In the last few weeks I have travelled on two Anglian deckers that in my view, and those driving them, have improved almost beyond recognition. When the 3 Scania Omnidekkas arrived from Metrobus last year although they looked great I was less than enthusiastic about most other things. They were extremely rattly, slow, unreliable to the point of it being laughable, and all in all not the greatest of additions to the fleet. Their whole set up was designed for town 28mph work and not Acle Straight/Poringland - Bungay type work. But now 555 and 556 feel like different buses. The most noticeable difference is the speed, which is much improved and they now show traditional Scania power. The ride is considerably better too, which suggests the suspension has been tackled, and even less rattles. A really pleasant surprise and since I'm going to be using the 88 again for a bit quite a relief. Just one thing guys - 555 arrived with a really annoying air leak on the door lock mechanism which produces a loud hiss the moment the bus does over 4mph. A year on and it's still there so please can you get it sorted! Cheers!
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| The much improved 555 YN55 PZR seen somewhere last year! No idea where! |
How ironic that the term derived from the difficulties of using transport. It should be mentioned that Lingchi was made illegal in China in 1905. However it is alive and kicking in rural England as bus services are suffering the death of a thousand cuts. Council cuts to be precise, although instead of human blood being spilled it's the lifeblood of communities. This week it hit very close to home again. Today saw the last day of operation of the 196, the little village service between Saxmundham and Leiston, which also incorporates a single 521 journey between Saxmundham and Dunwich. I have often mentioned this bus, as it was my only regular link to the outside world that didn't involve pre-booking, albeit only one journey 4 days a week. It is no major surprise it has gone. In this age of shopping trolleys, buggies and easy access providing a 14 seater slide your own door open Transit minibus with no marketing or publicity whatsoever isn't going to achieve much. But it had its uses and I was indeed going to be using it to get to Leiston tomorrow. Now you wouldn't believe how difficult that journey's going to be.
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| The rather blurred 196 last October |
I also asked for information regarding the changes to Demand Responsive Transport serving my village - they said it was good news for me - but was only told to attend one of the launch events taking place in Woodbriidge less than a week before the changes are implemented. Firstly it would take hours to get to Woodbridge and back, especially as the DRT bus is getting increasingly difficult to book for that area, and secondly a week's notice when I know for a fact the minibus I use the most is no longer going to serve my village is not long to make other arrangements. It seems the news isn't good enough to let people know what's happening before its too late to protest. I have asked for maps of the new areas but no response yet. That's bad. Very bad. The cuts are beginning to fester and gangrene is setting in.
Now unless you've been in a cave this week you'll have heard whispers of some new strawberry milkshake coloured thingamajigs (you wouldn't believe my obviously American spell check has flagged up "coloured" but not "thingamajigs") have arrived in Norwich. I attended the launch event yesterday in Norwich mixing with the great and the good of the blogging world and taking a look at the new buses. Now you know how I do these things by now - it only really matters what happens when the wheels start moving and so in due course I'll take a trip on some of the new Streetdecks and do a review. However I'm not setting the bar too high as someone from First told me yesterday he had been on one of them and it was already rattling. Sounds like I'll just be reproducing my post from Scotland last November which wasn't too complimentary about the Wright body. However I can tell you the seats are comfortable, there are no chargers or USB points, there's plenty of room for buggies to clog up the lower deck, the branding looks ok, and First could rent out the excess space in the engine bay which is enough for a fitter to lie down in comfort while tinkering with the Mercedes engine. They will certainly turn heads as they go pass. But I'm not going to post any pictures of them until I do my review next week as I have seen many comments from people saying they are sick of the sight of them already, so here s something far more spring like that I saw on the Isle of Harris last May - cuter than a Streetdeck too and mercifully not nearly as pink! But the event yesterday was good so a big hi to Roy, Zak, Dave, Simon, Cameron, Colin, Steve, John and Dan, but sadly no Chris, who for the first time in living memory missed an opportnity to get his face in the papers!
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| £227,960 cheaper than a Streetdeck and a lot prettier! Probably less rattly too. |
Hi to you too Steve! that Anglian pic is in Halesworth! Looks like it's about to come in to the main stop next to the car park and the play park
ReplyDeleteOf course it is, and I'm taking the pic from the stop on the other side of the road where I spend half my life waiting for minibuses that are about to be cut! Happy days!
DeleteThomas Browne) it annoys me that everything is online. Timetables and travel info etc. Which is alright for me, but what about older people who aren't familiar with gadgets and stuff?
