Bus Shite

[Yoss]

Quite a colourful collection on the rail replacement work too. 

 

I don't even know who these people are. 

 

[ETCHY]

On 2/1/2023 at 8:10 PM, Asimo said:

Cheltenham bus station. Why don’t the two coaches nearest the camera have the grille-badge- thingummy?

2nd from left looks like one of the Cybermen

[busmansholiday]

On 2/17/2023 at 7:51 PM, martc said:

Manor House, 4, 1960 and 2023.

 

Pollution free ULEZ compatible buses in the top picture. 

Shame time travel isn't possible otherwise we could have stopped the daft twats scrapping them.

[Yoss]

1 hour ago, busmansholiday said:

Pollution free ULEZ compatible buses in the top picture. 

Shame time travel isn't possible otherwise we could have stopped the daft twats scrapping them.

I've said it before but trolleybuses should be the future. They won't but they should be. 

I'm off to Brno in the Czech Republic (still can't bring myself to say Czechia) in a couple of weeks. They still have Tatra trams and Škoda trolleybuses. I'm there mostly for the trains, also mostly Škodas, but I'll have to try and get at least one trolley. I shall report back here. 

[LightBulbFun]

speaking of London Trolley buses! remember this thing?

  

On 22/10/2021 at 04:07, LightBulbFun said:

and then theres this thing which I have been able to find 0 info on which may just have run on 600V being a discharge lamp, I swear I recall finding it in an Osram GEC catalog somewhere but I just checked a few from the 1930s, 50's and 60's and was not able to find it there, what is it to be indicating for exactly I wonder...

 

On 22/10/2021 at 06:29, Mr Pastry said:

There is a reference in this video at about 3.44, to an indicator light fitted high up on the trolley poles (at the roadside, not on the bus) to show which way the points in the wires were set.  In which case a compact but bright 600 volt lamp would make sense.  How it works is another matter. 

 

 

On 22/10/2021 at 11:40, LightBulbFun said:

interesting I always assumed, the lamp was for something on the trolley bus itself but you are right it could be something to do with their infrastructure as well (I know of a few odd ball London Transport specials there as well like the Dual filament 100V lamp used in London underground signalling) 

On 22/10/2021 at 08:34, Inspector Morose said:

 

I actually managed to physically find one!

its missing one of its caps sadly but still! really oddly its marked with AP7922 which I think is an Admiralty number go figure!

still not been able to find anything out about it!

[808 Estate]

Good to see those old Corpo busses on the road again. What bought them out, was it celebrating the end of First, or just an occaison to do something?

[Yoss]

20 minutes ago, Yoss said:

I've said it before but trolleybuses should be the future. They won't but they should be. 

I'm off to Brno in the Czech Republic (still can't bring myself to say Czechia) in a couple of weeks. They still have Tatra trams and Škoda trolleybuses. I'm there mostly for the trains, also mostly Škodas, but I'll have to try and get at least one trolley. I shall report back here. 

In fact I've just managed to find this picture from the last, and only, time I was there. Can't believe it was eight years ago. A lot can change in eight years so I don't entirely know to expect when I get there. We shall soon see. 

3029 still has its Škoda badge. 

[Yoss]

7 minutes ago, 808 Estate said:

Good to see those old Corpo busses on the road again. What bought them out, was it celebrating the end of First, or just an occaison to do something?

Yes it was marking the end of a company that can be traced back to 1879.

[busmansholiday]

8 minutes ago, Yoss said:

Yes it was marking the end of a company that's fucked up in a fair few parts of the UK..

FTFY

[Yoss]

And for that reason I certainly won't be sad to see First Bus go although it is a shame they took our bus company with them. Bluestar have been providing a better service with better buses for a long time now. 

Though I'll be interested to see what comes out tomorrow. Being a Sunday service they were able to operate with the current fleet so everything was still blue. Tomorrow will be different. They apparently  have a fleet of temporary buses coming in to cover the new services. The Scania I went on today had a second crew member telling the driver where to go as it was a new route (and in fact it went to parts of the city that even I'd never been to - wrong side of the river and all that) and they were talking about the new* fleet. 

I still think the current Unlink fleet will pass over to Bluestar in time, that happened five years ago. The Unilink (University buses but anybody can use them) contracts last five years and it's up for renewal this year. Rumour has it that the university want electric buses this time round but that's easy for them to demand they aren't the ones who will have to run it. 

[martc]

1 hour ago, Yoss said:

 Czech Republic (still can't bring myself to say Czechia)

Carry on with Czech Republic, this is still the correct name. Czechia is the officially recognised shortening of it; not it's new name. Now who's going to tell Google this?

[808 Estate]

6 hours ago, Yoss said:

Yes it was marking the end of a company that can be traced back to 1879.

When they were Corporation busses, were they council owned and operated?

