Nothing to do with work this one....
Went to see Delays at the Joiners in Southampton last night. Awesome band, a great venue, great company (you know who you are) - just a fantastic night out!
Sunday 14 December 2008
Sunday 7 December 2008
End of an era
One of our founder members left yesterday. Jamie has decided that he wants to seek a fresh challenge somewhere else, and lucky Uni-link passengers can look forward to his services.
More than any other bus person I've ever met, Jamie understands the difference between backstage and front of house. No matter how tough things may be behind the scenes, whether it's work issues or personal problems, none of this matters to the paying public. So, waiting in the wings for the curtain to rise, on goes the mask and the performance begins.
Why is it so hard for many people in service jobs to realise that the public actually doesn't care a jot whether they are having a bad day - and the service must be provided to the usual high standard come what may, with a laugh and a smile and a friendly word. Look no further than Jamie to see how it should be done.
There is nothing to do other than to pay the warmest of tributes for the immense contribution that Jamie has made to the foundation of Velvet, and while we have a great team here that will ensure that we continue to grow and succeed, we could not have got where we are without him.
More than any other bus person I've ever met, Jamie understands the difference between backstage and front of house. No matter how tough things may be behind the scenes, whether it's work issues or personal problems, none of this matters to the paying public. So, waiting in the wings for the curtain to rise, on goes the mask and the performance begins.
Why is it so hard for many people in service jobs to realise that the public actually doesn't care a jot whether they are having a bad day - and the service must be provided to the usual high standard come what may, with a laugh and a smile and a friendly word. Look no further than Jamie to see how it should be done.
There is nothing to do other than to pay the warmest of tributes for the immense contribution that Jamie has made to the foundation of Velvet, and while we have a great team here that will ensure that we continue to grow and succeed, we could not have got where we are without him.
Tuesday 28 October 2008
The key question....
Louise has spent the last five minutes on the phone to a lady who has lost her keys.
She spoke to me last night. She lost her keys on a bus yesterday afternoon, of that she is certain. In fact, she said she knew she dropped them on the bus because she heard them hit the floor. So she asked the driver to come and look for them - which he did, but couldn't find them. She knows she dropped them there though, and to prove this the person sat behind her heard them hit the floor too! Except that she apparently looked and couldn't find them either.
So, to recap, she claims she heard her keys fall on the floor of the bus. The driver and another passenger looked at the time, but couldn't see them.
She rung last night to ask if they had been handed in. They hadn't. I said we'd check the bus again. We did - they weren't there.
She rung again this morning to see if they had been handed in. They hadn't. This is not a surprise given that the driver and another passenger looked at the time and couldn't find them, and we checked the bus again last night.
She is on the phone again now wanting to know if they have been handed in yet and explaining that we must have them, because she definitely heard them fall and hit the floor of the bus at the time. Even though the driver and another passenger checked at the time for her but couldn't see them. And even though we checked the bus again last night. We must have them.
I feel sorry for her really because she is clearly confused and without her keys, but she is insistent we have them and we just don't! Where do we go next?!?
She spoke to me last night. She lost her keys on a bus yesterday afternoon, of that she is certain. In fact, she said she knew she dropped them on the bus because she heard them hit the floor. So she asked the driver to come and look for them - which he did, but couldn't find them. She knows she dropped them there though, and to prove this the person sat behind her heard them hit the floor too! Except that she apparently looked and couldn't find them either.
So, to recap, she claims she heard her keys fall on the floor of the bus. The driver and another passenger looked at the time, but couldn't see them.
She rung last night to ask if they had been handed in. They hadn't. I said we'd check the bus again. We did - they weren't there.
She rung again this morning to see if they had been handed in. They hadn't. This is not a surprise given that the driver and another passenger looked at the time and couldn't find them, and we checked the bus again last night.
She is on the phone again now wanting to know if they have been handed in yet and explaining that we must have them, because she definitely heard them fall and hit the floor of the bus at the time. Even though the driver and another passenger checked at the time for her but couldn't see them. And even though we checked the bus again last night. We must have them.
I feel sorry for her really because she is clearly confused and without her keys, but she is insistent we have them and we just don't! Where do we go next?!?
Friday 26 September 2008
Where have I been?
Greetings from Hampshire, where I am sitting in my living room surveying the view of the sunlit marina on this beautiful warm evening, sipping a glass of white wine and watching the cruise ships glide out into the Solent.
Various among you have commented on the lack of blog activity in recent times - and frankly you are right do so. Shameful performance!
So first and foremost, it's only 7pm, the night is young, why aren't I at work, I hear you ask! After all, it is daylight and it is the law that I should be at work during daylight hours (and most of the darkness ones too!). Well today was washing machine day! The washing machine that I inherited from my brother finally spun its last spin about two weeks ago and expired terminally. So I ordered a new one and it arrived today, so I had to stay home to say hello to it (and of course tell the delivery lorry where to come!)
In all the excitement I finally found out why the old one used to go careering round the floor at every opportunity, and it turns out it was for the simple reason that no one (least of all me) ever took the transit bolts out! Had I done so, it would apparently have sat there and burbled away quite happily in one spot instead of doing a scenic tour of the flat every time I wanted clean clothes!
Anyway the washing machine came at 0930 this morning but I - bad person that I have become - decided that I really didn't fancy going to the office and could quite happily work from home, so even at 2pm this afternoon I was telling my work colleagues that I had no idea when it would arrive and could be any time before 7 this evening! Let's hope none of them read this!!!!
To be fair, it is the first respite I have had after one of the most manic months in the history of history. Over the summer we expanded our fleet to ten vehicles in preparation for a new contract with Barton Peveril College in Eastleigh and on 1st September became responsible for transporting around 400 students a day into college on top of our other work commitments. Every day now six of our vehicles stream into the college just after 8 in the morning, and are lined up ready for the exodus at 4 in the afternoon.
One of the clinchers in us getting the deal was that we allow the students (most of whom live in the catchment area of our route A) to use their passes to travel around during the day, so in addition to the twice daily panic to make sure there are enough buses in the right places for all the students, we have had real overcrowding problems to deal with during the day. Luckily we have kept it together and I am proud to say that apart from day one when one of the buses missed three stops by mistake, every single bus on every single day has run faultlessly - on time, correct route, no complaints at all (apart from one lady who rung us every day for a week because her son insisted that the bus hadn't gone to his stop so he had to go home again, even though we knew full well it had because it picked up twenty other students there. We wondered how long it would take the penny to drop that he actually didn't have any intention of catching the bus. I don't know if it ever did or whether she simply got bored ringing us, but to be honest, tough beans!!!)
The downside of all this is that it is very time consuming. Apart from having our attention focussed on the college routes between 0630 and 0830 every morning and 1530 and 1730 every evening, we still have all our normal work to do as well, and apart from last Sunday which I managed to take off, today is my first day away from the office since August, and even then I've been working. But as time goes on and the students spread their journeys more and we get better at managing the hotspots so that we don't have to stay on top of it all the time, the pressure should ease and hopefully it will all work out.
Meanwhile, all these college buses sit doing nothing between 9 and 3 every day, so we decided to use some of the dead time to run a new service - the B. We worked hard to pick a route that avoided confronting Solent Blue Line in a competitive way and created something genuinely new. By linking a number of estates that Blue Line have dropped and providing new direct links that didn't exist before, we have created a route from Eastleigh to Southampton that manages to avoid Blue Line's main corridors.
Unfortunately for us, Blue Line have reacted as though we have marched into the Finance Director's office, held a gun to his head and demanded all their money. Immediately they found out about our new service, they registered their own route - also called the B - following an identical route with every single journey 3 minutes in front of ours. They branded it Beep! Bus B, use red buses that don't mention Blue Line or Bluestar anywhere on them, drivers wear red polo shirts and even the ticket machine 'till rolls' are plain white and do not mention Bluestar - all to try to dupe the public into thinking that Beep! is the innovative new service - not ours that we registered first.
