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.
Last week, the 18:39 130 bus service from Wilmslow to Macclesfield was early both nights that I happened to use it. It was an observation that set me to thinking whether we need a change of timetable for those times of year when the schools are not open. After all, it’s amazing quite the difference on the level of road traffic that you see at mid-term breaks compared the times leading up to and following them.
Some operators who mix in schoolbus services with their normal passenger workings do have different times of operation according to school term times and holidays. If you want some good examples of that, just take yourself off to the remoter reaches of Scotland. Argyll, Lochaber and Skye especially come to mind and it’s all down to the sparse population densities caused by history and geography.
Around more populous parts like Cheshire, it’s a different story because bus companies are not as dependent on schoolbus contracts for their businesses as happens around Argyll. You get the same service level for normal passenger workings regardless. What is the point of my piece is that variation in traffic levels have such a variation in bus journey times that I am left wondering if learning how timetables could be changed might be a good idea. There was a time when the I blamed the school run for all of this but I now recognise that there is more to the quietening of roads of this. In fact, it seems that timing of holidays from work by parents makes up the greater share of this.
Having different timetables for school term and holiday times sounds like causing a certain amount of upheaval for passengers but there are precedents for this in the form what is offered on bank holidays and around Christmas and New Year (sorry to mention those at this time of year, by the way). We have become accustomed to having different bus times for those occasions so why not have them more widely so long as bus companies don’t go using the exercise to curtail bus services as well. There is logistical overhead in doing this and some thought is needed when it comes to providing the timing information at bus stops. However, this is the sort of thing that goes on already and harmonising the term and holiday timings might even make it easier for the travelling public. These days, we have internet journey planners in the Traveline too and there’s also the ongoing GPS tracking of buses. All in all, the more that I think about instating school holiday bus timetables, I start to wonder if it hasn’t been suggested before.
Here are a few rural Welsh railways with websites devoted to their promotion. The information has been moved from elsewhere on the web during a spring clean so that it lives on. Hopefully, some can make use of this posting.
Conwy Valley Railway
It’s nearly ten years since I first travelled along this stretch of the National Rail network and guidebooks were issuing warnings about the future of the line. Then, an elderly diesel multiple unit was what plied the scenic route but more modern 150’s carry on the service these days. The operator has changed too with Arriva Trains Wales having taken over from a now-defunct First North Western in the intervening years. The website is a Conwy Borough Council microsite and very useful it appears too. So far, all those fears from a decade ago have proved unfounded though trains are replaced by buses in the winter months and there is the hourly X1 Llandudno-Blaenau Ffestiniog service operated by Express Motors on other days of the week too. With its passage through the pretty alluring countryside and its connections to the Ffestiniog narrow gauge railway, let’s hope that its future isn’t imperilled by an inclement economic climate or public spending cuts.
Heart of Wales Line
This website comes from the Heart of Wales Line Forum, one of several community rail partnerships in Britain, and it does look as if they promote a railway that needs it. Despite their best efforts, the service level comes to four trains each way from Monday to Saturday and two each way on Sundays. It’s a long rural line too as it winds its way from Craven Arms in Shropshire to its eventual destination of Swansea. Trains don’t start from or terminate at Craven Arms though because Shrewsbury is the actual northern terminus and I have seen the single carriage train that plies the line attached to a two-car set at Crewe on Sunday mornings. Now that I think of that, I wonder if it still is the arrangement even if a vague memory leaves me with the impression that it has changed. On the Welsh side of the border, the route does wind through at least one narrow valley before round the Brecon Beacons National Park, first to its north but then to its west. The latter has been planting ideas of exploring the park’s western reaches from this line though that has yet to come to pass. Well, it’s never any harm to have ideas in mind…
Update 2012-12-18: Having noticed that this post still is being visited by folk, I am left wondering if they are seeking information on what’s happening to the service in January 2013. If that’s the case, there’s another post that describes those details and is far more up to date than this one.
As someone who lives in Macclesfield yet works in Wilmslow, I am a regular user of Arriva’s 130 bus service. Therefore, it was of interest to me that new paper timetables were available in one of their buses one morning this week. At the time of writing, the new timetable doesn’t seem to have made it online yet. Therefore, it might be of interest to relate some of the main changes on here.
One of the more striking ones is the shortening of the 19:12 Monday-Friday journey from Manchester. This may be just one change among many but it does take away a journey option from bus users. In light of that, it wasn’t so good to hear a bus driver admitting to another passenger that it was his idea and very few used it anyway; ironically, eight passengers were travelling to Macclesfield that evening! While he went on about profit or the lack of it, I do wonder if someone fancied a shorter day anyway. Maybe that isn’t the case but I don’t know Arriva’s Manchester rosters so I cannot be certain. However, I was the only passenger on the 19:12 of another night so I could see where that driver was coming from though it might have been better to have heard them talk about profitability tempered by a sense of public service.
