Scotland still is catching the brunt of storm force winds and heavy rain as I write this. Bridges are shut (Tay, Erskine and Forth) and public transport services heavily affected. West Coast Motors are not running buses in Oban and Bute; the latter being due to a power failure. Sticking with the west of Scotland, the last Scottish Citylink departure for Fort William has been cancelled and that tells its own story. Glasgow and Edinburgh too have seen service changes as operators struggle with the weather. Even with that, most services seem to be running and keeping an eye on announcements from the likes of First Glasgow or Lothian Buses would be no bad idea.
Trains do not seem to have got too badly though there were some line closures around Glasgow earlier. Nevertheless, tomorrow will see the aftermath of what is battering Scotland so things may not be operating as smoothly as usually is the case. After all, there has been some structural damage done to buildings and infrastructure with a wall falling on a car in Aberdeen. At times like these, the only hope that can be expressed is that everyone is safe.
Update: National Rail Enquiries have on their website a page describing train running in the current adverse weather conditions. It looks as if there is more disruption than what I suggested above, such as between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. There’s quite a list of cancellations there with services such as the Caledonian Sleeper from Fort William and local ones around Glasgow being examples.
Update 2012-01-03: Yet another storm has hit Scotland again and with much the same effects too.
Tags: Aberdeen, Argyll, Bute, CrossCountry, Edinburgh, First, Fort William, Glasgow, Lothian Buses, Oban, Rain, Road Conditions, Scotland, Scotrail, Scottish Citylink, Scottish Highlands, Storm, Trains, Weather, West Coast Motors, Wind
It now appears that the current economic climate and the curtailments in public spending have affected two companies based not too far away from where I live. The first is the merger of the operations of Bowers and the Trent Barton depot in Dove Holes near Buxton. Apparently, Centrebus and Trent Barton are embarking on a joint venture that is to be based in Dove Holes with the Chapel-en-Frith depot looking set to close. The name for the new company is to be High Peak and is to grace the roads of Cheshire as well as Derbyshire since Bowers run quite a few services around Macclesfield and Knutsford. The 199 Buxton-Stockport-Manchester Airport route is another one that is bound to be moved to the new company and that means that Greater Manchester will be included among the areas served too. The long distance Transpeak service between Manchester, Buxton, Derby and Nottingham is to stay operating like it does today with the Dove Holes depot staying in use as the northern base. It is going to take time for the changes to come into place but this autumn could see the first signs of the merger once the reorganisation along with the paperwork and authorisations that it entails have been completed.
In another development, D&G has felt the effects of bus subsidy cuts made by Stoke-on-Trent City Council. That situation must have made an approach by Arriva regarding acquisition of D&G’s North Staffordshire business look very attractive. The result is that Arriva is buying it to build up Wardle Transport, a subsidiary that it has in the area. After the sale, D&G will continue to trade from Crewe and its sister company in the West Midlands, Midland, is unaffected by the change.
The announcements for both of these changes mentioned the reality of a more challenging trading environment. This is the more pertinent for D&G because one of it founders set it up after the Labour party’s landslide election victory of 1997 in the hope of the then new government increasing the funding for bus services, something that actually did happen. Now that the proverbial pendulum is swinging in the other direction, we are seeing signs of consolidation and, in some unfortunate cases such as McKindless in Glasgow (once Scotland’s largest independent bus operator), company failures. While there can be no doubt that the bus business is facing a changed environment, it might have its upshots too with higher fuel costs and a reduced standard of living making families’ having an extra car more expensive than it was. If that were to increase bus patronage, it could compensate for the reductions in public spending but only time will tell whether or not that comes to pass, especially with some councils such as Northamptonshire having some very draconian proposals.
Tags: 199, 27, 300, 58, 60, 64, Arriva, Bowers, Buses, Buxton, Centrebus, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Cheshire, Connect 19, Crewe, D&G, Derby, Derbyshire, Dove Holes, England, Glasgow, High Peak, Macclesfield, Manchester, Manchester Airport, McKindless, Midland, Northamptonshire, Nottingham, Prestbury, Spending Cuts, Staffordshire, Stockport, Stoke-on-Trent, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Transpeak, Trent Barton, Wardle Transport, West Midlands, Whirley
Out of curiosity, I decided to explore the Megabus website for the U.K. and it surprised me to see how low some of their prices were. Apparently, there’s a seat sale on at the moment too so that may explain some of those less than £5. However, it’s easy to see the attraction of what aren’t so infrequent services from Manchester to places such as Leeds, Birmingham, Glasgow and London. With the recent increases in train fares, even a ticket costing less than £20 has to look tempting. Is that why the though of savouring their services to see what they’re like has entered my head?