They got over the fact that they were a week behind us getting their registration in (Because obviously it didn't exist until we registered it) by using a loophole to start on the same date but not charge any fares for a week. So, for a week, our brand new B route ran around with one of their buses running free of charge three minutes in front - and we still carried more passengers than them!!! Admittedly, not great numbers for either of us, but it's a start.
The balloon finally went up last Saturday when the Southampton Daily Echo made it front page news, and you can see it here...
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/3690016.Bus_wars/
...but be sure to read the public comments below the article itself.
Since the press coverage, we have been getting more of the passengers because it took the newspaper article for many of them to realise that Beep! was in fact Bluestar in disguise. This week, the Beep! drivers have tried to get round this by pretending they are Black Velvet! But most of the passengers at least seem to have sussed it out and contrary to the widely held belief that passengers simply get on the first bus that comes along, it is a common sight to see people waving the Beep! bus past so they can wait for ours!
As if all the college work wasn't hectic enough, the b-b-bus wars have taken a fair bit of my time too, so 16 hour days have been the norm - sometimes more! Aaaaaaaah, I hear you all chorus!
So all the above, in a roundabout way, tells you why I haven't been writing much on the blog lately. So on that happy note, and with the oven bleeping at me to let me know it is dinner time, I shall wish all my impatient readers a happy weekend and hope to be back here soon :)
Various among you have commented on the lack of blog activity in recent times - and frankly you are right do so. Shameful performance!
So first and foremost, it's only 7pm, the night is young, why aren't I at work, I hear you ask! After all, it is daylight and it is the law that I should be at work during daylight hours (and most of the darkness ones too!). Well today was washing machine day! The washing machine that I inherited from my brother finally spun its last spin about two weeks ago and expired terminally. So I ordered a new one and it arrived today, so I had to stay home to say hello to it (and of course tell the delivery lorry where to come!)
In all the excitement I finally found out why the old one used to go careering round the floor at every opportunity, and it turns out it was for the simple reason that no one (least of all me) ever took the transit bolts out! Had I done so, it would apparently have sat there and burbled away quite happily in one spot instead of doing a scenic tour of the flat every time I wanted clean clothes!
Anyway the washing machine came at 0930 this morning but I - bad person that I have become - decided that I really didn't fancy going to the office and could quite happily work from home, so even at 2pm this afternoon I was telling my work colleagues that I had no idea when it would arrive and could be any time before 7 this evening! Let's hope none of them read this!!!!
To be fair, it is the first respite I have had after one of the most manic months in the history of history. Over the summer we expanded our fleet to ten vehicles in preparation for a new contract with Barton Peveril College in Eastleigh and on 1st September became responsible for transporting around 400 students a day into college on top of our other work commitments. Every day now six of our vehicles stream into the college just after 8 in the morning, and are lined up ready for the exodus at 4 in the afternoon.
One of the clinchers in us getting the deal was that we allow the students (most of whom live in the catchment area of our route A) to use their passes to travel around during the day, so in addition to the twice daily panic to make sure there are enough buses in the right places for all the students, we have had real overcrowding problems to deal with during the day. Luckily we have kept it together and I am proud to say that apart from day one when one of the buses missed three stops by mistake, every single bus on every single day has run faultlessly - on time, correct route, no complaints at all (apart from one lady who rung us every day for a week because her son insisted that the bus hadn't gone to his stop so he had to go home again, even though we knew full well it had because it picked up twenty other students there. We wondered how long it would take the penny to drop that he actually didn't have any intention of catching the bus. I don't know if it ever did or whether she simply got bored ringing us, but to be honest, tough beans!!!)
The downside of all this is that it is very time consuming. Apart from having our attention focussed on the college routes between 0630 and 0830 every morning and 1530 and 1730 every evening, we still have all our normal work to do as well, and apart from last Sunday which I managed to take off, today is my first day away from the office since August, and even then I've been working. But as time goes on and the students spread their journeys more and we get better at managing the hotspots so that we don't have to stay on top of it all the time, the pressure should ease and hopefully it will all work out.
Meanwhile, all these college buses sit doing nothing between 9 and 3 every day, so we decided to use some of the dead time to run a new service - the B. We worked hard to pick a route that avoided confronting Solent Blue Line in a competitive way and created something genuinely new. By linking a number of estates that Blue Line have dropped and providing new direct links that didn't exist before, we have created a route from Eastleigh to Southampton that manages to avoid Blue Line's main corridors.
Unfortunately for us, Blue Line have reacted as though we have marched into the Finance Director's office, held a gun to his head and demanded all their money. Immediately they found out about our new service, they registered their own route - also called the B - following an identical route with every single journey 3 minutes in front of ours. They branded it Beep! Bus B, use red buses that don't mention Blue Line or Bluestar anywhere on them, drivers wear red polo shirts and even the ticket machine 'till rolls' are plain white and do not mention Bluestar - all to try to dupe the public into thinking that Beep! is the innovative new service - not ours that we registered first.
They got over the fact that they were a week behind us getting their registration in (Because obviously it didn't exist until we registered it) by using a loophole to start on the same date but not charge any fares for a week. So, for a week, our brand new B route ran around with one of their buses running free of charge three minutes in front - and we still carried more passengers than them!!! Admittedly, not great numbers for either of us, but it's a start.
The balloon finally went up last Saturday when the Southampton Daily Echo made it front page news, and you can see it here...
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/3690016.Bus_wars/
...but be sure to read the public comments below the article itself.
Since the press coverage, we have been getting more of the passengers because it took the newspaper article for many of them to realise that Beep! was in fact Bluestar in disguise. This week, the Beep! drivers have tried to get round this by pretending they are Black Velvet! But most of the passengers at least seem to have sussed it out and contrary to the widely held belief that passengers simply get on the first bus that comes along, it is a common sight to see people waving the Beep! bus past so they can wait for ours!
As if all the college work wasn't hectic enough, the b-b-bus wars have taken a fair bit of my time too, so 16 hour days have been the norm - sometimes more! Aaaaaaaah, I hear you all chorus!
So all the above, in a roundabout way, tells you why I haven't been writing much on the blog lately. So on that happy note, and with the oven bleeping at me to let me know it is dinner time, I shall wish all my impatient readers a happy weekend and hope to be back here soon :)
Sunday 17 August 2008
Enjoying a week's holiday...
Everyone else that is, apart from me!!!
Normally we allow one person a week to be off on holiday. Via a combination of freak events we ended up with Taz, Jamie and Paul all away for the week, and Rob needed Tuesday and Thursday off, all of which left us a wee bit tight for staff!
Taz has been away with Nicki's family in the Italian Alps, although he kindly telephoned a couple of times to offer words of encouragement!
This meant that I had to sail the ship alone this week, apart from yesterday when even I needed most of the day off due to a social engagement, and Ant agreed to run the company for a day (and as far as I can see did a pretty good job apart from accidentally taking my office keys home with him).
And as if that wasn't enough, I have also had the pleasure of looking after Tommy, Taz's cat. Just to maximise the 'aah' factor here are some pictures of Tommy...
In the third one he is indeed lying on my computer and this was taken shortly before he decided to remove the 'i' key and space bar, which took me a fair while to reassemble.
Workwise, apart from Tuesday which was a complete mess and will shortly get a post all to itself, the week went surprisingly smoothly. Because of the number of people away, all the remaining staff worked every day apart from Sunday, and Pete joined us on Tuesday and Thursday. But everyone turned up every day on time and we had no staff problems and no major vehicle problems.
On Wednesday we collected J841 TSC from Qualiti Conversions at Botley, who have done a superb job of repainting it, and also recoated the hand poles yellow which has brightened up the interior a lot. This bus has original Edinburgh plastic seats which are perfectly comfortable and - like everything about this bus - in immaculate condition so don't justify retrimming. But they do look a bit, um, municipal!
Since Matt has adopted this bus, the plan was for me to meet him in Eastleigh Bus Station at 1500 on Wednesday when he finished duty 1, and take him down to Botley to collect the bus.
