cannot see what’s happening but we all can make mistakes, can’t we? It’s not a particularly nice part of the road system of a dark evening or morning so I often wonder if anyone does come a cropper around there.
A month full of changes
In Buses, News, Timetables on October 5, 2009 at 8:22 pm
A quick look at Cheshire East Council’s list of bus service changes for October will confirm that something of an upheaval will be going on in southeast Cheshire’s bus network at the end of the month. Places like Crewe, Sandbach, Nantwich and Congleton are seeing the bulk of the action with interurban changes showing the most of the transformation. Of course, your only hope is that no reduction in service quality will result and that’s how it looks to me with BakerBus and GHA increasing their footprints with no mention of Arriva at all and plenty of references to D&G. It would seem that Cheshire’s formerly main operator is but a minor player now. There is no sign of anything planned for November or December but my hope is the Cheshire East’s newly refreshed website would be where we would find out about any changes. After all, trying to find out anything from a traffic commissioner website is dead loss, even if it is they who process all of the supporting paperwork.
A spot of white van man bother
In Buses, Happenings, Incidents on August 26, 2009 at 8:23 pmRoadworks seem to have invaded Chester Road after something of a respite. It doesn’t help that the gas network is continuing to be the subject of attention around Macclesfield. The same blighters seem to have targetted the A6 between High lane and Disley too as I found when I was out on my bike last Saturday.
The trouble with roadworks is that they often reduce a road from carrying bidirectional traffic to being a one way street, not that I saw much evidence of temporary traffic lights on Chester Road this evening. Such a situation means that any roads have to be in negotiating mode rather than expecting everyone else to give way for you as did a certain chap driving what looked like a Transit pickup while I was on the bus home. The result was that the bus driver stopped the vehicle and switched the engine off to have a cigarette until the other party got the message. After all, the Transit wasn’t on his own side of the road so the bus driver’s actions perhaps were understandable. After all, he did have the bigger vehicle and cars right behind him so reversing wasn’t going to be as easy as it was for the other guy. Naturally, an exchange of views took place and the van driver was told that he would be there until the police came if he didn’t budge out of the way. It looked like we might be there for some time so I disembarked for a longer but far from unreasonable walk home and left them to it. As it happened, I was soon to hear the sound of a vehicle reversing warning system as the van driver had taken the hint and the bus passed me while making its way. A little more patience and my walk would have been shorter but who was to know? The same could be said for the other drivers who were in the business of turning tale to go another way.
A weekly ticket goes roaming
In Buses, Ticketing on August 4, 2009 at 8:45 amMy weekend Welsh wander afforded me the opportunity to try out something. Though Arriva’s bus operations in Wales and in the north west of England have been separated for better working with the Welsh Assembly Government, the £15 weekly ticket still applies across both areas. The result was that I gave it a go in order to get between Machynlleth and Minfford for my walking around Cadair Idris and it was accepted without a bother even though it was bought in Cheshire (rather than causing trouble on a bus, I would have paid if it wasn’t and maybe gone and popped a question of Arriva’s customer services afterwards). As far as I am aware, the same does not apply to day tickets so an all areas ticket is needed, costing more than the £4 tariff of the north west day ticket. With the weekly ticket, the added value for money is appreciated.
A day ticket wouldn’t have cost much more…
In Buses, Ticketing on July 26, 2009 at 1:03 pmYesterday, I got out for a walk that took me from Kidsgrove to Wheelock near Sandbach. To get home, I caught the 38 and the single fare was £3.60. Arriva operate the Macclesfield-Crewe service both commercially and with council support, depending on the day of the week and the time of day. Gratifyingly, it was being well used when I was travelling yesterday evening with a healthy mixture of fare-paying and pass-wielding patrons. It was well driven too, not an experience that I can always about my experiences of using this service, particularly for occasions when travelling on the last one of a Sunday; Crewe bus drivers apparently have a reputation for being a bit mad in the driving, justified, so I may have had one. To return to the issue of the cost of travel, I don’t begrudge the fare that I was charged but the price of an Arriva day ticket is £4 and that makes me wonder if there are single fares of more than the price of a day ticket. Perhaps, asking for a day ticket when travelling from Crewe to Macclesfield or vice versa might be an idea even when embarking on a one way trip. It’s a thought that I’ll keep in mind.
Is Lake District bus travel too expensive?
