News Snippets
First Manchester has published details of their Easter weekend services. On the bank holidays, it mainly is a Sunday service with some special timetables to and from the Trafford centre as well as between Rochdale, Bury and Bolton. Journeys between Uppermill and Huddersfield are operated to a special timetable on Good Friday. Otherwise, bus services are as per any other weekend. The same sort of comment can be extended to Easter services from First Calderdale and Huddersfield too with Sunday service being the mainstay of their Easter bank holiday operations too.
Disruption to all Stagecoach services around South Shields is expected on Good Friday due to Procession of Witness.
London Midland train services are affected by engineering work around Watford over the Easter weekend and have posted details for passengers. Virgin Trains are similarly affected and they have gone with a cheery “spanner in the works” heading for their Easter weekend travel information. However, I seem to remember their station staff issuing a “think before you travel” style message that sounded a little more sombre in tone. Mind you, there was a fatality on the railway near Hemel Hempstead so that may be an explanation. My condolences got to the family of the deceased.
Returning to details of other travel changes over the coming weekend, National Rail Enquiries is a central port of call. The alterations include those affecting Abellio Greater Anglia. For instance, there will be no direct train service between London Liverpool Street and Ingatestone or Wickford on both Easter Sunday and Easter Monday.
It can be expected that Cheshire bus services mainly operate to Sunday timetables on Good Friday and Easter Monday. There may be some exceptions so there is little harm in checking individual on bus services.
D&G run bus services across Cheshire and Staffordshire so they have released details of their Easter weekend services. This information is all the more important given that they took over BakerBus earlier this year (Bakers Coaches still trade as an independent company and I remember seeing one of their former drivers working around Macclesfield for GHA, wondering why he moved company; now, I know why).
The Cheshire East Council bus timetable page has changed from a previously more comprehensive collection of information to one that links to timetables on operator websites and it has left out Monday to Friday service 87 between Macclesfield and Congleton too. Thus, it is useful to have an archived copy to see how things used to be. The bus service changes page is a shadow of its former self too so I hope that changes over the coming months.
Update 2015-04-16: The changes page has got a little more tidying so the presentation looks better and is clearer too.
Merseytravel has published their summary of Easter bus, train and ferry services around Merseyside as a PDF file. Main train service differences are on Merseyrail as well as being caused by engineering works around Manchester Victoria over the whole Easter weekend. It looks as if individual bus timetables need checking for their running times though there are some trends.
First Potteries have shared details of their bus services for all of the bank holidays in April and May. Good Friday sees a Saturday service and it mainly is a Sunday service on other bank holidays, albeit with an hourly service to Stone on route 23.
On the last Sunday of the month, Lothian Buses are introducing a number of service changes. Most are minor but some services such as on route 43 are seeing withdrawals. On a more positive note, others like service 5 are seeing frequency increases. There route changes around Penicuik and Tranent as well as NightBus improvements. Put together, there are a lot of changes so a look on a bus time planner might be no bad idea even with the summary information that is available.
With the way that Cheadle gets clogged with traffic, a new road between the A6 and Manchester Airport may be what is needed and there is one coming, at quite a cost though.