Mikey has been with us all week as well - doing a superb job of producing promotional material for the new service starting in September, promoting these routes in Eastleigh Bus Station and looking after our service A customers. It therefore seemed a good idea to take him too for the experience. Then Ant invited himself along - some excuse to do with needing someone to take photographs - and suddenly we had a carload to collect one bus!
Ant was on duty 3 which does the 1140 - 1425 portion of the Ringwood routes, then uses a double decker to travel empty back to Eastleigh, with the next piece of work in school holidays then being the 1650 A, so he had plenty of time assuming he would get back to Eastleigh at around 1500.
Then of course events intervened. At around 1400 Mikey had a problem with his phone and needed to get to the Vodafone shop in Southampton urgently, so we sent him off to Southampton on the bus. But this meant there was no prospect of him getting back in time to come with me and Matt, so I texted Ant and asked him to wait in town, meet Mikey and take him straight to Botley on the changeover bus.
So the definitive answer to "how many people does it take to collect a bus" is four - two people in a car and two people in a double decker bus. But at least it meant Ant could get these shots...
Looking good, don't you think???
We were running a bit late by the time we were ready to leave so Ant had to scurry off to do his A. I followed Matt back through Botley expecting him to turn right up Winchester Street, but of course he didn't. I guessed that Matt's coach driver instincts and love of 841 were going to seduce him into doing a scenic tour of South Hampshire and took the direct route back where I found the local bus paparazzi waiting on the corner of Barton Park to take piccies when the bus finally made it back.
By the time I had been into Brenhaul to talk about when we could service 841 and answered their questions about who those strange blokes were loitering on the entrance to the industrial estate with cameras, there was still no sign of Matt. Luckily he had Mikey with him, so I was able to obtain position reports from him. Eventually he appeared heading from completely the wrong direction and having taken a mere 40 minutes or so to do a journey that takes 15 minutes direct!
Steve fitted the ticket machine on Friday and the bus should be serviced tomorrow, so although it lacks graphics it should be ready for the road by early this week, if we choose to use it. The other two should emerge this week and next week respectively.
By now, Taz should be back from the Alps and Paul should be raring to go again so this week is looking a lot better staff-wise!
Normally we allow one person a week to be off on holiday. Via a combination of freak events we ended up with Taz, Jamie and Paul all away for the week, and Rob needed Tuesday and Thursday off, all of which left us a wee bit tight for staff!
Taz has been away with Nicki's family in the Italian Alps, although he kindly telephoned a couple of times to offer words of encouragement!
This meant that I had to sail the ship alone this week, apart from yesterday when even I needed most of the day off due to a social engagement, and Ant agreed to run the company for a day (and as far as I can see did a pretty good job apart from accidentally taking my office keys home with him).
And as if that wasn't enough, I have also had the pleasure of looking after Tommy, Taz's cat. Just to maximise the 'aah' factor here are some pictures of Tommy...
In the third one he is indeed lying on my computer and this was taken shortly before he decided to remove the 'i' key and space bar, which took me a fair while to reassemble.
Workwise, apart from Tuesday which was a complete mess and will shortly get a post all to itself, the week went surprisingly smoothly. Because of the number of people away, all the remaining staff worked every day apart from Sunday, and Pete joined us on Tuesday and Thursday. But everyone turned up every day on time and we had no staff problems and no major vehicle problems.
On Wednesday we collected J841 TSC from Qualiti Conversions at Botley, who have done a superb job of repainting it, and also recoated the hand poles yellow which has brightened up the interior a lot. This bus has original Edinburgh plastic seats which are perfectly comfortable and - like everything about this bus - in immaculate condition so don't justify retrimming. But they do look a bit, um, municipal!
Since Matt has adopted this bus, the plan was for me to meet him in Eastleigh Bus Station at 1500 on Wednesday when he finished duty 1, and take him down to Botley to collect the bus.
Mikey has been with us all week as well - doing a superb job of producing promotional material for the new service starting in September, promoting these routes in Eastleigh Bus Station and looking after our service A customers. It therefore seemed a good idea to take him too for the experience. Then Ant invited himself along - some excuse to do with needing someone to take photographs - and suddenly we had a carload to collect one bus!
Ant was on duty 3 which does the 1140 - 1425 portion of the Ringwood routes, then uses a double decker to travel empty back to Eastleigh, with the next piece of work in school holidays then being the 1650 A, so he had plenty of time assuming he would get back to Eastleigh at around 1500.
Then of course events intervened. At around 1400 Mikey had a problem with his phone and needed to get to the Vodafone shop in Southampton urgently, so we sent him off to Southampton on the bus. But this meant there was no prospect of him getting back in time to come with me and Matt, so I texted Ant and asked him to wait in town, meet Mikey and take him straight to Botley on the changeover bus.
So the definitive answer to "how many people does it take to collect a bus" is four - two people in a car and two people in a double decker bus. But at least it meant Ant could get these shots...
Looking good, don't you think???
We were running a bit late by the time we were ready to leave so Ant had to scurry off to do his A. I followed Matt back through Botley expecting him to turn right up Winchester Street, but of course he didn't. I guessed that Matt's coach driver instincts and love of 841 were going to seduce him into doing a scenic tour of South Hampshire and took the direct route back where I found the local bus paparazzi waiting on the corner of Barton Park to take piccies when the bus finally made it back.
By the time I had been into Brenhaul to talk about when we could service 841 and answered their questions about who those strange blokes were loitering on the entrance to the industrial estate with cameras, there was still no sign of Matt. Luckily he had Mikey with him, so I was able to obtain position reports from him. Eventually he appeared heading from completely the wrong direction and having taken a mere 40 minutes or so to do a journey that takes 15 minutes direct!
Steve fitted the ticket machine on Friday and the bus should be serviced tomorrow, so although it lacks graphics it should be ready for the road by early this week, if we choose to use it. The other two should emerge this week and next week respectively.
By now, Taz should be back from the Alps and Paul should be raring to go again so this week is looking a lot better staff-wise!
My last word on wheelie bins
Since this blog is in danger of becoming all about wheelie bins rather than buses, I think it's time to end the subject by reporting that the new bin for our yard arrived on Friday. If you want pictures, you'll have to take your own. Sorry! Unless of course someone captures it for Derek's site, which will now be our officially recommended point of reference for all matters relating to this particular form of four-wheeled transport :)
Saturday 9 August 2008
The wonderful world of wheelie bins
There are people out there who think that bus enthusiasts are a strange breed.
But maybe those people would instead be inspired by the idea of wheelie bin spotting. The uninformed observer may be simply unaware of the variety of sizes, shapes and colours of bins available, the unusual settings in which they may be found and what they are used for.
It turns out that there is a special place on the internet for those who wish to pursue an interest in wheelie bins. Courtesy of that illustrious bus (and now, as it turns out, wheelie bin) photographer Derek Doling, I am delighted to introduce you to The Wonderful World of Wheelie Bins, where our wheelie bin has been immortalised.
And as if that wasn't enough on the subject of wheelie bins, we've ordered another one, this time for the yard to accommodate all the rubbish we sweep off the buses every night. This one is coming from a different supplier, so that should get the wheelie bin fraternity flocking to Eastleigh for a second time!
But maybe those people would instead be inspired by the idea of wheelie bin spotting. The uninformed observer may be simply unaware of the variety of sizes, shapes and colours of bins available, the unusual settings in which they may be found and what they are used for.
It turns out that there is a special place on the internet for those who wish to pursue an interest in wheelie bins. Courtesy of that illustrious bus (and now, as it turns out, wheelie bin) photographer Derek Doling, I am delighted to introduce you to The Wonderful World of Wheelie Bins, where our wheelie bin has been immortalised.
And as if that wasn't enough on the subject of wheelie bins, we've ordered another one, this time for the yard to accommodate all the rubbish we sweep off the buses every night. This one is coming from a different supplier, so that should get the wheelie bin fraternity flocking to Eastleigh for a second time!
Thursday 31 July 2008
A terrible incident
As most people who read this will know, our colleagues at Wilts & Dorset suffered a terrible incident earlier today when one of their open-top double deckers overturned following a collision with a car, resulting in upper deck passengers being thrown clear of the bus.
