[x-posted to uk.transport.london]
[original thread at uk.railway]

On 13 Jan, 19:03, Tom Barry wrote:

Recliner wrote:
The BBC local London news featured the Ealing ghost bus at 18:45 today.
For once, the bus wasn't empty, but wasn't overloaded either. One of the
pax who was interviewed was complimentary about the comfortable, modern
(06 registered) coach, complete with toilet.

Hrmph. *It also featured me being interviewed. *Is a bus more
interesting? *Actually, don't answer that.

Seriously, it would be slightly ironic if the result of the advertising
about this apparently wasteful policy (I'm not sure how much it costs
compared to three sets of closure proceedings) was that it became well
patronised. *There may well be demand for such services on routes where
the rail journey isn't particularly straightforward but normal buses
stop too frequently to be convenient end to end.

We could call it integrated transport.


Keep your one there-and-back service a week version of integrated
transport to yourself please! I'll opt for the rather straightforward
integrated transport solution of taking a train from Wandsworth Road
to Victoria then the District line direct to Ealing Broadway.

Want Kensington Olympia? Well take the District line and change at
Earls Court for KO, or catching the Circle line from Victoria to High
Street Kensington (just up the road from KO), or taking the train from
nearby Queenstown Road Battersea or Battersea Park to Clapham Junction
and catching a train up the WLL to KO, or taking the 453 bus that
starts at Wandsworth Road over the river and up to Kensington...

Anyway, the idea of having express bus routes (more than the meagre
three current ones) was actually championed by your best mate Boris
during the election!

By the by, can you buy booze on the coach? If not it's got nothing on
the withdrawn XC service! It was enjoyable buying and then cracking
open a can of booze on the XC service as it stood at KO, what with it
being managed by London Overground and hence subject to the TfL booze
ban.

One can still crack open a tinny when on a Southern train (on which
Boris writ does not extend to) which stops at Shepherd's Bush, KO and
West Brompton - all LO stations (well West Brompton is actually
managed by LU) - though one cannot buy said tinny on the train. I'm
not quite sure what happens if you were to alight that train with can
in hand - would you immediately become an illegal booze hound? I do
find the notion of these separate jurisdictions entertaining - the
'City Limits' end when one gets on a Southern train etc!

On 13 Jan, 19:44, Mizter T wrote:

(snip)

Keep your one there-and-back service a week version of integrated
transport to yourself please! I'll opt for the rather straightforward
integrated transport solution of taking a train from Wandsworth Road
to Victoria then the District line direct to Ealing Broadway.

Want Kensington Olympia? Well take the District line and change at
Earls Court for KO, or catching the Circle line from Victoria to High
Street Kensington (just up the road from KO), or taking the train from
nearby Queenstown Road Battersea or Battersea Park to Clapham Junction
and catching a train up the WLL to KO, or taking the 453 bus that
starts at Wandsworth Road over the river and up to Kensington...

[...]

Spot the drafting error... or should that be spotting the drafting
error. My tenses obviously got somewhat muddled!

"Mizter T" wrote:

(uk.railway removed)

Anyway, the idea of having express bus routes (more than the meagre
three current ones) was actually championed by your best mate Boris
during the election!

Which three, out of interest?

There's the X68, but I can't immediately identify the other two you might be
referring to.

Chris

"Mizter T" wrote ...
Anyway, the idea of having express bus routes (more than the
meagre three current ones) was actually championed by your
best mate Boris during the election!

TfL's phobia about express routes even predates Ken; the excellent X43
(fast, and full every day), was hampered from the outset by having just one
set of doors, uniquely among central routes, which slowed boarding in a
pre-oyster era. Also, LT didn't have the sense to send it fast from Highbury
Corner to Old Street using the 271 route, which would have saved another 7
minutes by cutting out upper street and Angel, which was a wasted diversion
as the bus was usually already too full by then.

How it could have been considered to have 'failed' when it kept amazingly
good time and was full from Holloway to the city, I'll never understand (and
we were never told). They even used the best buses of the time - NI-built
Olympians.

But Boris's Master Plan isn't for radial routes (proven need), but for
outer-London links, bypassing the centre (may well be a need, but unproven).

Once the BlunderBus hits the streets, we'll see how the plans change ...
--

Andrew

In message , Chris Read
writes

"Mizter T" wrote:

(uk.railway removed)

Anyway, the idea of having express bus routes (more than the meagre
three current ones) was actually championed by your best mate Boris
during the election!

Which three, out of interest?

