For as long as I have known them, Lothian Buses has been an exact fare only operation with the machines to match. More recently, Dublin Bus has gone the same way. However, the usual norm is that most bus operators give change and even Scottish Citylink fit into this group; for the record, I am aware that they encourage you to book ahead on the web and prefer you to use e-Tickets and m-Tickets in place of the old fashioned method. Arriva also gives change on its buses but there have been occasions when the float isn’t up to the job and I met up with one of those yesterday morning on the 130. A vague memory of the same happening to me on a Sunday morning 38 to Crewe also resides in my mind and I have also seen a letter complaining about a similar situation with the same company in Buses magazine. While I accept that change is less plentiful on quieter services and you need to ensure that you aren’t tendering something ridiculous; Arriva perhaps reasonably does not accept £20 notes (in principle, it might be possible for weekly tickets and the like but I have never been brave enough to find out if this is the case) and I am sure that a £50 denomination is completely out of the question too. Returning to my experience, the driver looked forlornly at my tenner and we had to work it out another way. Thinking about it now, I am left wondering if there is an attempt of control operating costs by reducing the available float in these financially constrained times but there can always be a run on the amount of change available too, even with busier services and the 130 could be seen as one of them.
Tag Archives: Scottish Citylink
Why reserve a seat if unsure of your time of travel?
Sadly, those insulting thetrainline.com ads have reappeared. Personally, I like the flexibility of just turning up at a train station, buying a ticket for my journey and going on my way. In fact, I like that idea so much that I am willing to pay for it most of the time (saying that, when the cost passes £60, savings are often sought). Being called an idiot for wanting to things in this way is certainly not something that I appreciate and I can next to guarantee that the said company will not be getting my custom, at least not directly.
Apart from those appalling posters, another thing that brings the whole matter of Internet bookings to mind is my travelling on a train south from Aviemore a few weeks back. Many seats were reserved but most of these weren’t occupied. That may have been just as well for sake of travelling comfort but it prompted the thought in my mind as to whether those reservations were a “just in case” measure. The next step in musings has me wondering if a world where there was more more frugality in the booking of seats might be a better one. However, there is also the possibility that a decline in seat booking would result in less frequent services and shorter trains, something that could increase seat reservations and pop things back where they were before anyway. It all makes a seat reservation less useful than it ought to be. In reality, it is probably no bad thing to sit in such a spot until disturbed by the rightful occupant. After all, you only need to move away when asked. It may not make things user friendly for those reserving seats or be the sort of practice that is encouraged but it might be a minor irritation in the broad scheme of things.
While the railways still cut some slack and that is good when it comes to convenience, other modes of travel are far from being like this and I hope that the railways don’t follow suit. For one thing, they already compensate for a less than comprehensive express coach network in England that makes seat bookings a necessity. Wales now has its Trawscambria long distance bus network with Ireland and Scotland having none too shabby networks provided by Citylink, Ulsterbus and Bus Éireann. Airlines are run on a far tighter footing and you only need to note Ryanair’s closure of airport check in desks in favour of the online option and Aer Lingus’ passenger operated baggage check in facilities to see what I mean. They also overbook their aircraft which is not so nice but the expectation is that not everyone will make a flight. If the same sort of thinking started to pervade the railways, then that would be a very disappointing development.
Saying all of that, I don’t object to there being a need for bookings on services running at busy times. In fact, if you are tied to a train by an advance purchase ticket, then reserving a seat makes sense. For more flexible tickets (Off Peak and Anytime returns come to mind), the logic of that argument may not be so strong, hence my appeal to only reserve your place when you are absolutely certain of travelling. Yes, I realise that stuff happens but there’s no need to devalue the seat booking by not turning up because it was only done just in case.
