On Trains & Buses

Since Sunday, there has been a very noticeable thaw. That’s not to say the snowy blanket is in marked retreat but that any that is lying on Macclesfield pavements is reducing and roads are staying clear or are clearing. The lack of severe frosts over the last few nights only  can have helped. Bowers is providing an ever more complete service over its routes (amyone travelling between Macclesfield and Buxton needed to go around by Whaley Bridge when I last looked) and Arriva’s services around Macclesfield seem to be running OK from what I can see. The same statement applies to train services too.

More snow is forecast but this will be of the Atlantic variety so there is a chance that it will not stall what is a slow thaw; there may be disruption like what affected Ireland in recent days (bus services around Cork and Kerry were affected) but that may be part and parcel of things generally warming up. With all the snow that is lying, it is best not have a fast rise in temperature or we will have transport disruption due to flooding. So, it might be better to have a slow clearance than a fast one, especially in hill country where places are heavily plastered with the white stuff. I, for one, will be taking things as they come and it is looking as if places may be slippery on the way to our more usual maritime mix of weather.

Yesterday saw me travel over to Derbyshire to see how things were over there. The hills between Macclesfield and Buxton were thickly plastered with snow but the A537 was clear on the way over though drifting snow was starting to cover it and cut down on visibility at the same time. It must have disimproved after that because the return journey on Bowers service 58 went around by Whaley Bridge on the return journey that evening. It was the 17:05 that I was using and doubts surfaces were surfacing regarding the running of the service and an enquiry of the helpful driver of the inbound service 61 from Glossop set things to rights after she rang the depot for information. That’s not to say that there weren’t confused passengers on board when the bus started to go a different to what was expected. Even so, we all got back to Macclesfield intact and that’s what’s important.

After spending some time enjoying the sunny snowscapes around Buxton, I popped over to Bakewell on the Transpeak service (the return wasn’t cheap at £5.80, it has to be said). Whiteness remained pervasive and the bus stuck to the A6 apart from serving Ashford-in-the-Water. Having come all the way from Manchester, it was running 10 minutes but that can happen on any day.

In general, there was a good supply of buses running in both Buxton and Bakewell but the story doesn’t look so good today. The only Bowers service running is the 61 between Glossop and Buxton so road conditions mustn’t have stayed as they were after more snowfall. Even trains running between Manchester and Buxton have been affected and drifting snow has been the given cause. A combination of more snow and it drifting about cannot be easy conditions within which to be working.

Around Macclesfield, there seem to be signs of a thaw and the 130 was out when I braved the conditions when I tried out my bike (most places were fine but I learned to keep away from steeper cambers and to keep a good tyre footprint on the road; any sliding was arrested by placing a foot on the ground so there was no bump of any kind). As I write this the sky is full of cloud and there has been the occasional flake of snow but tonight and tomorrow may tell tales yet. The cold spell is far from over so it’s a case of taking things day by day.

When snow came down on us, the frailities of the U.K.’s transport information provision systems was apparent for all to see. It was that which showed the best side of microblogging services like Twitter. In that vein, here are the Twitter areas occupied by the train companies forming part of the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) that itself runs National Rail Enquiries. It we get more snow during this big freeze, then these would be the places to turn for train running information.

• Arriva Trains Wales
• c2c
• Chiltern Railways
• Cross Country
• East Midlands Trains
• First Great Western
• First Transpennine Express
• Gatwick Express
• Grand Central
• Heathrow Express
• Hull Trains
• London Overground
• MerseyRail
• Northern Rail
• ScotRail
• Southeastern
• Southern
• Stansted Express
• Virgin Trains

Yesterday proved to be a very busy day on this part of the web with the site statistics showing it was the busiest day that it ever had. In contrast, it is a much quieter place this morning with visitor numbers being more usual. It would seem that the same could be said for buses around Macclesfield. There was a very late 130 but that can happen on any day with Knutsford, Bollington and Macclesfield town services being out and about. Only for the snow that was on the ground in places and the need to clear and grit some areas, it could have been any other day. Of course, another dump of snow could change things and the A537 between Macclesfield and Buxton remains shut, resulting in a diverted service 58 (it’s not the only alteration to Bowers services in Derbyshire). A weekend foray into the hills remains tempting but transport considerations come into play as does the need for items like snowshoes. We’ll see what comes next.

Update @15:40: Service 58 between Buxton and Macclesfield now seems to be running as usual so the A537 must have been cleared to facilitate this.

After its nearly grinding to a halt over the last few Arriva finally changed its website to deliver at a glance service running information in a format that is more server friendly. From the performance point of view, that seems to have done the trick and gives you a sense of what is happening very quickly.

What this reveals is that what is needed is a central repository of general bus running information for challenging weather conditions like those that we are having now. Currently, it’s mainly a case of going to each operator and seeing what they tell you. For Britain, Traveline would be ideal for this role but it now depends on where you are. Scotland, Wales and the North East of England (includes Cumbria for some reason) do well but the English North West and West Midlands are not set up for this at all.

Maybe, it’s something on which they need to work. If they don’t fancy doing all the technical work, then further feeding their Twitter presence might be in order. Bowers/Centrebus are an excellent example of what can be done as is what National Rail Enquiries is doing. Then, there’s Northern Rail and Arriva Trains Wales (perhaps ironic given the experience of the U.K. bus side of the business) too and there may be more out there on the real-time web than this so it’s well worth a look. Short, pithy updates will do so long as we know what’s happening.