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Disturbance

The current round of snow is having quite an effect on the transport network in some places. Thankfully, Macclesfield doesn’t seem to be the worst hit though there must be a considerable snow covering on the hills not far from the town and Buxton cannot escape either. The A537/A54 are closed to traffic so things cannot be good up on the heights. If it’s like what we got at the start of the year, they’ll need snowblowers to clear roads.

Bowers are unable to offer the full service that they usually do and the 27 Macclesfield-Knutsford route was only operated for part of the afternoon and it looked as if the same applied to the 19 Macclesfield-Whirley-Prestbury service. They are based in Chapel-en-le-Frith so that cannot help them. It’s one thing to struggle to get buses out from a depot but it’s another if drivers cannot get there in the first place.

From the bus tracker, Arriva seems to be able to keep the 130 Macclesfield-Manchester service going though there are delays and thoughts of them persuaded me to work from home today. A look at their latest update conveys to me the impression that we are getting off more lightly than some other places. They have created a summary in PDF so as to stop people hammering the website like they did at the start of the year.

One look at an update for the north of England confirms that a number of places cannot be served by rail, even, and Northern Rail has details on its website too. Sheffield is but one badly hit area and a work colleague of mine has a foot of snow covering his garden! No wonder First cannot run buses around the city. Northumberland and parts of east Yorkshire are taking the brunt of the weather and the disruption by the appearances of things. All in all, it seems that the weather is getting the better of the railways in places.

Ireland may have a maritime climate but it too is feeling the effects of the cold spell. Though most trains are running (only Docklands station in Dublin is not getting a service this evening), if subject to delays, the Irish Rail website is getting hammered. That may be due in part to the problems that Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann are having. The former’s services stopped around 20:00 this evening and the latter has been struggling to run services up and down the east coast of the country, to point that 19:30 was the end of operations for the day on many of them. The severe weather pages of the Irish Department of Transport are another calling point for general information, particularly about road conditions and any gritting.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given its reputation, Scotland has got a right blast of the arctic conditions with even Edinburgh’s Lothian Buses being unable to offer a full service. The mixture of hilly terrain and hefty snowfalls must be at the heart of the problem but one only can imagine how much more challenging it is in the Highlands though train running problems are happening throughout Scotland.

Though numerous, what I have collected here is only a sample of what is happening out there. Maybe, it is too hard to keep on top of it all when you have a day job in another profession but I’ll see if I can share what I can on here.

A sign of spending cuts beginning to bite

28 Oct

From next April, North Yorkshire County Council, is planning to axe funding for all Sunday and evening bus services. A consultation is currently in progress that completes at the end of October (I’m just after discovering this on the Dalebus website; yes, I’m late to the party…). Apparently, they are trying to protect the weekday services but it seems excessive to ask if this is a good way to help save £600,000. After all, that hardly is a princely sum, is it?

The now defunct Cheshire County Council tried a similar thing with evening bus services during the 2001-2005 council and the response from the public was such that they largely abandoned their plans. That makes me wonder what those in North Yorkshire have been doing about this and whether those cuts are going to happen in their proposed form. Of course, the parlous state of the public finances are in play now, unlike the early noughties.

Apparently, the council does wish to protect their Monday to Friday daytime network but there is one factor that acts as an exposed flank: most people are at work when those services run. That particularly is the case in a largely urban area but North Yorkshire is very rural and then there’s the age profile of the population. A visit to Skipton a while ago on market day has had me wondering at how many older folk were going around with the aid of walking sticks. This has a part to play too and no one wants to isolate the vulnerable from essential services such as doctors and hospitals. Still, I am left wondering about those late evening appointments and how some would get home from them; would they be able to afford a taxi? Then, there are those who might need to get to and from work in the off time too. What are they going to do if these cuts become reality?

One thing always troubles evening, Sunday and bank holiday services and is the reason why they attract council subsidy: patronage or, rather, the lack of it. Some clearly have no advocates but it will be interesting to see how much agitation the Dalesbus group can muster. Maybe, when the Yorkshire Dales and Moors fill up with cars like other national parks, sense might prevail but only time will tell on that one. For now, it’s over to us users to defend what’s already there and maybe even combine to address any losses.

As for me, I am not sure what it means for those recreational visits to Yorkshire’s countryside. They only ever were recreational and any reduction in travel services is likely to curtail them more. It might be that I have had my fun and will need to cut my cloth according to my measure from now on. With that in mind, I am thankful for the enjoyable explorations that I have done.

2 Comments

Posted by John Hennessy on October 28, 2010 in Buses, Happenings, News, Timetables

Tags: Buses, Dalesbus, England, North Yorkshire County Council, Services, Spending Cuts, Subsidy, Timetables, Yorkshire, Yorkshire Dales

Carrying bikes on trains

05 Nov

Yesterday, I set down my observations and thoughts regarding carriage of bikes on buses. Perhaps naturally, my thinking has taken me into the area of carrying bikes on trains. On paper, that’s an easier proposition because most trains have some space set aside for bicycle storage. You may need to pay extra for carriage with a long distance express operator (Virgin Trains, for example) but it is included in the walk-on ticket price for most operators. The exceptions to this usual level of provision are some commuter services in the south-east of England where you have to sneak on folding bikes as luggage, a draconian state of affairs in my opinion.

