On Trains & Buses

Bollington once had its train station on a railway that extended from Marple to Macclesfield. That is no more and much of the route of that railway is the Middlewood Way, a recreational cycling route between the two places formerly connected by a train line. Some of the alignment near Bollington has a truck depot across it and more of it may have been used for the Silk Road feeding the A523 into Macclesfield from Hazel Grove.

That former railway also served Higher Poynton and the platforms remain and get used as picnic areas by passing walkers, cyclists and equestrians. However, Poynton still has a train station while Bollington doesn’t. That means that residents of the latter need to get to Macclesfield or Prestbury since they have the nearest train stations. Of the two, it is the former that has the more trains due to its being a principal station on the West Coast Mainline.

Given the latter fact, it’s just as well that there is a plentiful supply of bus services connecting Bollington to Macclesfield. The 10 and 10A are the main ones with the first of these offering a half-hourly frequency during daytimes from Monday to Saturday. The latter runs all day on Sundays and lost its subsidy last year, thankfully without any reduction in service frequency. The equivalent Monday to Saturday evening services are set to lose their council funding next month and vigorous campaigning on the part of Bollington Town Council have Arriva trying it out as a commercial operation. Hopefully, a good level of support from residents will see it continue as it does on Sundays.

There’s a service 11 to Kerridge too that adds to those going towards the Happy Valley, as Bollington is known due to having good mill owners in its industrial heyday. It doesn’t go the full length of the town but turns from the main road partway. It is a Monday to Saturday daytime operation with an hourly frequency. The operator is BakerBus on a council contract and it escaped attention during the 2012 cuts. Before BakerBus, Bostocks had the contract and Arriva had it before them again.

The last bus service for mention passes through Bollington on its way from Macclesfield to Stockport, the 392. The frequency is two-hourly and it too is operated by BakerBus on a council contract. The withdrawal of the 391 in Poynton means that it hasn’t escaped the current cuts. From the beginning of March 2013, it is set to terminate in Hazel Grove, a disappointing development.

There once were Sunday bus services along the route of the 392. Last year’s cuts saw the end of them with the 108 between Stockport and Leek withdrawn. That had three journeys a day in each direction and made walks around Leek more a reality for the bus user. That, in turn, had replaced a Sunday 392 that ran on a similar frequency though the last 19:00 departure from Stockport was a pointless affair.

Bollington is well supplied with bus services and those who will fight to retain them too, the latter being an especially rare commodity in recent years in Cheshire East. They will need to continue their efforts, methinks. It helps that Bollington is a good place to visit thanks to its location among hills and all the things that happen there thanks to a sense of community that needs exporting to other parts of Cheshire.

The 130 bus service is one that I use regularly to get to and from work so I have a vested interest in seeing how its timetable will look next month. The latest round of bus subsidy cuts have taken their toll and only the Sunday service seems to have escaped. However, if there are any more funding reductions, it too could end up on Cheshire East Council’s cross-hairs. The same cannot be said for the rest of the week.

Today however, Arriva have registered changes to come into force for the end of next month and these have appeared on Cheshire East Council’s website. In their own way, they are quite extensive with lots of little reductions to come. The timetable has yet to become available but this is a flavour of what the changes are.

Monday to Friday services only see one change in the last departure from Macclesfield at 18:10 will terminate at East Didsbury instead of going all of the way into Manchester as it does now. This makes it like the 17:40 and means that the last two journeys of the day from Macclesfield are similarly curtailed so the more regular services offered by Stagecoach will be needed to continue further.

It is the Saturday services that see the bigger changes with the current 06:45 and 07:45 journeys from Macclesfield starting from East Didsbury instead. Also, the seemingly useful 18:35 departure is set to get axed too. Is this possibly another casualty of the abolition of the evening journeys between Macclesfield and East Didsbury? After all, it is unlikely that you will leave Macclesfield for a night out by bus if you cannot make it back in the same way. The last Saturday change is confusingly described but my take is that any journey currently starting from Brunswick Street in Manchester will start from East Didsbury instead.