ReplyDeleteI have been arguing that point till I'm blue in the face Thomas. And getting absolutely nowhere.
DeleteGood points, as usual: buses (like everything else) are part of the entertainment, and heritage, industry. The 196 fitted neither. More seriously, I assume it's another "victim" of the £5, or whatever, passenger subsidy limit. And why not? Should we throw (other people's) money around like confetti? The days of services by population formula (like painting by numbers) are over.
ReplyDeleteBut there's a lesson: in the town buses get creative. So why not in the country? What do the parish councils think they're for - they have to be proactive and their residents, yes I'm looking at you Steve, make sure that they are. And the County Council and the operators too, so why can't the 521 for instance divert to cover at least part of the withdrawn route some days of the week? Everyone has to chip in and help a bit. Yep, there are plenty of excuses why not, and one good reason why. I'll leave everyone to work out what that is. They do it elsewhere, why is Suffolk (and Essex Cambs and Norfolk for that matter) so different, and yes, backward? The County Council didn't promote the service. So why didn't the Parish Councils? "It's not our job". It is. "We run the route specified by the County Council". That doesn't prevent them from making suggestions to make it better. Plenty of excuses and grumbles; no action. It needs to be the other way around. Stop the blame game. We can all talk until we're blue in the face. And we will. And a fat lot of good it'll do us. Yes, I know.
I ave been in this village nearly three years now (although if the DWP have their way I'll be in a tiny bedsit in Lowestoft before you know it). In those 3 years I have known our Parish Council do one thing. That was to authorise the slaughter of over half the population of the peacocks in the village because a few second home owners (not local residents) complained about the noise and their flowers being eaten. They want weekends in the country but not country issues like bird noise.
DeleteMy MP is a doctor. She voted to reduce benefits for the disabled by 30% and move the goalposts so only drooling vegetables can get full disanility benefit. I'm not certain anyone is going to jump up and down because the 196 has gone. Incidentally I do know one parish council who approached the current operators of the 521, asking if they could, as you suggested, divert a couple of journeys a week. The request was declined.
I apologise if I come across a little bitter but there's a good reason for that - I BLOODY AM!!!
About a dozen other routes in Suffolk have been axed and replaced by DRT again with no advance information and how a dozen routes can be replace by 1 DRM services baffles me
ReplyDeleteThey should be looking at Uber type technology as well and perhaps running them as Flexi bus type services that can be booked almost in real time. At the current rate of bus cuts in Suffolk only a few main routes will be left. Even at present what is left is not a viable service for 90% plus of the population not helped by total lack of publicity
To put it blunty the marketing, publicity, and incentives for people to use buses is slightly less than pathetic! But then recent cuts go to prove that public transport is not high on the list of priorities of local councils.(not a word Smurf!)
DeleteUnless attitudes change and fast I shudder to think what sort of service will exist outside towns and cities in 20 years time. Then people will wonder why all young people leave the country areas and move where the lights are.
The Pink Line has had rather a lot (to much some are saying ) of coverage the last few weeks . A few years ago in the 70/80's when a stead trickle of new buses arrived and there was no hype in the media and the bus services stayed the same .
ReplyDeleteOne comment on Internet timetables ... At least, if you hunt for them, you can usually get "proper" timetables online for buses and trains. But have you tried doing it with airlines? May experience is that some of them make it very difficult to find "what" goes "when", especially when flights don't run every day.
ReplyDeleteNot exactly a frequent flier, Andrew - last flight was Inverness to Luton in 2003!! So I'm not exactly up to mach speed on airline timetables. Presumably there are "trainline" type sites for airlines too which should make things a little easier? Incidentally Megabus don't publish timetables either - you have to look at individual journeys to see stopping points en route.
DeleteI had a few days break in Halesworth last week and travelled to Saxmundham to get a bus to Leiston to do some hiking. I met a guy at the bus stop in Sax who had travelled down from Crewe to take photos of Leiston football ground. He was under the impression that you could travel from Sax to Leiston and back again in one hour!! He was not a very happy bunny when I told him the First service was every 2 hours and so he aborted his journey. I don't think the 196 would have got him there in time either. Shame about the 196 as I was hoping to get to Dunwich later this year. By the way, I've told all my friends in Norfolk to ignore timetables at remote bus stops as they are most likely to be out-of-date as the council have not bothered to replace them or even take the old ones down!
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