On 10/02/2019 15:03, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at
13:51:40 on Sun, 10 Feb 2019, Arthur Figgis
remarked:
On 10/02/2019 13:30, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at
13:12:32 on Sun, 10 Feb 2019, Arthur Figgis
remarked:
Waiting at a bus stop yesterday, I noticed the times for a
few-days-a-year return bus service from Kingston to Eastbourne.

Why does this exist?

Does anyone actually spend 3h 5min on a bus to Eastbourne,
ratherÂ* thanÂ* take a train?
Â*Easily beaten by the 3hrs 50mins for the Oxford-Cambridge bus.

These days aren't those posh vehicles with according to Stagecoach
"the luxury of leather reclining seats, air conditioning and free
Wi-Fi" (and tiolets), rather than ordinary red double-deckers like
this https://www.flickr.com/photos/drakes...hs/35717850435

Yes, it's cheap, 10 quid return compared to train fares from
GBP8.50Â* single... but you would spend more of the day on the
bus than inÂ* Eastbourne. It looks like coffin-dodger passes are
not valid(?).
Â*The X5 (above) offers an unspecified discount for card-holders
beforeÂ* 9:30 which implies they are valid after 9:30.

"Special £7 Return on 774 only for Freedom Pass Holders.No other
concessions available."
Â*What's 774?

Dorking to Tunbridge Wells or Bluewater, it seems. GoAhead seem to
have a handful of these odd infrequent return services.
Â*I was wondering how 774 applied to the X5.

I was wondering how the X5 applied to transport in (or from) London...

It's a well-known example of a bus service with longer end-to-end times
than the OP's. Or do you think residents of Kingston are more fidgety
than those in Oxford or Cambridge?

I can see the need for a frequent, direct link between a major centre of
education, science, technology etc, south Midlands-ish towns not linked
by rail, and a place where marmalade comes from, but it is less obvious
where there would be a bus from a fairly generic suburb to a suburb
no-one has heard of to a place with fast trains to a random seaside town.

Some years ago I found a London bus route which had a "parliamentary"
style service which had apparently linked an old people's residential
area with a supermarket, which had since been eclipsed by changing
retail patterns but did have a non-obvious reason to be there.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK