News Snippets
It has featured in a number of different news outlets by now, including the BBC and the Macclesfield Express, that Arriva is planning to close its depots in Macclesfield and Winsford on 2023-04-22. D&G Bus appears positioned to take over at least some of the routes. Given Arriva’s focus on revenue and the challenges of operating in largely rural and affluent area, the decision hardly comes as a surprise. It will be the end of an era and Cheshire East Council is cash-strapped at the moment, something that limits what it can do to remediate likely reductions in services.
For those wanting to get to Canadian Provincial and National Parks without using a car, Parkbus offers some useful travel options from Toronto and Vancouver. These do vary by season, but the destinations include Golden Ears, Garibaldi Provincial Park and Joffre Lakes Provincial Park in British Columbia while those in Ontario include Algonquin Provincial Park, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Georgian Bay Islands National Park, Elora Gorge, Rockwood Conservation Area, Rattlesnake Point and Crawford Lake.
Moraine Lake and Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada have been suffering under their popularity. Now, Parks Canada has banned the use of private vehicles on the approach to Moraine Lake year round. That may sound heavy, but oversubscribed car parks meant that the excursion was not such a viable one anyway. It means that human-powered travel as well as usage of shuttle, chartered or scheduled bus services are favoured. The move has attracted criticism, so we will need to see if that brings change.
Here are the details of the £2 bus ticket scheme in England that runs until the end of March. Operator participation is voluntary and not all routes are included so the list of both needs checking. Timing and extent do look like a half-effort, yet extending even what is available would be a boon to many.
There is a new pre-bookable seasonal bus service called Snowstang running between Denver and Breckenridge at the weekends during the skiing season in Colorado. Other locations are served too, all in an effort to cut down on traffic congestion. If something could be done during the summer season, that would be a bonus for those of us who do not drive a car.
Cheshire East Council is consulting on its budget and is in a tight spot. High inflation and the limitations of council tax increases mean that it needs to find savings unless government helps, and that possibility seems remote. Financial support for bus services is again under threat. Only time will see what that means when the network is a shadow of its former self anyway.
Details of Christmas and New Year GoBus services have been published. Apart from Christmas Day when no services operate, there are changes to services on some other days. There are early finishes on Christmas Eve and a later start on St. Stephen’s Day, for example.
Chiltern Trains is facing four weeks of strike action from 2022-12-13 to 2023-01-09. Services will be reduced on days when the Network Rail strike is not happening with 2022-12-18 seeing no service at all.
It now feels as if every public service worker is taking strike action of some sort, so we all could do with a lift. Handily, Wanderlust lists what it classes as the best European rail journeys as of now. At these stage in the year, most of these are worth surveying for 2023 travel planning. Still, we could use the brightness from the included photos in these testing times.
UNITE the Union members will be on strike at EMR on both 2022-12-23 and 2022-12-24. Christmas Eve travel will be challenged by this and the need to get trains to their destinations before the RMT action commences.