In Buses, Ticketing on June 15, 2009 at 2:59 pmOn visits to the Lake District, I have been struck by the cost of bus travel a few times and the £3.55 that I paid for a one-way ticket from Windermere to the Kirkstone Inn was another reminder of thoughts that have crept into my mind before. That was a distance of around 10 km or 6 miles and cost at least £1 more than its equivalent. Day Rider tickets are not so cheap with one for £9.75 covering the whole area and another covering the Central Lakes for £6.60. If the powers that be want to get people out of their cars and onto public transport, then these costs would have to tumble somehow. For a family, I can foresee it all adding up to such a level that the family car remains the cheaper and easier option. Ironically, the same economic pressures that are bearing down on families are also likely affect public transport so it’s difficult to see how this is going to change, particularly with public spending cuts on the agenda.
Roadworksville
In Buses, Happenings, News on May 15, 2009 at 3:02 pmThat’s how Macclesfield feels right now and it’s been that way for quite a while now, so much so that you get to wondering when we are going to be left in peace again. There are occasional signs of respite with the Churchill Way traffic light upgrade now out of the way and Broken Cross gas works complete. That still leaves a good number of roads blighted by temporary lights and the junction, Chestergate, Chester Road, Prestbury Road and King Edward Street is every bit a victim of invasive excavations with a chicane in place of two-way traffic. That’s a bit tight but buses can still get about it as they ply their routes as usual. You can only hope for an early end to Macclesfield’s “Big Dig” and be thankful for a certain reduction in traffic caused by the downturn but it would be nice if all of this wasn’t happening at once.
A return to normality
In Buses, News on April 8, 2009 at 9:36 amI may be late coming upon this given my use of a bicycle for the daily commute in recent times but bus services in Macclesfield that usually run along Churchill Way are back on there as before. We can now return to former ways now that the disruptive traffic light works have been completed. Let’s hope that things like that don’t get visited upon us for a while again. It would be good if some attention could be turned to the general state of the roads and footways in the town in place of big projects like this.
A last batch of new buses for now?
In Buses, News on March 25, 2009 at 3:14 pmI was in Éire and noticed that a new delivery of buses had been put to work by Dublin Bus on their airport 747 and 748 services. Some of the older ALX400’s from 2000 are still used but new Wright doubledeckers are very visible. Both sets have Volvo engines and chassis so that hasn’t changed and the seats in the new ones look uncannily like those in their older counterparts. Apart from the differences in bodywork, the difference in smoothness is noticeable even if the paintwork is similar on both. Given the economic deterioration and its effects on the Irish public finances, I suppose that new bus expenditure will take lower priority for Dublin Bus for the foreseeable future. That has happened before following the economic turmoil of the mid-eighties but the end of that decade saw plans for replacing loud-engined Bombardiers with something more conventional with Leyland Olympians taking over the course of the next decade. If the Irish economy emerges from its current tight spot and it looks a hard slog, investment in new vehicles may restart again but there still could be a noticeable wait before that will be seen.
Roadworks reduced?
In Buses, News on February 27, 2009 at 8:38 pmIt seems that the major part of the Churchill Way traffic lights renewal is out of the way with the new ones at the Chestergate and King Edward Street junctions operational. I have yet to confirm the same for the bus stops that were put out of action by the venture but I can vouch for the 27 Macclesfield-Knutsford plying its usual route. I have yet to confirm the same for the 130 but I did see local evening service 6 going down Hibel Road rather than going by Churchill Way. There are still some roadworks and temporary traffic lights still feature further along the road, nearer the post office on Castle Street., but the extent isn’t what it was. I hope that major road works depart the town of Macc for while to allow us respite but I cannot say that I am convinced of that.
Update 2009-03-02: I can confirm that their attention is now centred on the junction between Churchill Way and Castle Street. For me, the jury is still out regarding a return to normal routes for Arriva services using the said road.
Road works…
In Buses, Incidents, News on January 14, 2009 at 4:38 pmFor much of the past year, Cheshire County Council has had contractors replacing and adding traffic lights in different parts of Macclesfield. They have now descended on the heart of the town and it hasn’t been until then that the project was having much impact on me. Contraflows/single line traffic is now in operation on Churchill Way, taking out a lot of the road capacity and slowing things down further again thanks to the timings on the temporary lights that have been set in place. It might be best for cars, vans, trucks and buses to give the area a wide berth and use alternative routes such as the A523 Silk/London Road instead.
I accept that there might be a need for these works and we might even get better pedestrian crossing facilities after them, not at all a bad thing. However, they have had an effect on the operation of most bus services operating in the town. In addition, the bus stop next to the junction of Churchill Way and King Edward Street was taken out of use. It’s not a major inconvenience but it would have been nice to have had it signed as such before I started out on my way to work this morning. Thankfully, a workman let me in on the state of affairs and I found another one around the corner where I could wait in the cold for a bus that was 30 minutes late. My suspicion is that the road traffic conditions had no small part to play in this.