[Yoss]

4 hours ago, 808 Estate said:

When they were Corporation busses, were they council owned and operated?

Yes, it was sold by the council to the staff briefly in 1993 who then sold it on to First Group in 1997.

[quicksilver]

No sooner have First pulled out of Southampton than they've announced a deal to buy Ensignbus. One of the most respected and recognised operators in the country, no doubt soon to be destroyed by First's reverse midas touch. What were the Newman family thinking?

[Metal Guru]

24 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

No sooner have First pulled out of Southampton than they've announced a deal to buy Ensignbus. One of the most respected and recognised operators in the country, no doubt soon to be destroyed by First's reverse midas touch. What were the Newman family thinking?

First group and Stagecoach seem far more interested in acquiring  a bigger and bigger empire than actually running proper bus services.

Probably the same across most industries tbh. Playing real monopoly all day must be far more interesting than an involvement in the nitty gritty of what your company actual does.

[quicksilver]

I'll never forgive First for what they did in Northampton. The town had a proud and profitable municipal bus company, that the council decided to sell to fund the new Sixfields football stadium. After a few years, First put Northampton under the management of Leicester, where it was always the poor relation mostly running other fleets' cast-offs, and on the rare occasions Northampton did get something decent Leicester would quickly take it for themselves. It was run down to a shadow of its former self, then First made a half-hearted attempt to sell what little was left for far too much money, especially as they'd replaced the whole fleet with crappy old buses overdue for scrap that no buyer wanted. Nobody bought it, so First just unceremoniously shut down an operation with over a century of heritage that had been making a healthy profit when they bought it less than 20 years earlier.

[808 Estate]

10 hours ago, Yoss said:

Yes, it was sold by the council to the staff briefly in 1993 who then sold it on to First Group in 1997.

Have something good. Outsource it and wonder why its fucked.

[Remspoor]

On 2/19/2023 at 3:30 PM, Yoss said:

Quite a colourful collection on the rail replacement work too. 

 

I don't even know who these people are. 

 

Mayflower was originally a shipping company formed in the early 1600's 😁

 

or this lot.

https://twitter.com/travelmayflower

 

[HarmonicCheeseburger]

Found online

[Yoss]

9 hours ago, quicksilver said:

I'll never forgive First for what they did in Northampton. The town had a proud and profitable municipal bus company, that the council decided to sell to fund the new Sixfields football stadium. After a few years, First put Northampton under the management of Leicester, where it was always the poor relation mostly running other fleets' cast-offs, and on the rare occasions Northampton did get something decent Leicester would quickly take it for themselves. It was run down to a shadow of its former self, then First made a half-hearted attempt to sell what little was left for far too much money, especially as they'd replaced the whole fleet with crappy old buses overdue for scrap that no buyer wanted. Nobody bought it, so First just unceremoniously shut down an operation with over a century of heritage that had been making a healthy profit when they bought it less than 20 years earlier.

Well that all sounds very familiar. Going through my old stuff I found this 1987 route map, the year Solent Blue Line started. You'll have to forgive me but I used it to mark all the roads I have travelled by Routemaster in the city. It started with just the routes but then there was the odd garage run and there was quite an enthusiastic management at the time so we went on a few rallies and day trips with them. But once we bought our own RM the whole thing seemed a bit pointless as we could go wherever we wanted. And yet still I kept it updated. But you can make out the red roads under the black marker pen and as you can see I don't think anywhere in the city was more than five minutes walk from a bus stop. 

With a numerical list of routes. 

 

And then I found this route map from 2009 online and even then we still had a pretty comprehensive service. And this was twelve years in to First Bus ownership. 

All the numbers have changed and different bits are joined together but most of the roads are still there. 

But this is what we had when they withdrew on Saturday. 

And weirdly the route 8 to the hospital was only added a few weeks before they announced they were pulling out but that just replicates the 3 anyway. It increased the frequency between the city and the hospital but didn't add any new roads. Also that X4 and X5 heading east out of the city are actually run by First Portsmouth and are nothing to do with the Southampton operations. 

And for context if we go back to the proper map rather than a schematic I've coloured in the areas that no longer had a service. 

I'm not really familiar with the services the other side of the river but as you can see whole swathes on my side lost their services. 

If you just look at Lordshill on the 1987 map there were so many different routes there. It is a natural place for a bus terminus as it has a long bus layby either side with a large roundabout at each end so buses could turn whichever way they arrived from and buses went off in all directions. 

For the last few years they've run a single route to here, the 3, so it was fairly obvious they had lost interest. 

 

All the buses on the new Bluestar 19 looked like this today. A quick google says it was new to London Central but most recently with Go North East at Gateshead. 

 

 

[Yoss]

1 hour ago, Remspoor said:

Mayflower was originally a shipping company formed in the early 1600's 😁

 

or this lot.

https://twitter.com/travelmayflower

 

Yeah, I had a quick Google and everything seems to lead back to this one twitter account but if you scroll down enough more and more of the posts seem to feature Wheelers Travel orange and white stuff so I think they are connected. 