Mercifully - almost unbelievably in fact - there were no fatalities and only a modest number of passengers were injured, and none of them too seriously.
This is the kind of incident that it just seems impossible to believe has really happened. The idea of an open top bus toppling over and passengers being thrown out is a concept almost impossible to visualise. What must have been going through their minds when they realised what was happening to them?
Tonight I am feeling sorry for the passengers who were caught up in this dreadful incident, and their families. I am also thinking of the bus driver, who I see is being praised by the police for minimising the severity of this incident. Thankfully I have never been personally involved in any serious collision as a driver, so find it difficult to truly understand what he must be going through, and so can only begin to imagine how he will come to terms with what has happened today.
But I also want to say a word for the other representatives of Wilts & Dorset who will have been involved. For all those who attended the scene, as well as all those left back at base trying to pick up the pieces, today will have been an horrific day. It is hard for anyone who hasn't been in a position of responsibility when something like this has occurred, to imagine that initial phone call which stops your world, and that dawning moment of realisation that something horrible has taken place. To then have to attend such an incident, to be confronted with the reality of what has taken place, will have taken their breath away.
I saw a brief interview with Andrew Wickham, Operations Director of Go South Coast, on the BBC website and although the interview was brief and factual, Andrew covered the essential information extremely well and clearly, impressively so. However, a 20 second interview barely touches the surface of a whole day of unfolding drama such as this, and whether it is now or later, I feel quite sure that today's events will leave emotional scars forever on all those involved.
While relieved at the low number of casualties and absence of fatalities, one must not underestimate the emotional impact of having to deal with an incident such as today's, and so right now my thoughts are very much with my colleagues at Wilts & Dorset.
Mercifully - almost unbelievably in fact - there were no fatalities and only a modest number of passengers were injured, and none of them too seriously.
This is the kind of incident that it just seems impossible to believe has really happened. The idea of an open top bus toppling over and passengers being thrown out is a concept almost impossible to visualise. What must have been going through their minds when they realised what was happening to them?
Tonight I am feeling sorry for the passengers who were caught up in this dreadful incident, and their families. I am also thinking of the bus driver, who I see is being praised by the police for minimising the severity of this incident. Thankfully I have never been personally involved in any serious collision as a driver, so find it difficult to truly understand what he must be going through, and so can only begin to imagine how he will come to terms with what has happened today.
But I also want to say a word for the other representatives of Wilts & Dorset who will have been involved. For all those who attended the scene, as well as all those left back at base trying to pick up the pieces, today will have been an horrific day. It is hard for anyone who hasn't been in a position of responsibility when something like this has occurred, to imagine that initial phone call which stops your world, and that dawning moment of realisation that something horrible has taken place. To then have to attend such an incident, to be confronted with the reality of what has taken place, will have taken their breath away.
I saw a brief interview with Andrew Wickham, Operations Director of Go South Coast, on the BBC website and although the interview was brief and factual, Andrew covered the essential information extremely well and clearly, impressively so. However, a 20 second interview barely touches the surface of a whole day of unfolding drama such as this, and whether it is now or later, I feel quite sure that today's events will leave emotional scars forever on all those involved.
While relieved at the low number of casualties and absence of fatalities, one must not underestimate the emotional impact of having to deal with an incident such as today's, and so right now my thoughts are very much with my colleagues at Wilts & Dorset.
Saturday 26 July 2008
A new addition to the fleet
Today we are celebrating the newest addition to our fleet. Somewhat smaller in capacity than our other rolling stock, it nevertheless drives very smoothly, is highly manoeuvrable and will fit into the tightest of gaps, as this picture shows...
Sunday 20 July 2008
A day on the 8
For the second week in a row, I found myself doing the service 8 duty today, as I did a deal with the scheduled driver (in this case Matt) to cover work for me later in the week if I covered their Sunday. That doesn't mean that it has to be me that does the duty, but I do like it a lot and so I am not too upset that no-one else really wanted the rest day work.
Having said that, last Sunday was great fun from start to finish. Today I wasn't really in the mood when I crawled out of bed, thinking of all the things I could have been doing instead. That's the only problem with driving. I love it, but it stops you doing anything else useful at all.
Added to which, I felt grotty - felt sick, headache, bad stomach - my body was truly in revolt. So I shuffled into work, devoid of any kind of spring in my step, just in time to prep the bus and go. Taz was there to say hi, which cheered me up. Ant was there with his entourage waiting to go to Alton Bus Rally. I was so rude - didn't even say hi to them. Just crawled into my bus, did the walk-round check, set up the ticket machine, drivers seat and destination blind and left.
My steed for the day V7 GMT - recently transformed by the fitment of a new throttle cable. Previously it was like driving a house brick. Now it glides along effortlessly. A ridiculous amount of money well spent! Almost overnight, V7 has gone from being "don't use on Ringwood except as last resort" to first choice Ringwood motor. (In case you are wondering, its because the Ringwood routes are by far the most demanding we cover. Way higher mileage and average running speed than anything else, lots of big hills, tight schedule, you name it.) It has also had four opening passenger windows fitted which has vastly improved the ambience.
So off I go, leaving at 0910 from the yard which should give me about 5 minutes waiting time at Hythe, and sure enough I pull in to the Ferry Interchange at 0939 for a 0944 departure, giving me a few moments to chat to the driver on the 0943 Bluestar 9 heading down to Fawley.
I'm not up for this though. I have already decided that today is going to be a day to endure. The object of the exercise is going to be simply to get to the other end of the day, having looked after my customers the best I can along the way. Last week the revenue was abnormally good, so I'm not expecting a repeat performance and while I like seeing the money come in, maybe a quiet day isn't such a bad thing.
Off I go, empty, and the first customers I meet are the elderly couple who always get on at The Mead stop, and as usual they are very cheery and it is a pleasure to welcome them on board. This is my fourth time on this duty, but I have travelled several other times on the first couple of trips to show drivers the route, so I know some of the regulars and that cheers me up a bit.
A quiet trip into Southampton is no surprise - last week more or less every seat was taken by the time we reached the city on this trip - and a quiet trip back puts me back in Hythe ready for the 1144, feeling a little bit better but still wishing I was in bed, and with a lot less cash in the bag than I had this time last week. One of our regulars, our friend in Pooksgreen who always buys a return to Totton travelling out at 1008 and back at 1732 even adds to the shortfall this week, only buying a single.
Then the day goes mad. On the next round trip I am besieged with people coming from all directions and £5 notes are being handed to me in unprecedented quantities! I am quite certain that the amount I take on this round trip must be the highest for any individual round trip on this route ever. Where are they all coming from? What's more, being busy seems to have perked me up a bit and by Marchwood I'm starting to cheer up a bit, and by Totton I'm positively in the groove! Now I'm checking the module every few seconds it seems to work out how much I've taken, trying to remember how much I'd taken this time last week, how much more I'd need to take to beat last week. I still don't think I'm going to do it - I doubt I'll even come close - but someone has pressed the 'cold start' button in my brain and it's now revving near the top of the green band, and that's always a good sign!
Then, heading back towards Hythe on the 1246 from town, the unthinkable happens. As we leave Totton, I suddenly realise that I have gone from a long way behind, to being actually ahead of where I was this time last week! There is a Magic Number (commercial confidentiality prevents me from disclosing what precisely) that you must pass on the way to the end of this duty, as any figure below this Magic Number would be a failure, but sometimes it passes quite close to the end of the duty - I have had plenty of nail-biting moments in the past wondering if it would ever come, and certainly you never pass it in the first half, except that last week I did, and to my complete amazement I have done it again, and more!
So I am a much happier camper when I pull in at Hythe for my break- running a few minutes late because of the volume of passengers - at around 1345.
A few minutes later, after a quick walk into the village, I'm back on the bus munching a Waitrose sandwich and a drink, door open as an invitation to anyone who might want to come aboard, but enjoying a few minutes peace and quiet.
Then a very posh Merc draws up alongside and four gents spring out taking a close interest in the bus. The whole thing looks very official, and my mind goes into overdrive wondering what could merit such a dramatic scene.