Rest and Be Thankful
I was up in Scotland over the weekend and got the chance to embark on a walk from Tarbet to a place called Rest and Be Thankful at the top of Glen Croe in Argyll. The full account of that excursion is best left for my hillwalking blog but it is sufficient to say that I got a few hours of sun on what later turned into a day on which nigh on incessant rain could attenuate one’s enthusiasm. Even with the soaking, it was still a good day out.
The name “Rest and Be Thankful” needs a spot of explanation given how odd it might appear. As far as I know, it dates from the days when cattle were routinely drive from the Highlands to the markets in the Lowlands. The place it describes is at the top of pass lying between Cairndow and Arrochar. Doubtless, a rest was needed after the ascent from the former and that may have something to do with the naming of the place. The fact that it could be sort of place where you might linger on a good day helps the understanding. Somewhat surprisingly given all of this, no one has ever thought to build an inn up there, particularly given what drovers enjoyed for their recreation. To this very day, the place is bereft of any facilities apart from a car park frequented by a canny mobile takeaway. I suppose that some would object to there being anything more than this so as to leave the area as near unspoilt as is possible with Forestry Commission plantations everywhere.
My real reason for mentioning Rest and Be Thankful on here is because of the bus stop arrangements. Though the possibility of hailing a Scottish Citylink 926 or 976 anywhere along its route so long as the stopping place is a safe one, the A83 makes the operation tricky with all of the said road’s twists and turns as it weaves its way through the hills. That is partly the cause of Glasgow bound coaches stopping using a lay-by at the other side of the road. Anyone embarking on a return trip to Rest and Be Thankful should be told of the arrangement but I was ignorant of this because I had walked there and hailed the coach from the obvious side of the road. Because the A83 is busy anyway, I was none too surprised to see where the coach went, even it meant a dash across the thoroughfare on my part. I then got the explanation of the stopping arrangements so I thought that I’d share them here in case anyone plans to do something akin to what I did.
Perhaps confusingly, the 926 and 976 are operated by West Coast Motors in their own livery. This follows a silly bus war last summer following Citylink’s decision to use Parks and Stagecoach in place of WCM, who had the work for quite a while. I have related the sorry tale already but I am glad that an amicable conclusion was reached by both sides. The timetable is back to where it was last winter and it’ll be interesting to see what is planned for the coming summer, though I reckon that the current economic climate could curtail any ambitious plans. Whatever happens, let’s hope that wasteful bus wars can be avoided for the foreseeable future.
A need for tagging luggage?
I was in Scotland over the weekend and made use Scottish Citylink’s coach services like I have done on a lot of previous trips up there. I can report pleasant experiences from using them on this time around but noticed something new: being asked to tag the rucksack that I had with me with name and address so that it could be identified later. This was a new one on me and the tag that I was given had both Scottish Citylink and Megabus branding so my guess is that it applies to both companies. In an age where a lot of luggage can look alike, any time spent at an airport carousel awaiting your bag or case will confirm this, you can see their point. Even so, National Express don’t seem to be bothering with such requirements for now anyway and I have never carried luggage on coaches, buses or trains that I couldn’t easily pick out afterwards. The pretty anonymous looking cases that I tend to use for airline travel are another matter entirely.
As it happened, I made two different journeys with Citylink and was only asked to tag luggage for one of them. The first journey made was from Glasgow to Ardlui and the second from Butterbridge (between Cairndow and Rest and Be Thankful) to Glasgow with a walk through hill country sandwiched between both of these. The outbound trip from Glasgow was operated for Citylink by Stagecoach and the return one used West Coast Motors as the contractor (hurrah for the sensible resolution to the summertime bus war). That luggage tagging was only mentioned for the outbound service might be because I was getting on the coach at Buchanan Bus Station and I was hailing the other coach from the side of the road in damper weather, hardly the sort of circumstances for ensuring compliance with the rigours of due process and procedure. Even so, the need to have you luggage tagged for Citylink and Megabus is still something to keep in mind, even if it isn’t applied consistently or other operators such as National Express don’t bother with the requirement.
Buses can and do break down
Buses 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.