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, HarmonicCheeseburger said:

Found online

Probably best left there!

[quicksilver]

Those route maps paint a very sad picture - it was the same in Northampton, I think they were down to three or four routes when they packed up. One thing that summed up FIrst's attitude nicely was that the council had started selling the 1977/78 batch of Bristol VRs when they were just over ten years old, but First stopped withdrawals and kept the remaining ones for another whole decade while newer buses were sent away. A bizarre consequence was that there were independents running ex-council VRs on school work in the town at the same time as members of the same batch were still in regular stage service with First.

[crad]

the issue with buses (and public transport more widely in britain i think) is that we seem to think it MUST make a profit- why not make them not for profit enterprises- any profit they do make can be reinvested into the service, but the main priority should be providing a good service for people to reduce car usage, imo. we used to have 2 buses an hour between horsham and brighton, a bus to worthing and i think (i might be wrong) that the compass burgess hill- horsham bus also used to be twice hourly. i know in the sticks it might not be profitable, but make the service semi regular and a decent price and people will use it! (i hope that isn't too political!)

[anonymous user]

8 minutes ago, crad said:

the issue with buses (and public transport more widely in britain i think) is that we seem to think it MUST make a profit- why not make them not for profit enterprises- any profit they do make can be reinvested into the service, but the main priority should be providing a good service for people to reduce car usage, imo. we used to have 2 buses an hour between horsham and brighton, a bus to worthing and i think (i might be wrong) that the compass burgess hill- horsham bus also used to be twice hourly. i know in the sticks it might not be profitable, but make the service semi regular and a decent price and people will use it! (i hope that isn't too political!)

Why would anyone operate a business not to make a profit? Most bus services are operated by private companies, if they tried to just cover costs they would not last long. I suppose you could try to estimate one off failures/repairs over and above general running/service costs and build that in, but then I suppose end of life replacement would have to be built in as well. 

But why would anyone run a business just to turn over money?

[crad]

20 minutes ago, anonymous user said:

Why would anyone operate a business not to make a profit? Most bus services are operated by private companies, if they tried to just cover costs they would not last long. I suppose you could try to estimate one off failures/repairs over and above general running/service costs and build that in, but then I suppose end of life replacement would have to be built in as well. 

But why would anyone run a business just to turn over money?

i'd have it run on some sort of local level with public money- plenty of people here (admiteddly that's just in the village) would be willing I think. it's all a bit pie in the sky i suppose, I just think there must be a better way- otherwise the only future i can see for mass transit is in big cities of the london/brum ilk.

[busmansholiday]

South Yorkshire PTE ran the buses at a loss, paid for by the council taxes. You can argue all you want, but they were full and frequent, charging car drivers an arm and a leg to park in the city centre also helped. Privatisation is all about profit, they don't care a fuck about social needs or pollution / traffic reduction. First are just as useless in Sheffield.

[Yoss]

52 minutes ago, anonymous user said:

Why would anyone operate a business not to make a profit? Most bus services are operated by private companies, if they tried to just cover costs they would not last long. I suppose you could try to estimate one off failures/repairs over and above general running/service costs and build that in, but then I suppose end of life replacement would have to be built in as well. 

But why would anyone run a business just to turn over money?

I think the point being made is that it should be a public service, not a business. Does anybody believe bus services have improved with privatisation? There might be some areas on busy corridors where it has but it will be at the expense of other areas. 

It used to be that the busy services payed to keep the less busy services running. Cross subsidisation. But that tends not to happen any more. The network maps I posted yesterday are a perfect example of this. The first one was from 1987, six months after deregulation and five months before the first competition moved in. Half of those routes were not profitable but they were still well used. 

[CreepingJesus]

I remember Kelvin Scottish having 'difficulties' supplying our school buses after deregulation, and some scruffy ned called Brian Soutar swooping in with his cape fluttering to save the day. The novelty of getting RMs and Lodekkas to school soon wore off, and ultimately we moved house to be closer to the school, rather than put up with any more of it.

Deregulation was a stupid idea, badly executed. The only possible outcome of the resulting free for all was that chancers like Soutar, who worked out quickly how to play the game, were able to build monopolies over time. The 'free market' - in itself a dreadful and deliberately misleading term - is always a race to the bottom, and actual utility is usually an early casualty. 

[Yoss]

28 minutes ago, CreepingJesus said:

The novelty of getting RMs and Lodekkas to school soon wore off, 

I agree with everything in your post except this bit but I'll admit I may not have been a normal child. Our middle school didn't have its own playing fields so once a week we'd get carted off to somebody else's in a Southampton Corporation Regent V. That never got boring. Certainly more fun than what we had to do once we got there. But again that might just be me.