Mind you, carrying any bike on a busy train is not the easiest thing to be doing. That’s what I faced when I needed to convey one from Skipton to Macclesfield in 2000. Thankfully, an obliging Northern Spirit train conductor allowed me carry it on even when there were bikes already on board and the DMU, like many, had only two spaces. Then, there was getting around Leeds station. There are lifts there now but this was before the major refurbishment that gave us what we see today and you needed a helpful station attendant to take you around use goods lifts and shop workers neglected to close the doors after them and the lift at platform level with us on the bridge! That made an already involved exploit a little more anxious than was needed. Saying that, I still caught my train to Manchester and another to Wilmslow due to rail engineering works. The Manchester changeover must have passed off with no trouble because I have no memory of it but getting from Wilmslow to Macclesfield involved a man with a very large taxi, a Ford Granada/Scorpio estate. If that wasn’t there, things would have been far more tricky.

That whole episode captures quite a few of the challenges that you have to overcome to get anywhere on the railways with a bike in tow. If there are engineering works, then you could be facing the obstacle that is the non-carriage of bicycles on buses or coaches. Even if there aren’t, there’s getting around train stations and Leeds is now both brighter and easier to get around than it use to be. Nevertheless, ticket barriers have been added and they are a new obstacle to be overcome that isn’t exclusive to Leeds since their use is spreading in the U.K. and beyond with Dublin’s Heuston Station now having them in Éire; thankfully, a certain amount of presence of mind has given us wide gates for those carrying wide articles with us. Finding space on a train is an ever enduring issue and may be one that is never resolved completely. In fact, modern trains have been getting less good at conveying luggage anyway, so much so that Virgin try to encourage you not to bring along too much; it is best not to attempt moving house by train then unless your worldly goods are none too numerous, not a situation in which I find myself anymore.

All in all, you can take a bike around with you on next parts of Britain’s railway network though there’s a spot of extra effort needed. It isn’t simply a matter of grabbing your bike and jumping on a train for a day out in the country. After a busy week of work, that may be sufficient to make you go for a walk instead and that’s partly how I got into hillwalking; the fear of punctures and mechanical failure hasn’t helped either. For a longer trip away or moving home to take up a new job like I was doing in the story above, the effort is worth it and does work. It just needs planning and patience rather than spontaneity. Saying that, the temptations of car use of bicycle hire are ever present too.

3 Comments

Posted by John Hennessy on November 5, 2009 in Observations, Trains

Tags: Éire, Bicycles, Cheshire, Dublin, England, Heuston, Leeds, Macclesfield, Northern Spirit, Rail Engineering, Rail Replacement, Railways, Skipton, Taxi, Trains, Virgin, Wilmslow, Yorkshire

Bikes on buses

04 Nov

I 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.

One way to stymie a train line

20 Oct

There are times when we get to wondering how much better things might be if history had turned out differently. Of course, it always could have turned out worse too so we need to be careful with our wishful thinking. In that vein, sticking with change the present for the better rather than wishing that the past was different is the better path to be taking.

What has taken me down this train of thought is the sight of an unused viaduct in Ingleton over the weekend. Until 1954, there was a railway line that served places like Ingleton and Sedbergh and the path that it took eerily shadowed the Settle-Carisle (Ribblesdale) line. In fact, that should never have needed to be built but for a dispute between two railway companies disrupting passenger travel arrangements and Ingleton’s viaduct was at the heart of the dispute, so much so that passengers needed to walk from Ingleton to Thornton-in-Lonsdale and there a railway connection between them! Just imagine if you will what the uproar this would generate today.

The outcome of all this was that the Ingleton-Sedbergh (Lonsdale) line became diminished in status with the Ribblesdale one taking over and surviving all attempts to close it (there were a few but it looks secure for now). In the former’s heyday, 6,000 folk descended on Ingleton of a day to wandering by its waterfalls. Mercifully, it’s a much quieter spot now and provides generous respite from the madness of modern life. If the Ribblesdale line never existed, the Lonsdale line might have survived and become the way to get to Yorkshire’s Three Peaks. You only can imagine how isolated places like Horton would feel with occasional bus services being the sole means of getting there; it could have made the Pennine Way feel so much more wild than it does. The Wensleydale line might still be there to allow trains to travel between Leeds and Carlisle via the East Coast Mainline.

All of this theorising might seem pie in the sky thinking but it’s decent fun to do stuff like this without taking it seriously and it allows an escape from the strictures of modern living for a little while too. It all goes to show how the non-existence of something bequeathed to us by history, even a single train line, can cause things to be so different. Taking out the Settle-Carlisle railway would have us going around by Lonsdale or Wensleydale rather the routes that we actually do take to get to immerse ourselves in peaceful countryside.

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Tag Archives: Yorkshire

Disturbance

A sign of spending cuts beginning to bite

Carrying bikes on trains

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