On Trains & Buses

Skiing season is well under way in the Canadian Rockies, so Golden Shuttle is offering services between Calgary Airport and Golden and between Golden and Kicking Horse Mountain Resort. Timetables are online too for you to check when buses depart and arrive. If they did something similar during the hiking season, that would be of keen interest to me as a non-driver.

Two D&G Bus services are changing on 2024-02-05. Bus times during the middle of the day on weekdays remain unchanged. Specific details follow.

31 Crewe - Northwich: Some morning weekday journeys run earlier, and some afternoon journeys run later, as extra time is allowed where they have been experiencing traffic congestion, particularly around Leighton Hospital and Winsford. There is now an additional weekday evening journey between Winsford and Crewe. All Saturday bus times are unchanged.

37 Northwich - Crewe: Some morning weekday journeys run earlier, and some afternoon journeys run later, as extra time is allowed where they have been experiencing traffic congestion, particularly around Sandbach and Winsford. Some early evening journeys that currently terminate in Sandbach have been extended to Crewe. Apart from one early evening journey between Winsford and Sandbach, all Saturday bus times are unchanged.

In Japan, there is what they call a new Golden Route between Tokyo and Osaka that goes via Hokuriku on the Japan Sea coast. This is for use by tourists when exploring the area served by the new link and there even is a multi-day travel pass, the Hokuriku Arch Pass. This is cheaper to buy outside of Japan, so the target market appears to be visitors from overseas.

ASLEF announced strike action for the following train operators and days:

2024-01-30 - Gatwick Express, Great Northern, SWR, Southeastern, Southern, Thameslink

2024-01-31 - Northern, TransPennine Express

2024-02-02 - c2c, Greater Anglia, LNER

2024-02-03 - Avanti West Coast, EMR, London Northwestern Railway, West Midlands Railway

2024-02-05 - Chiltern Railways, CrossCountry, GWR

2024-02-05 to 2024-02-09 - LNER

An overtime ban also will affect these train operators between 2024-01-29 and 2024-02-06. For LNER, there will be another overtime ban between 2024-02-07 and 2024-02-10.

Recently, I had a journey with EMR go wrong because of a train breakdown. Only shortly beyond Sheffield station, we had to turn back, and the journey was delayed by around an hour. When I came to claim compensation for the delay, the process was straightforward thanks to having PDF copies of the tickets. It also was very prompt with the money going back into my PayPal account. Though the journey had not been the best, the customer service afterwards cannot be faulted.

The RMT dispute with the English train operators has ended while other negotiations continue. The legislation for minimum service levels is coming into effect too. However, the ongoing ASLEF actions continue and more could follow. How things will look around Christmas and New Year remains to be seen. There is more hope than this time year, though.

Here is a brighter place on the web to go looking: Sardinia’s Green Train. The website is in Italian, but we have translation tools for the likes of that these days. The routes go through a scenic sun-blessed island in the Mediterranean that may offer a much-needed mid-winter escape.

There now appears to be some hope in the RMT dispute with train companies in England, but the ASLEF action is ongoing. In early December, there will be strikes affecting operators as follows:

2023-12-02: EMR & LNER

2023-12-03: Avanti West Coast, Chiltern, Great Northern, Thameslink, LNWR & West Midlands Trains

2023-12-05: c2c & Greater Anglia

2023-12-06: Southeastern, Southern, Gatwick Express & SWR

2023-12-07: CrossCountry & GWR

2023-12-08: Northern & TransPennine Express

Additionally, there is a general overtime ban in place from 2023-12-01 to 2023-12-09, inclusive.

During the summer, it seemed as if most train station ticket offices were set to close. Today, the government abandoned this in the face of public opposition. This is much needed good news and proves that a government seemingly hell-bent on being unpopular does follow the public will at times. If this could be extended to other matters, life might feel a little better than it does right now. As things stand, a change of government still is much needed.

Recently found Busbud, a website for booking express coach and rail services in different countries. Canada is its home country, but coverage includes US and UK, among numerous other places. With all the diversity around the world, this has to be useful for anyone finding their way around it all.