While checking out express coach services, I also decided to take a look at what Greyhound offers to the U.K. traveller these days and it looks as if things have expanded beyond the London services to the south coast of England with which they started. For instance, regular services between Cardiff and Swansea are now on offer with the frequency making them look like the Welsh version of the Scottish Citylink service between Edinburgh and Glasgow or the National Express one between Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool. It looks a good move forward and I hope that it’s attracting a good level custom. Also coming within the Greyhound fold is the overnight service between London and Scotland (Hamilton, Glasgow, Edinburgh) that First Glasgow took over from Silver Choice. All the while, it’s south of England tally of destinations increases with Winchester being a recent addition to those like Portsmouth, Poole, Southampton, Bournemouth, Fareham, Ringwood (for the New Forest) and the Isle of Wight. All in all, Greyhound is growing in Britain so there must be some success being had somewhere. Maybe the attractive prices might have something to do with it because I did glimpse a few going for £1 plus booking fee.
All in all, it looks as if express coach travel might be on the up and it would not be a bad thing if a decent network built up in England and Wales, even if it meant travelling with different operators on a single journey. The looming increases in train fares are presenting an opportunity and I wonder if anyone is out there waiting to take it. Now mightn’t be a bad time to spend a little longer travelling in order to save a little cash when it is a scarcer commodity than used to be case a few years ago.
Tags: Bournemouth, Cardiff, Coaches, Edinburgh, England, Fareham, First, Glasgow, Greyhound, Hamilton, Isle of Wight, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Megabus, National Express, New Forest, Poole, Portsmouth, Ringwood, Scotland, Scottish Citylink, Southampton, Stagecoach, Swansea, Ticketing, Wales, Yorkshire
Some may complain that it has the feel of a rough and ready engineering firm that you’d find in a remote corner of the Britain or Ireland but First have had a sizable presence in the express coach market alongside their more mainstream bus and train operations for a while now and you cannot maintain that by being sloppy. In the U.K., there are National Express contracts and the overnight London-Scotland services acquired from Silver Choice earlier this year. In addition to the latter, there also to seem to moves afoot to steal clothes from Stagecoach Express around Glasgow. Crossing to Ireland, there’s Aircoach and I wonder if that operation has taught them a thing or too. Continuing west, over the Atlantic in fact, their efforts to grab a piece of the American yellow schoolbus market brought with them the iconic U.S. express coach operator, Greyhound. With the creation of BoltBus, it is clear that things haven’t stopped there with the American operations and expanding in the U.K. is never something to which they are averse either. The result of that seems to be the introduction of the Greyhound brand over here for services operating between London and England’s southern coast. On that evidence (spotted in today’s Guardian), it looks as if the beleaguered National Express may have yet another woe coming its way with one of its contractors turning to (further) competition. It already has to contend with Megabus and you do have to ask if First is seeing a future bereft of the debt-laden operator following its moves towards a NEG takeover bid. Staying with the topic of questions, the arrival of Greyhound does leave me wondering if those overnight Anglo-Scottish services may yet carry the brand. Well, I might have started with that one…
Tags: Aircoach, BoltBus, Coaches, First, Glasgow, Greyhound, Ireland, London, Megabus, National Express, Portsmouth, Scotland, Southampton
The past weekend saw me fit in a short foray to Scotland and rail engineering work has started to return some thoughts to my mind that have lain dormant for a while and then developed them. The main cause of this was the non-running of trains between Lockerbie and Glasgow or Edinburgh because of work on the line. The result was that I got sent around by the more expensive East Coast mainline on a journey commencing from Macclesfield. Does going around by York add that much to the mileage?
Of itself, that escapade has prompted thoughts regarding the differences in fares between the West Coast and East Coast mainlines. Some vague recollection has left me with the impression that the former is subsidised with the latter being treated as a sort of cash cow. However, it would make for a great display of forward thinking if West Coast tickets were to made valid for journeys along the East Coast whenever engineering works took place. Going beyond this again, it might be an even better idea if fare harmonisation meant that an East Coast journey cost the same as a West Coast one. In the eyes of some, that may seem like adding a new idiosyncrasy to a system that already is illogical in parts. Others may decry the idea of fare increases while more would appreciate the decreases. All in all, having the extra flexibility could be worth it.
Saying all of that, the tide seems to be going the way of inflexibility these days so another crazy idea of mine might never see the light of day either: tickets allowing you to go via either Edinburgh or Glasgow on journeys going further north. Though it doesn’t happen so often these days, there have been occasions in the past when I wished to go via Edinburgh and return via Glasgow or vice versa but the need of single tickets for each precluded the scheme. Then, I was prone to going by coach from Scotland’s central belt so the idea of a “Central Belter” ticket allowing the use of either Edinburgh or Glasgow on inbound or return journeys often appealed.
Would either of the above wild daydreams yield an increase in visitors to Scotland using the railways? I don’t know the answer to that one but having the freedoms granted by their implementation would be no bad thing. Otherwise, the thoughts of the inconvenience induced by what I assume are very necessary rail engineering works are enough to get you wondering about the prospect of going by National Express coaches instead. Add the cost of travel into the equation and the coach option starts to look more promising, enough to make you wonder why the service level isn’t better than it is.
Tags: Coaches, Edinburgh, Glasgow, National Express, National Express East Coast, Railways, Scotland, Trains, Transpennine Express, Virgin