Such is the extent of the change made by Arriva and D&G’s service withdrawal that a summary is in order. So, here are a few tables with service start and end times to show how savage the service cuts will be. Sunday evening services amazingly persist and show what has been lost for the other days, partially saving me the need to show how things are at the moment. Hopefully, they’ll save folk from getting caught out.

Towards Manchester Piccadilly Gardens (M) or East Didsbury (ED)

From Manchester Piccadilly Gardens (M), Brunswick Street (B) or East Didsbury (ED)

Last buses from Wilmslow to Macclesfield

Seeing all of the reductions leaves me wondering if we need to rethink the operation of the 130 to make it more sustainable. Splitting it has been a suggestion that cropped up in a comment on a previous post. After all, train services between Macclesfield and Manchester are such that buses over the equivalent road route are less attractive and the same has to be said for Wilmslow too. The merit of buses is that they connect intermediate points and those connections suffer whenever services are withdrawn to the extent that we are about to witness next month.

One thing that strikes me about bus services that have escaped unscathed such as the 200 between Wilmslow and Manchester Airport (now operated by GHA) is that they don’t much in the way of buses and drivers. Being able to have just a single bus and driver at a time seems to be the best recipe for keeping a service by the lucks of things. That was the intention of the timings for the evening 130 services between Macclesfield and East Didsbury but I now reckon that the length of the route still may have been too long for it to truly work as it should.

Following on from the above, I am coming to think that the 130 should be split. The Cheshire portion would be between Macclesfield and Handforth since that would take less than an hour to go one way according to the current timetable. Having a local operator who would stick with the route would be beneficial too since the level of commitment from either Arriva or D&G has done nothing to inspire confidence.

Though it proved very useful when train services between Macclesfield and Manchester were blighted by engineering works around a decade ago, I now wonder if keeping the route as it is now is a luxury that we cannot afford. My suggestion would mean that a gap needed sorting on the Greater Manchester end and it would be interesting to hear how that would look. Anything has to be better than a declining service level and apparently uncommitted operators.

The last time that I wrote about Cheshire East’s forthcoming bus service cuts, there still were a few details outstanding and these have come to light today along with more that I wasn’t expecting. One of those details that were outstanding were the Saturday morning journeys on the 130 Macclesfield to Manchester operated under contract by Arriva. Things remain as they are for the 06:45 and 07:45 journeys from Macclesfield and the 07:44 one from Handforth until January 27th of next year. Beyond that the journeys are set to get curtailed but we’ll need to see a new timetable to get the full story though my suspicion is some will start from Wilmslow given that terminating journeys there has been a feature of the service in recent years.

Other details from Arriva include running the Monday to Saturday Macclesfield town services 5 and 6 commercially until 22:00. There were changes coming and this is the form that they were taking. Commercial operation also is coming the Crewe to Chester service 84 with a next to ninety minute service frequency for services along the full route with the last departure from Crewe at 21:35. A 23:00 from their to Nantwich also will operate and the last service from Chester is set to run at 23:05. If only we had something similar for the equivalent services on the 130 route.

The mention of the 130 brings me to Wilmslow with faces becoming something of a bus service desert in evenings and Sundays. Handforth will be similarly affected too since the 130 serves both. However, it is the forthcoming withdrawal of 378 journeys on evenings and Sundays that really will quieten things in both places. Transport for Greater Manchester are covering the cost of the current service level until April 6th, 2013 when there is a contract changeover. That may allow a temporary reprieve but services are set to terminate on Grove Lane after that.

While on the subject of Stockport services, the 390 Bramhall - Poynton - Stockport one is to be reviewed with a planned change date of 28th January 2013. If they do happen to survive, it cut alleviate the curtailment of the 392 and 393 services at Hazel Grove. While that may sound promising, it’s best not to get too hopeful given recent experiences.

The only details that are outstanding now will be answered on seeing bus timetables. Scheduled public services has caught it in the neck this year while it was the turn of school-bus services last year. This year, most of them are making the transition to commercial services though the 108 from Leek to Fallibroome School is being truncated to start from Macclesfield. losing one of those journeys and a one that could have been useful to commuters if timings at the other end of the day were more sensible.