Then the cameras emerge and before I know it, the four guys are lined up shoulder to shoulder on the pavement opposite, they are bus spotters taking pictures of the bus! Never before have I seen such a slick, disciplined approach to bus enthusiasm! Nor has anyone else in Hythe, for it seems the taxi drivers also present and the locals in the area are now clustered in little huddles showing as much interest in the photographers as they are in me!
A brief conversation reveals that they have spent the morning in Bournemouth riding on open-top buses and are now on their way to a bus rally in Alton, but one of them realised that there would be a Velvet bus to be seen if they dropped into Hythe at around this time!
Back to work now, and I'm back in the groove again as I leave on the 1414. Now I am continually drawing comparisons with last week. This is normally a quiet trip, but seven days ago I took more than £10 just in Hythe alone. This week, there is hardly anyone around so I am behind last week's figure again. However, for some reason, there is quite a crowd at Marchwood Church - normally nobody at this time - and suddenly I think I am up again. I stay just ahead of last week's figure all the way through Totton and into town - stopping twice along Millbrook Road to pick up people who stay seated and don't put their hand out because they are determined to catch a blue bus, and a little explanation is required to help them realise that the purple buses do all the same things that the blue ones do, so there is no reason not to ride!
Then, disaster! In Southampton City Centre on the 1516 to Hythe, I take no money at all! Normally this is quite a busy trip, mostly returns and passes but the odd farepayer, but today hardly any passengers and no farepayers! Suddenly I go from being just ahead of last week to way behind once again! There's no coming back from this, is there?!?
There is an elderly lady who boards this trip every week and gets off at Batts Corner just after Totton town centre. I am convinced that she can't tell the difference between me and Jamie and thinks we are the same person. She's always very cheerful though and we briefly discuss the weather. Then she asks if I will be on again next week, or if I am on holiday. The possibility of there being any other options seems to pass her by! I inform her that it should be Jamie, and this seems to confuse her quite a lot - giving me further evidence that she cannot tell us apart.
Into the last round trip now and I would need an unprecedented performance on this trip to match last week's figure and so I start trying to tell myself once again that I already have a more than respectable figure and to calm down about the whole thing!
Sure enough, a quiet run into town makes this almost inevitable, but as I pull onto the stop at West Quay I am suddenly besieged with fare paying passengers! Single to Marchwood after single to Marchwood rolls into the bag and the pound signs in my brain are starting to light up after all!
But as we pull away, and finding no farepayers at Central Station, I know that we are £5 behind last week's figure. It's still a very good figure, but after all I have gone through today, it really would have been the icing on the cake to have beaten it. The only remaining hope is Totton, which usually yields a few passengers but mostly passholders so my hopes are not high.
But then, at Asda, I find myself selling a single to Hythe! A youngish guy needing to get to Blackfield will ride with me to Hythe then transfer to Bluestar 9.
This leaves me precisely £1.50 short of last week and I look hopefully at the two passengers getting on behind - but they both show me free passes and so the fat lady is starting to sing.
But then, as we cross over Rumbridge Street there is a guy stood at the Batts Corner stop. He hails me, unbelievably there is money in his hand, and it's a single to Marchwood - it's £2.60, it's the winning goal, it's £1.10 more than the figure for last Sunday that I thought I wouldn't touch, it's fireworks, it's lights and it's a good job he moved fast or I may well have given him a big hug!
An hour or so later, I'm back in Eastleigh after an uneventful run through to Hythe, and now suddenly everything is right with the world. Even Ant and his cohorts are there, so I have the opportunity to apologise for my lack of communication this morning. I go home happy, reflecting on another awesome day on the 8!
Having said that, last Sunday was great fun from start to finish. Today I wasn't really in the mood when I crawled out of bed, thinking of all the things I could have been doing instead. That's the only problem with driving. I love it, but it stops you doing anything else useful at all.
Added to which, I felt grotty - felt sick, headache, bad stomach - my body was truly in revolt. So I shuffled into work, devoid of any kind of spring in my step, just in time to prep the bus and go. Taz was there to say hi, which cheered me up. Ant was there with his entourage waiting to go to Alton Bus Rally. I was so rude - didn't even say hi to them. Just crawled into my bus, did the walk-round check, set up the ticket machine, drivers seat and destination blind and left.
My steed for the day V7 GMT - recently transformed by the fitment of a new throttle cable. Previously it was like driving a house brick. Now it glides along effortlessly. A ridiculous amount of money well spent! Almost overnight, V7 has gone from being "don't use on Ringwood except as last resort" to first choice Ringwood motor. (In case you are wondering, its because the Ringwood routes are by far the most demanding we cover. Way higher mileage and average running speed than anything else, lots of big hills, tight schedule, you name it.) It has also had four opening passenger windows fitted which has vastly improved the ambience.
So off I go, leaving at 0910 from the yard which should give me about 5 minutes waiting time at Hythe, and sure enough I pull in to the Ferry Interchange at 0939 for a 0944 departure, giving me a few moments to chat to the driver on the 0943 Bluestar 9 heading down to Fawley.
I'm not up for this though. I have already decided that today is going to be a day to endure. The object of the exercise is going to be simply to get to the other end of the day, having looked after my customers the best I can along the way. Last week the revenue was abnormally good, so I'm not expecting a repeat performance and while I like seeing the money come in, maybe a quiet day isn't such a bad thing.
Off I go, empty, and the first customers I meet are the elderly couple who always get on at The Mead stop, and as usual they are very cheery and it is a pleasure to welcome them on board. This is my fourth time on this duty, but I have travelled several other times on the first couple of trips to show drivers the route, so I know some of the regulars and that cheers me up a bit.
A quiet trip into Southampton is no surprise - last week more or less every seat was taken by the time we reached the city on this trip - and a quiet trip back puts me back in Hythe ready for the 1144, feeling a little bit better but still wishing I was in bed, and with a lot less cash in the bag than I had this time last week. One of our regulars, our friend in Pooksgreen who always buys a return to Totton travelling out at 1008 and back at 1732 even adds to the shortfall this week, only buying a single.
Then the day goes mad. On the next round trip I am besieged with people coming from all directions and £5 notes are being handed to me in unprecedented quantities! I am quite certain that the amount I take on this round trip must be the highest for any individual round trip on this route ever. Where are they all coming from? What's more, being busy seems to have perked me up a bit and by Marchwood I'm starting to cheer up a bit, and by Totton I'm positively in the groove! Now I'm checking the module every few seconds it seems to work out how much I've taken, trying to remember how much I'd taken this time last week, how much more I'd need to take to beat last week. I still don't think I'm going to do it - I doubt I'll even come close - but someone has pressed the 'cold start' button in my brain and it's now revving near the top of the green band, and that's always a good sign!
Then, heading back towards Hythe on the 1246 from town, the unthinkable happens. As we leave Totton, I suddenly realise that I have gone from a long way behind, to being actually ahead of where I was this time last week! There is a Magic Number (commercial confidentiality prevents me from disclosing what precisely) that you must pass on the way to the end of this duty, as any figure below this Magic Number would be a failure, but sometimes it passes quite close to the end of the duty - I have had plenty of nail-biting moments in the past wondering if it would ever come, and certainly you never pass it in the first half, except that last week I did, and to my complete amazement I have done it again, and more!
So I am a much happier camper when I pull in at Hythe for my break- running a few minutes late because of the volume of passengers - at around 1345.
A few minutes later, after a quick walk into the village, I'm back on the bus munching a Waitrose sandwich and a drink, door open as an invitation to anyone who might want to come aboard, but enjoying a few minutes peace and quiet.
Then a very posh Merc draws up alongside and four gents spring out taking a close interest in the bus. The whole thing looks very official, and my mind goes into overdrive wondering what could merit such a dramatic scene.
Then the cameras emerge and before I know it, the four guys are lined up shoulder to shoulder on the pavement opposite, they are bus spotters taking pictures of the bus! Never before have I seen such a slick, disciplined approach to bus enthusiasm! Nor has anyone else in Hythe, for it seems the taxi drivers also present and the locals in the area are now clustered in little huddles showing as much interest in the photographers as they are in me!