This is all due to continue until the end of March so our forbearance will be needed for a while yet. I don’t know if it was a general observation but I was getting the sense that traffic volumes were reduced anyway and, with what is taking place, it might be just as well. At least, it’s not going on as long as the works for returning trams to the streets of Edinburgh but it is a taste of what Edinburghers are facing.
Update: Someone must have given the council hell over this or they have been deluged with enquiries as a result (I can’t say that I’d be surprised if either or both did happen) because an FAQ has appeared on the end of the web page describing the works.
A wrong turn…
In Buses, Incidents on December 15, 2008 at 11:12 amI suppose that it can happen: this morning’s bus ride to work involved the driver talking a wrong turn at one point to end up one of Macclesfield’s numerous dead ends (all thanks to road reorganisations over the years). To his credit, the driver realised his mistake only to have to face doing a turn in a not so wide road with cars parked at either side and vehicles waiting for him to complete his manoeuvre on the carriageway itself. That he had a long wheelbase Dennis Dart compounded the problem but he managed the feat, corrected course with a sharp turn at the junction that he had misjudged and we were on our way again. His mistake had occurred at a fork in the road (the junction where Chester Road, Prestbury Road, Chestergate and King Edward Street in Macclesfield itself) and I suspect that it’s one that the driver concerned won’t be making again; that turn in the road should not escape from memory so easily…
Events dear boy, events
In Buses, Incidents on November 23, 2008 at 12:46 pmI was out for a walk in the Lake District yesterday and I stumbled on a heaving Ambleside. The reason for all the people being there was the turning on of the Christmas lights, an annual tradition. There are various pieces but the one that gets it a mention on this blog is that there is a parade in the late afternoon that puts a stop to the progress of any buses. I was not the only the only one that stumbled on this unawares because it was the cause of a disgruntled “Where the hell is the 555?” from a waiting passenger in Windermere.
The result was that quite a number of us were stood outside in the freezing cold waiting far longer than we ought to have done, not that I am decrying the fun that was in train since it is something that is much needed in the current economic climate. The 555 that was to take me from Ambleside to Windermere was stopped in its tracks while all was going on and the 599 that I eventually used was itself held up. It just goes to show how a traditional event can really impact bus services, particularly when there’s no alternative route for buses to follow. That police didn’t seem to be prioritising the passage of buses didn’t help either.
However, I cannot say that all smaller places where big events are ongoing do see their bus services disrupted. For instance, Dolgellau’s Eldon Square can be closed for such things but with diversions in place, a much better way of doing it. It still does not alleviate accommodation shortages due to the annual Cadair Idris hill race on the Saturday of the second bank holiday weekend in May but buses continue run as planned, a much better outcome.
When you cannot get off at your stop
In Buses, Incidents on November 14, 2008 at 5:37 pmThis morning, I pressed the bell ahead of my stop as usual but the bus passed it by. I was told that I didn’t leave enough time for the bus to stop, a very surprising statement because I have done exactly the same as I have done on many a time and the bus has stopped as expected. My suspicion is that that the driver may not have realised that my stop was there at all, a disappointing state of affairs it has to be said. However, I have come across this before and contact was made with the bus company then to sort things out. I may need to do so again.
Late when you really need them
In Buses on November 13, 2008 at 11:54 amYesterday, my bus to work was delayed by twenty five minutes on what was a wonderfully sunny day. My suspicion is that heavy traffic along the inbound route from Manchester to Macclesfield or temporary traffic lights outside Macclesfield General Hospital come have been to blame. Broken down buses and missing drivers don’t help either, of course.
The thoughts that are giving birth to this post do not pertain to the occasions when you really need to get somewhere on time but rather when the weather is being at its most grotty. Freezing cold, heavy driving, gale force winds and snow all come to mind and can wreak havoc on road traffic. It’s as if those times when things were at their most precarious that are coming back to me now.
Like the evening when all the traffic had ground to a standstill after a passing storm downed trees and electricity power cuts (that put traffic lights out of action, adding to the misery); I was lucky enough to catch a passing bus that was not in service but its driver doing some good beyond call of duty by carrying wayward souls home for free (yes, there is some welcome kindness in the world). Another instance was when a broken down lorry added to the problems caused by snow and I took up the offer of a lift home after a two hour bus crawl into work.
Yes, winter is ahead of us and, while they have been milder of late, that doesn’t preclude the appearance of wilder weather and we may become less well able to deal with cold snaps as time goes on. That may mean traffic snarl ups with buses caught up in them and passengers left out in weather from which most of us would stay in and enjoy the warmth of the indoors. It might be time to release buses from their encasement in other road traffic around where I live so that they can make headway while all about them has ground to a halt.