There's the X68, but I can't immediately identify the other two you might be
referring to.

One is - I suppose - the 607. I can't think of another, though.
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

On Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:07:33 -0000, "Andrew Heenan"
wrote:

Once the BlunderBus hits the streets, we'll see how the plans change ...

*If*.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:07:33 -0000, "Andrew Heenan"
wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote ...
Anyway, the idea of having express bus routes (more than the
meagre three current ones) was actually championed by your
best mate Boris during the election!

TfL's phobia about express routes even predates Ken; the excellent X43
(fast, and full every day), was hampered from the outset by having just one
set of doors, uniquely among central routes, which slowed boarding in a
pre-oyster era. Also, LT didn't have the sense to send it fast from Highbury
Corner to Old Street using the 271 route, which would have saved another 7
minutes by cutting out upper street and Angel, which was a wasted diversion
as the bus was usually already too full by then.

It was really a LT phobia because they also effectively killed off the
177E and the X15 as well. I'm sure there are other examples but those
spring immediately to mind.

How it could have been considered to have 'failed' when it kept amazingly
good time and was full from Holloway to the city, I'll never understand (and
we were never told). They even used the best buses of the time - NI-built
Olympians.

I thought they were super speedy Scania N113s with Alexander bodywork?

But Boris's Master Plan isn't for radial routes (proven need), but for
outer-London links, bypassing the centre (may well be a need, but unproven).

I don't think they have any plans - it all appears to hinge on the X26
frequency enhancement experiment - but I agree with the general policy
direction you cite.

--
Paul C

On Tue, 13 Jan 2009, Mizter T wrote:

On 13 Jan, 19:44, Mizter T wrote:

Keep your one there-and-back service a week version of integrated
transport to yourself please! I'll opt for the rather straightforward
integrated transport solution of taking a train from Wandsworth Road to
Victoria then the District line direct to Ealing Broadway.

Want Kensington Olympia? Well take the District line and change at
Earls Court for KO, or catching the Circle line from Victoria to High
Street Kensington (just up the road from KO), or taking the train from
nearby Queenstown Road Battersea or Battersea Park to Clapham Junction
and catching a train up the WLL to KO, or taking the 453 bus that
starts at Wandsworth Road over the river and up to Kensington...

Spot the drafting error... or should that be spotting the drafting
error. My tenses obviously got somewhat muddled!

I don't know about that, but your later remarks about tinnies were
certainly a draughting error.

tom

--
But in natural sciences whose conclusions are true and necessary and
have nothing to do with human will, one must take care not to place
oneself in the defence of error; for here a thousand Demostheneses and
a thousand Aristotles would be left in the lurch by every mediocre wit
who happened to hit upon the truth for himself. -- Galileo

Mizter T wrote:
[x-posted to uk.transport.london]
[original thread at uk.railway]

On 13 Jan, 19:03, Tom Barry wrote:


Anyway, the idea of having express bus routes (more than the meagre
three current ones) was actually championed by your best mate Boris
during the election!


Yup, but orbital ones, I think. I read that commitment as part of his
strategy to portray the poor suburbs as having been neglected by Eeeevil
Ken, rather than as a serious policy (the only manifestation of it after
TfL got hold of Boris so far being a few extra buses on the X26,
doubling the frequency to a mind-blowing half-hourly). It was never
exactly fleshed out, nor was it ever really explained how it would
contribute to things, although compared to, say, replacing bendies on
the 507 and 521 it seems positively sane.

I was musing more along the lines of filling in some of the odd gaps in
the Tube/rail network where connections aren't quite made - Hammersmith
to Wimbledon, say, or Richmond to Croydon. Obviously Ealing to
Wandsworth is only a bus route because of the 2005 Railways Act rather
than for any logical reason.

would you immediately become an illegal booze hound?

Good question! I must try it, but considering the size of the bottles
of Bacardi Breezer being swigged on the 272 during Carnival and the
numbers of empty cans routinely found on the top deck of buses, the
booze ban is a bit of a sham anyway.

Tom

"Ian Jelf" wrote in message
...
In message , Chris Read
writes

"Mizter T" wrote:

(uk.railway removed)

Anyway, the idea of having express bus routes (more than the meagre
three current ones) was actually championed by your best mate Boris
during the election!

Which three, out of interest?

There's the X68, but I can't immediately identify the other two you
might be
referring to.

One is - I suppose - the 607. I can't think of another, though.

The other is the X26 Croydon-Heathrow

Peter Smyth