A brief conversation reveals that they have spent the morning in Bournemouth riding on open-top buses and are now on their way to a bus rally in Alton, but one of them realised that there would be a Velvet bus to be seen if they dropped into Hythe at around this time!
Back to work now, and I'm back in the groove again as I leave on the 1414. Now I am continually drawing comparisons with last week. This is normally a quiet trip, but seven days ago I took more than £10 just in Hythe alone. This week, there is hardly anyone around so I am behind last week's figure again. However, for some reason, there is quite a crowd at Marchwood Church - normally nobody at this time - and suddenly I think I am up again. I stay just ahead of last week's figure all the way through Totton and into town - stopping twice along Millbrook Road to pick up people who stay seated and don't put their hand out because they are determined to catch a blue bus, and a little explanation is required to help them realise that the purple buses do all the same things that the blue ones do, so there is no reason not to ride!
Then, disaster! In Southampton City Centre on the 1516 to Hythe, I take no money at all! Normally this is quite a busy trip, mostly returns and passes but the odd farepayer, but today hardly any passengers and no farepayers! Suddenly I go from being just ahead of last week to way behind once again! There's no coming back from this, is there?!?
There is an elderly lady who boards this trip every week and gets off at Batts Corner just after Totton town centre. I am convinced that she can't tell the difference between me and Jamie and thinks we are the same person. She's always very cheerful though and we briefly discuss the weather. Then she asks if I will be on again next week, or if I am on holiday. The possibility of there being any other options seems to pass her by! I inform her that it should be Jamie, and this seems to confuse her quite a lot - giving me further evidence that she cannot tell us apart.
Into the last round trip now and I would need an unprecedented performance on this trip to match last week's figure and so I start trying to tell myself once again that I already have a more than respectable figure and to calm down about the whole thing!
Sure enough, a quiet run into town makes this almost inevitable, but as I pull onto the stop at West Quay I am suddenly besieged with fare paying passengers! Single to Marchwood after single to Marchwood rolls into the bag and the pound signs in my brain are starting to light up after all!
But as we pull away, and finding no farepayers at Central Station, I know that we are £5 behind last week's figure. It's still a very good figure, but after all I have gone through today, it really would have been the icing on the cake to have beaten it. The only remaining hope is Totton, which usually yields a few passengers but mostly passholders so my hopes are not high.
But then, at Asda, I find myself selling a single to Hythe! A youngish guy needing to get to Blackfield will ride with me to Hythe then transfer to Bluestar 9.
This leaves me precisely £1.50 short of last week and I look hopefully at the two passengers getting on behind - but they both show me free passes and so the fat lady is starting to sing.
But then, as we cross over Rumbridge Street there is a guy stood at the Batts Corner stop. He hails me, unbelievably there is money in his hand, and it's a single to Marchwood - it's £2.60, it's the winning goal, it's £1.10 more than the figure for last Sunday that I thought I wouldn't touch, it's fireworks, it's lights and it's a good job he moved fast or I may well have given him a big hug!
An hour or so later, I'm back in Eastleigh after an uneventful run through to Hythe, and now suddenly everything is right with the world. Even Ant and his cohorts are there, so I have the opportunity to apologise for my lack of communication this morning. I go home happy, reflecting on another awesome day on the 8!
Wednesday 16 July 2008
In the middle of the night
Tuesday - a quiet evening in, plodding around the flat, doing bits and pieces on the computer, doing the washing, loading the dishwasher, high octane stuff! But I'm not tired and I'm putting off going to bed. Finish chatting to a friend on the computer around midnight and wonder what to do next.
The problem is solved for me. The phone rings. 0208. It's a rail job! Can we provide a bus for 0035 Eastleigh to Portsmouth Harbour via all stations?
I'm practically out of the front door before we've finished the call. 0035 is half an hour away, I'm in the centre of Southampton heading for my car. I tell them to expect the bus 10-15 late but it'll be there.
Halfway to Eastleigh Wimbledon Control ring back - double checking I know which stations I'm serving - I reel off Hedge End, Botley, Fareham, Portchester, Cosham, Hilsea, Fratton, Portsmouth & Southsea and Portsmouth Harbour from the top of my head and they seem happy.
I drive to Eastleigh - quickly run into the office, round to the yard, open the gate, I need 303 - it's at the back with V7 and V14 in front. Start 303, pull the DAFs out, drive 303 out, put the DAFs back - it's messy but they are out the way for the moment - out through the gate, lock the gate behind me, round to the station and I'm there at 0036!
You never know with rail rep passengers. Sometimes they're jolly and happy that you're there to get them home. Sometimes they're just stroppy because they've been turfed off a train unexpectedly - and I can't really blame them.
Tonight there is a distinct lack of cheer, but they're not going to spoil my mood! It's a quiet, still, calm night, hardly any traffic, beautiful driving conditions and a beautiful bus. The miles slip away effortlessly.
Hedge End - half a dozen noisy youngsters off - peace reigns. Botley - no-one. Turn round and a nice bit of country driving down through Curbridge and Burridge to Swanwick and into Fareham - one off, no-one else in sight. Good progress along the A27 to Portchester - one off, that was a surprise. A few more off at Cosham, really no point going to Hilsea cos there won't be anyone either on or off, but its what SWT want and that's what they'll get. But I was right. All the rest off at Fratton bar one who stays on til the bitter end. 1 hour 15 mins end to end - doesn't seem too bad really.
Back in the yard at 0230, quick chat with one of the truck drivers who's turned up to start work - likes to go early morning so he's finished by lunchtime - and I'm out by 0245 after a thoroughly enjoyable evening.
The problem is solved for me. The phone rings. 0208. It's a rail job! Can we provide a bus for 0035 Eastleigh to Portsmouth Harbour via all stations?
I'm practically out of the front door before we've finished the call. 0035 is half an hour away, I'm in the centre of Southampton heading for my car. I tell them to expect the bus 10-15 late but it'll be there.
Halfway to Eastleigh Wimbledon Control ring back - double checking I know which stations I'm serving - I reel off Hedge End, Botley, Fareham, Portchester, Cosham, Hilsea, Fratton, Portsmouth & Southsea and Portsmouth Harbour from the top of my head and they seem happy.
I drive to Eastleigh - quickly run into the office, round to the yard, open the gate, I need 303 - it's at the back with V7 and V14 in front. Start 303, pull the DAFs out, drive 303 out, put the DAFs back - it's messy but they are out the way for the moment - out through the gate, lock the gate behind me, round to the station and I'm there at 0036!
You never know with rail rep passengers. Sometimes they're jolly and happy that you're there to get them home. Sometimes they're just stroppy because they've been turfed off a train unexpectedly - and I can't really blame them.
Tonight there is a distinct lack of cheer, but they're not going to spoil my mood! It's a quiet, still, calm night, hardly any traffic, beautiful driving conditions and a beautiful bus. The miles slip away effortlessly.
Hedge End - half a dozen noisy youngsters off - peace reigns. Botley - no-one. Turn round and a nice bit of country driving down through Curbridge and Burridge to Swanwick and into Fareham - one off, no-one else in sight. Good progress along the A27 to Portchester - one off, that was a surprise. A few more off at Cosham, really no point going to Hilsea cos there won't be anyone either on or off, but its what SWT want and that's what they'll get. But I was right. All the rest off at Fratton bar one who stays on til the bitter end. 1 hour 15 mins end to end - doesn't seem too bad really.
Back in the yard at 0230, quick chat with one of the truck drivers who's turned up to start work - likes to go early morning so he's finished by lunchtime - and I'm out by 0245 after a thoroughly enjoyable evening.
Saturday 12 July 2008
Open even more hours
The fitting postscript to the last post about being called at odd hours, is that having gone to bed shortly after writing that post, I was then woken at 0545 the following morning by the phone ringing. Now you never get a phone call at 0545 unless its an emergency - driver not coming in, problems with buses, whatever. Unless - as in this case - it's a lady ringing to ask about the times of buses from Mansbridge to Eastleigh later that morning! Doh!!!