After that spot of overhearing, an interesting idea crept into my mind: how about only extending a late evening service to Macclesfield from Wilmslow or Alderley Edge when there are passengers who need it. It is something that I have seen Shiel Buses do in Scotland and it might curb all that travelling with empty buses on the 19:12 while not stranding passengers who happen to work a little later until the council-supported 20:40 Bakerbus from Parr’s Wood turns up to collect them. Another case where this could have been useful is for the 22:29 from Manchester of a Sunday. If passengers on the bus were to need to get to Macclesfield or others at Wilmslow wish to do so, then the bus would continue to go all the way. Otherwise, it would turn around and return to its depot. All in all, it might make an interesting accommodation that lies partway between having a service running unnecessarily and not having it at all.
With that forthcoming route shortening in mind, it might be an idea to look at railway alternatives to bus travel in the event of their being needed. After all, there have been times when the A34 has hit gridlock for one reason or another and it does make sense not to embark on a 2-hour journey home if it can be avoided. Then, there’s avoiding a wait in the cold when a bus does fail to pass the way. While it does look circuitous to go to Cheadle Hulme or Stockport to get from Wilmslow to Macclesfield, it can be quicker than a bus journey and there are tickets available for this too. However, these aren’t so cheap at £6.80 for a single though using cheap evening return tickets can cut the cost to £4.90 (£2.00 for Wilmslow-Stockport, £2.90 for Stockport-Macclesfield). In summary, it can be said that train travel is a more expensive alternative to the 130 though it does have its place as a very reassuring fallback.
Moving away from that disappointing curtailment, there seem to be timing changes all over the place to Arriva’s Monday-Friday services though the evening ones operated by Bakerbus under contract to Cheshire East Council will remain the same. There simply are too many to list here and you have to ask why. One stimulus might be the completion of the Nether Alderley bypass (the works around Monk’s Heath aren’t quite finished yet though they seem to have little impact on traffic whenever I am passing) though monetary pressures must be acting too. Nevertheless, Saturday and Sundays seem to stay untouched so that’s one less thing to check. So, here’s a scanned copy of the paper timetable for your consultation because the new times certainly will affect when I travel to and from work.
Arriva 130 Timetable (valid from 2011-03-13): Macclesfield-Manchester (File Size: ca. 2 MB).
When you are seeing timings like these and go comparing inbound and outbound journeys from termini, you do get to wondering about the dwell time between buses arriving and departing. Of course, that brings up questions about what happens to outbound services when the inbound ones get delayed. If this brings slippage from the current punctuality enjoyed before 09:00 on weekday mornings, then the online bus tracker will become even more useful than it already is and there may be reasons to go telling Arriva what is happening too. In the past, that has been known to have its effect so I hope that will be one change that we never come to see.
Last evening’s journey home turned out to be a hell of a lot more interesting than I expected. While I was aware of water mains works resulting in temporary traffic lights on the Wilmslow side of Alderley Edge, the one thing that I hadn’t expected was a road traffic accident to take place in the same area as well. Emergency services were on the scene with the telltale blue lights flashing atop their vehicles.
As a result, the bus driver turned around his bus and asked if anyone was going to Alderley Edge before going on to say that they needed to walk the rest of the way. However, the sight of moving cars prompted a protest from the one passenger who was affected. To placate him, the bus was turned around again but driver still decided that there was no way through for him and the annoyed passenger had no option but to leave at that point. Before this settlement was reached, some untoward comments about driving quality and another passenger decided to act as a mediator in order to bring the situation to a somewhat dignified close.
After that, the bus was again turned in the road and it seemed to be a difficult thing to do the second time around too. Alderley Edge wasn’t served and we were taken around the Alderley Edge by-pass instead. To the driver’s credit, we did call at Alderley Park even if we went the opposite way around to what is usual and passage over every speed bump was jarring. In the end, we all got home and that probably is more than could be said for anyone waiting in Alderley Edge; I don’t envy them one bit and I hope any injuries in that accident weren’t fatal or serious.
Update: Interestingly, I since discovered that the previous bus for Macclesfield got through the accident area to serve Alderley Edge. What was different when mine was passing? Did one driver see things differently from another or did something change between the passage of both vehicles (the second was 15 minute late too)? It is hard to answer those questions exactly so I’ll leave them open for now.