Now, all that really is left is to wonder at what faces us in the future. After all, there is the current Cheshire East Council overspend and tomorrow brings the reality of the Autumn Statement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. 2011’s bus service cuts looked more like trimming the edges but those in 2012 and 2013 are going further and it is starting to look very austere in deed now. If we are looking at more of the same next year, then any reductions will be even tougher again. Hopefully, any campaigning would be more energetic that it was this year.

The mention of lack of campaigning apart from the good folk of Bollington brings me to wondering if it might be possible to reintroduce lost services in the future when the economic outlook is better and public finances have recovered. Keeping a log of lost services might be a useful reference point should opportunities arise. With a story in the media about car use peaking and what the current situation is doing to people’s finances, it is tempting to think that a bit of risk taking on the part of bus companies would get us somewhere. After all, there was a lack of that on display from some in recent months and D&G comes to mind when I think of it. Bus services have had a rough ride in Cheshire East in the last two years and we could do with a boost.

Today has turned out to be a disruptive day to be travelling. Flooding has been the main problem and tomorrow is said to bring its share of problems too. With that in mind, I decided to see if I could find which train companies used JourneyCheck as a place to look for live travel information. The list is below, with links to the actual JourneyCheck websites, and you’ll see that not every train company has one.

• Arriva Trains Wales
• c2c
• Chiltern Railways
• East Coast
• Great Western Railway
• First Transpennine Express
• Greater Anglia
• Hull Trains
• London Midland
• London Overground
• Northern Rail
• ScotRail
• South West Trains
• Southeastern

The websites of course are only good as the information that’s entered into them. Regarding the Northern Rail one, I have seen complaints about the train formation information (number of carriages, mainly) not being as good as it could be. Otherwise, they could have their use on days like today when you need more information than can be provided by a Twitter feed. If you use an RSS feed reader such as Google Reader, then they could be even more useful again. After all, with engineering works and station problems listed along with train running information, these look like good places to be looking while on the move.

After D&G’s service withdrawals, there is a sliver of good news from Arriva regarding town services in Macclesfield and the same applies to those linking the town with nearby Bollington too. The company is going to give running Monday to Saturday evening services on a commercial basis a go. The timetables for services 5 and 6 are set to change and we have yet to see what they will involve for residents of Weston and Upton Priory. The equivalent journeys to Moss Rose and Bollington are set to stay unaffected for now.

Of course, it is over to us to make use of what survives or it’ll get the axe too. That we are seeing an attempt to stick with offering services at all is a bit of brightness amid what else is happening on our patch and Arriva deserves some credit for that. It would have been rough for Macclesfield to lose town services when Knutsford is to see them continued unaffected and with council funding too. That prospect is not set to come upon us in January anyway and it will be patronage that drives whatever follows next.

However, there has been no news from Arriva today about the soon to be unsupported early Saturday morning 130 journeys from Macclesfield to Manchester though. Macclesfield and Wythenshawe depots seem to be operating separately so we still have to wait to see. Could something be happening to 130 evening services as well? There may be some good news for bus users around Macclesfield but I am not holding my breath just yet. A little more patience is needed but there’s not so much remaining to be revealed at this point. Once all is stable again, it might be time to treat Macclesfield to a summary of its public network like what I have done already for Knutsford and Wilmslow. It looks as if any remaining bus services could do with any extra publicity that I can provide.

Update 2012-11-19: It seems that a bit of arm-twisting was involved in keeping the evening services between Macclesfield and Bollington going, according to last week’s Macclesfield Express. Seeing some community intervention has to be a good thing and the next steps would be better promotion of the service. That Macclesfield town services are continuing too may be a result of the same type of pressure but there was no mention of that in the article. One only can wonder if greater community campaigning would have helped the soon to be lost evening journeys on the 130 (Macclesfield to Manchester), 38 (Macclesfield to Crewe) and 84 (Crewe to Chester). Maybe that’s something that we need to start, as belated as it would be at this stage.