Thursday 10 July 2008
Open all hours
The time is now 2226 - or 10.26pm if you prefer your times in 'classic' format. The office phone is diverted to me this evening and I am at home, mixing my time between watching TV, surfing the internet and trying to get a couple of jobs done for the morning.
In the last half hour I have received two enquiries from members of the public asking about bus services from Parkway Station to the Rose Bowl. The first came from an 0208 number so that got the heart racing - I was convinced it was going to be South West Trains! Neither enquiry has been a problem, both gentlemen have been a pleasure to assist and they seem to appreciate the information I have given them.
So why am I writing about this?
Well it just strikes me as odd that anyone should expect to ring up at such a late hour expecting lines to be open and people on the other end of them! As a rule, if I am ringing a business as a customer, I would expect them to be winding down from about 5pm onwards, with only the biggest companies still manning their call centres at 8pm, and not much after that.
I am more than happy to help, but it just seems to be an odd time to be ringing with a query about bus times. Is it just me that finds that odd?
In the last half hour I have received two enquiries from members of the public asking about bus services from Parkway Station to the Rose Bowl. The first came from an 0208 number so that got the heart racing - I was convinced it was going to be South West Trains! Neither enquiry has been a problem, both gentlemen have been a pleasure to assist and they seem to appreciate the information I have given them.
So why am I writing about this?
Well it just strikes me as odd that anyone should expect to ring up at such a late hour expecting lines to be open and people on the other end of them! As a rule, if I am ringing a business as a customer, I would expect them to be winding down from about 5pm onwards, with only the biggest companies still manning their call centres at 8pm, and not much after that.
I am more than happy to help, but it just seems to be an odd time to be ringing with a query about bus times. Is it just me that finds that odd?
Saturday 5 July 2008
The Crazy Frog has croaked
Following the reduction in frequency of service A last weekend, we now have one bus surplus to requirements so we had given notice to Dawson Rentals that we would end our hire of V384 SVV from Tuesday 7th July.
Unfortunately, the sense of rejection obviously proved too much because it disgraced itself outside Hedge End Superstores on Friday evening, and cannot sensibly be repaired in time to be of any use.
So Steve's baby has withdrawn itself early, and he will now need to find one of the DAFs to adopt!
Unfortunately, the sense of rejection obviously proved too much because it disgraced itself outside Hedge End Superstores on Friday evening, and cannot sensibly be repaired in time to be of any use.
So Steve's baby has withdrawn itself early, and he will now need to find one of the DAFs to adopt!
Sunday 15 June 2008
Friday 13th
I think I might take up superstition as my new hobby! I have never believed in all that Friday 13th rubbish, but after this week I think I might have to reconsider!
The rest of the run out proceeded smoothly enough - V7, V14 and 384 heading out on the A, with V11 off the road awaiting a new indicator stalk (oh, the exciting world of bus maintenance!). But whereas we normally take one double decker over to the Bus Station – it does two driver transfers into Southampton to enable reliefs on the 35/300, and then the Wildern School run in the afternoon but is otherwise spare – I took both 303 and 309 today in the belief that there may be trouble ahead.
Not knowing what had happened to Matt once he disappeared into the great unknown, but guessing he would probably be marooned in a huge traffic jam somewhere, I started to think through the next few hours. What follows is a serious geekfest!
Ant was on the 1100 start, and would almost certainly be up for coming in early, but given that he lived the other side of the closure could take him all morning to get in. But I texted him anyway to give him due warning and get him moving!
Karl was on the 1000 start, but by 0800 frankly there’s not a lot anyone’s going to do to get in much earlier than they were going to anyway, but with only three A’s on his duty (it’s only a modest little number, 1000 – 1500 doing three trips on service A, a duty designed for a part-timer who decided not to join us in the end so now I give it away as overtime!) there’d be scope to move him around.
Other than that, I had what I had in terms of drivers and buses available.
The first problem would be that with Matt running late on the inbound 35, this would knock on to the 0840 300 to Ringwood and the 0930 round trip from there to Lyndhurst on the 35, and then the 1045 Ringwood to Southampton, which would be Matt’s last trip before coming off for a break. In fact, the delays would probably get worse as the morning wore on. I couldn’t bear the thought of all those journeys running late, and besides which Matt would probably run out of legal driving time eventually.
So, plan A: get Taz to cover Jamie’s service A at 0850 to Botley and back, and send Jamie off after his 0825 arrival to pick up Matt’s duty wherever he could – probably at Poulner on the 300 down to Ringwood – and then once I knew where and when Matt was, sort something out to get them back on track.
Bonus – traffic around Eastleigh was very light so Jamie didn’t need the recovery time built into the schedule and rolled in early at 0815. He was up for plan A, but even better with an extra 10 minutes to play with and light traffic, could probably get to Southampton to run the entire 300 journey – even if a few minutes late.
So off he went roaring out of the Bus Station just after 0815. Ten minutes later, the phone goes, it’s Matt! He’s in Southampton on time!!! Turns out a helpful lady passenger got on at the second stop in Ringwood and proposed a diversion that proved highly effective, and with traffic levels not having built up to any great degree yet, Matt was only 13 minutes late at Lyndhurst and got most of that back with a clear run into town.
So I cancelled plan A, messaged Jamie and got him to come back to Eastleigh and he went back out on his scheduled trip at 0850 to Botley, and Taz got to go to the office for a bit!
In fact, at that point I wondered if the whole thing might turn out to not amount to very much. The Highways Agency was estimating 0915 for the road to reopen, so Matt’s arrival in Ringwood should be just in time to allow him to follow the correct route on the 35 and it would all be fine from there on! Or so I thought.
Then two things happened. The Highways Agency delayed the estimated time for reopening to 1000 and Ant started sending me increasingly worrying texts about traffic conditions in the New Forest as he attempted to battle his way into work.
So I figured that Matt would be ok for the 0930 round trip on 35 but would almost certainly be back in Ringwood too late for the 1045 300. Apart from being the key commercial trip of the day, on arrival in Southampton there is a driver change with the early shift driver coming back to Eastleigh to do some A’s, so any problems with this trip could have nasty consequences for the schedule.
Trouble is, the only driver I could realistically get down there in time to do the 1045 was Jamie, who was supposed to be Matt’s relief at 1140 having had a break after his early A’s, but since he didn’t get back to Eastleigh until 1005 couldn’t get to Ringwood for 1045 AND do all his scheduled trips between 1140 and 1425 as he would have had no break at all since the start of the day.
Meanwhile, Ant was getting ever closer to Eastleigh and his duty had a relatively easy start, 1120 Eastleigh – Botley – Eastleigh on the A then a break and down to Southampton to take over the Ringwoods at 1430. Lots of potential to muck about with that then!
So, plan B – Jamie came in at 1005 expecting a break, but willingly allowed me to send him straight to Ringwood to do the 1045 300 on the basis that he would get a break when he got back to Southampton. That meant covering him from 1140 onwards so instead of doing his A Ant agreed to go to Southampton.
However, this would cause a problem later on in the day as if Ant did the whole stint from 1140 – 1430, he would be unable to carry on to do his own scheduled trips from 1440 onwards without a break.
In the middle of pondering all this, the A31 reopened at around 1030 which at least eliminated the need to cope with further delays as the day went on.
So, in the end, the simplest solution was to get Ant to take 303 into Southampton to relieve Jamie at 1130, do all the remaining trips on the Ringwoods apart from the 1345 round trip to Southampton on the 300s, and get Matt to stay in Ringwood when he got back from Lyndhurst, have his break, do the 1345 round trip then come back dead from Ringwood to Eastleigh at 1520.
This left me with Ant’s scheduled round trip on the A at 1120 and the afternoon Wildern School run to cover, and Taz willingly stepped in for both of those.
This also led to the unusual sight of two of our buses in Ringwood at the same time – Matt with V12 and Ant with V14 that he had taken over from Jamie, though the downside of that was that we had to run one of the A workings with a double decker for several hours until Matt got back just after 1600.