The need for considerate parking
In Buses, Incidents on November 6, 2008 at 4:40 pmThe route taken by my bus to work in the mornings passes through the grounds of Macclesfield General Hospital. However, the bus driver decided against it on this morning’s run due to the fact that she reckoned that she’d never get the vehicle through. She might have had a point because cars and other vehicles are parked anywhere and everywhere there, making the job of getting a long wheelbase single decker through there an unenviable task at the best of times. Limited space ensures that car parking is never going to be plentiful there so taking the bus seems a sound proposition and you get to save on parking and other charges too.
The incident does highlight a problem for bus drivers: their vehicles are large and all it takes is one inappropriately parked car or van to obstruct when road space is none too plentiful anyway. The town of Macclesfield has only recently gained traffic wardens and, whatever some may say, it really does need to be said that they have their use. If anything makes people think about where they are parking and whether an obstruction would be caused, then it only can be a good thing.
On fellow passengers
In Buses, Trains on November 4, 2008 at 5:52 pmOne of the things that is part and parcel of using public transport is having to share the same space with others. I don’t know if it is more prevalent these days but there are always some who bring there noise with them. It could be the young person at the back of a bus playing their music aloud rather than containing it in earphones or a group of lads engaging in loud banter on a night out (I encountered the latter while coming home from the Lake District last Saturday and some clearly were disturbed by it; some cringeworthy behaviour was on display when the train conductor was trying to get them to buy tickets, particularly by one individual who was “trying it on”). There are other examples of course but, when you fancy a peaceful journey, either of these could have you reaching for the personal music player (iPod?) or heading to a quieter part of a train. I suppose that our own tolerance of other people’s behaviour should temper our own so that we behave like we would like others to do. Maybe, if we all learnt that lesson, then using public transport could be a far more pleasant experience for all.
Buses can and do break down
In Buses, Incidents on November 3, 2008 at 4:37 pmBuses are like any machine: they can and do break down. It does need to be said that they are reliable for most of the time but, people being people, having a breakdown when you are in a hurry is the last thing that you need and some can vent their frustration at this too. Of course, the same comments equally apply to car ownership and usage.
If your journey is of the leisure variety, things aren’t so bad; you just alter your plans like I did when visiting the Lake District on Saturday. I was already running late thanks to thoughtless folk on the railway in Manchester and so was encouraged by the sight of the Stagecoach bus operating the 505 to Coniston. However, it had broken down so any thoughts of heading to the Coniston fells had to be placed on hold. I instead went on an out and back walk from Windermere train station itself and had an enjoyable day. Having had a number of ideas in mind meant that a broken down bus was never going to spoil a wonderful day.
I also use buses on the daily commute and the Arriva-operated 130 Macclesfield-Manchester service is the one that mainly serves my needs but it uses buses that are between 10 and 15 years old so the occasional missing bus can be attributed to a breakdown. I saw one broken down outside my house one evening and it did take some time for mechanics to appear and set it on its way again. Thankfully, new buses are coming to Manchester so we might be getting the ones that they are displacing and they would be newer than what is now plying the 130 route. I have never been on a 130 when it broke but the same could not be said of one occasion of using the 27 Knutsford-Macclesfield service when an Iveco minibus stopped up and we needed to wait for another to come and rescue us. Those buses are long gone and the 27 seems to be a paragon of reliability these days.
Having a mechanical failure in the right place helps if your journey is to continue without too much disruption. It’s not so good when it takes an hour or like the time when a bank holiday journey from Oban ended in the early hours of the next morning because of a missing Scottish Citylink coach from Fort William to Glasgow. Another Scottish Citylink case and a near miss was my witnessing the elements of gearbox trouble on an early morning 916 Glasgow-Fort William-Uig Scottish Citylink coach service; it didn’t inspire much confidence, especially given that this was on the edge of Rannoch Moor at the time. Switching the engine on and off was enough to restore progress though. That was unlike a rail-replacement coach service from Glasgow to Carlisle when gearbox failure stopped us in our tracks on the side of the M8; we were put on another vehicle very quickly if my memory serves me correctly. Quick rescue was also assured when a Dublin Bus vehicle operating the 67 between Celbridge and Dublin malfunctioned because we were on a busy thoroughfare. Quick rescue is one thing but it can fill up a following vehicle very quickly like when a Citylink coach on which I was travelling from Oban to Glasgow picked up West Coach Motors passengers from a failed 926 Campbeltown-Glasgow coach. Luckily, there was also a Citylink coach plying the same route and that took its share too.
I may have collected up a good number of incidents here but that is because I have been a heavy user of bus and coach services for over a decade. Bus mechanical failures remain rare and, with mobile telecommunications being so pervasive, help is always easy to contact even if it takes a little while to come. Allowing a bit of slack on the time front and possessing a modicum of patience can get us all through whatever gets thrown at us.