All that sorted, we settled in for a quiet afternoon. And that’s largely what we got until the very end.
Jamie’s duty finished with the 1750 from Eastleigh, which is due back at the yard at 1857, and I knew he needed to get away for a family engagement. Friday evening traffic is usually ok by then, but I had fixed up with Taz and Paul that if the traffic was bad, Taz would do the 1720 and Paul would drop back on to the 1750 to allow Jamie to get away, but if traffic was light everyone would do their scheduled trips.
With everything running on time and no traffic problems reported, I told Taz he wasn’t needed and he left just before 1700.
Then, just before 1730, phone call from Jamie – there had been an accident at Haskins and all the traffic was backing up!
So after wrestling briefly with my conscience, I figured that the only thing I could reasonably do was to cover Jamie’s last trip for him, and he in turn agreed to fuel the first couple of buses in before heading off to his family meal.
I left Eastleigh on time at 1750, joined the queue at the Ford factory, passed the Mansbridge timing point just about on time at 1804, and it then took 40 minutes to cover the mile or so up to Haskins!
Fair play to the ambulance driver coming the other way though, who – in a repeat of the Steve and the policewoman story a few days previously – pulled up alongside my bus to let me know what was happening and how long I could expect before the road was clear! Nice one! Passengers certainly seemed impressed.
So I figured that apart from me getting back to the yard late, nothing else could possibly go wrong on Friday 13th. Then – just as I’m near the head of the queue, a message from Jamie... the petrol station had run out of diesel! He’d managed to fill the two buses I’d left him with, but there were only around 70 litres left in the tank so the station was closing!
This was either a minor problem as has happened before – the station closes for a while, a new delivery arrives and everything returns to normal – or, with the Shell tanker strike all over the news, could this possibly be something more serious? Horrible thoughts filled my head of driving all over Hampshire in my bus trying to find an open petrol station! However, my rational side figured that I hadn’t seen panic buying at any of the petrol stations I’d passed all day, so everything must be normal really, but I still had to get mine and Ant’s buses fuelled!
Pulled in and sent a quick message to Ant to meet me at Rownhams motorway services which he would soon be passing anyway, and after dropping off round Hedge End and Botley got over there within 30 minutes or so. Luckily everything was calm, we fuelled the two buses with no problem and got back to the yard around 1945.
So that was it then.... except that unfortunately a tree branch had smashed one of Ant’s mirrors, so I couldn’t quite make my escape until I had sorted that out ready for Saturday morning.
I got away at 2030 in the end, crazy day!
(Photos courtesy of Ant and Kev)
The customer is always right
It's Saturday afternoon, and service A has fallen apart because of cricket traffic around the Rose Bowl.
So I leap in V12 (spare bus) and go hunting for passengers. First trip round I pick up a load at West End Post Office at around 1635, mostly for Parkway station but a few going into Eastleigh.
I head out for a second trip, get back to West End Post Office at 1715 and find a few more people waiting (I know at least one other bus has gone through in the meantime).
"Thank goodness you're here", announces a lady passenger in haughty tone, "we've been waiting an hour and a half and no buses have come!"
"I'm so sorry," I reply sweetly, "I must have missed you when I was here forty minutes ago".
Haughty lady issues a loud "hmmmmph" and flounces off down the bus.
Lady behind her, part of the same party, sotto voce to me: "Actually, we all went to the pub!"
So I leap in V12 (spare bus) and go hunting for passengers. First trip round I pick up a load at West End Post Office at around 1635, mostly for Parkway station but a few going into Eastleigh.
I head out for a second trip, get back to West End Post Office at 1715 and find a few more people waiting (I know at least one other bus has gone through in the meantime).
"Thank goodness you're here", announces a lady passenger in haughty tone, "we've been waiting an hour and a half and no buses have come!"
"I'm so sorry," I reply sweetly, "I must have missed you when I was here forty minutes ago".
Haughty lady issues a loud "hmmmmph" and flounces off down the bus.
Lady behind her, part of the same party, sotto voce to me: "Actually, we all went to the pub!"
Saturday 7 June 2008
Keeping track of who reads this
I wonder who reads this blog. Is it possible that someone from South West Trains does? In particular, someone who works at Wimbledon Emergency Control Centre (or whatever it's called?)
When the 0208 number appeared on my phone, I was one step ahead of them. I said to Taz straight away, "it's South West Trains"! You'd have been proud of me!
Now I have previously described the control office in Wimbledon as South West Trains Wimbledon Emergency Control Centre, then suggested that that is not it's real name.
I wasn't really paying enough attention (too busy gloating) but I am pretty sure that the very friendly lady on the other end of the phone introduced herself - in a slightly mischievous tone of voice - as South West Trains Wimbledon Emergency Control Centre, so either I got the name right due to a freak accident, or someone reads this blog and put her up to it (maybe she does herself)!!
Or maybe of course I'm deluding myself and she didn't introduce herself as anything of the sort - but she sounded very nice, so I'm prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt! She did tell me her name as well but in the heat of the moment I forgot that! If it was you, or someone you know, prove it by introducing yourself as Wimbledon Choo Choo Crisis Control next time you ring!
Anyway, to all those at SWT WECC, (or WCCCC as you prefer), I'm sorry you decided you couldn't use us on Wareham - Weymouth in the end. It would have been fun. And Ant and I were sat in our buses, all psyched up and ready to go when you stood us down, but it didn't really matter in the end. Better luck next time! And while I'm on, big grovelling apologies for missing your call at midnight 20 on Friday morning! Don't know how that happened, but as it happened we couldn't have helped anyway, but it would have been nice to have been able to tell you that in person. My bad!
When the 0208 number appeared on my phone, I was one step ahead of them. I said to Taz straight away, "it's South West Trains"! You'd have been proud of me!
Now I have previously described the control office in Wimbledon as South West Trains Wimbledon Emergency Control Centre, then suggested that that is not it's real name.
I wasn't really paying enough attention (too busy gloating) but I am pretty sure that the very friendly lady on the other end of the phone introduced herself - in a slightly mischievous tone of voice - as South West Trains Wimbledon Emergency Control Centre, so either I got the name right due to a freak accident, or someone reads this blog and put her up to it (maybe she does herself)!!
Or maybe of course I'm deluding myself and she didn't introduce herself as anything of the sort - but she sounded very nice, so I'm prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt! She did tell me her name as well but in the heat of the moment I forgot that! If it was you, or someone you know, prove it by introducing yourself as Wimbledon Choo Choo Crisis Control next time you ring!
Anyway, to all those at SWT WECC, (or WCCCC as you prefer), I'm sorry you decided you couldn't use us on Wareham - Weymouth in the end. It would have been fun. And Ant and I were sat in our buses, all psyched up and ready to go when you stood us down, but it didn't really matter in the end. Better luck next time! And while I'm on, big grovelling apologies for missing your call at midnight 20 on Friday morning! Don't know how that happened, but as it happened we couldn't have helped anyway, but it would have been nice to have been able to tell you that in person. My bad!
Smooth operation
Friday was one of those rare days when everything ran like clockwork from start to finish.
All the drivers were in early and left on time. V7, V14 and V384 were on A, V11 was the Ringwood bus, 309 was on line D1 (that's our secret code for the bus that does the driver transfers in and out of Southampton to swap drivers over on the Ringwood bus, and then does Wildern School in the afternoon). 303 was spare and V12 was in for MOT preparation.
Having left on time, all the buses stayed on time as far as I could tell all day. All the drivers appeared at the office at the right times for paying in and breaks.
At the end of the day, the buses appeared at the petrol station at the times I was expecting them, all went up to the yard, parked up and swept, and the drivers were away a bit before their sign off time (which is the way I like it - it means that when it does go pear-shaped, they are ok about staying a bit over to help out).
V7 and V11 had their radiators cleaned out on Thursday night as they were running a bit hot again, and the temperatures on both were absolutely spot on.
Put simply, nothing went wrong.
Wouldn't it be boring if every day was like that!
All the drivers were in early and left on time. V7, V14 and V384 were on A, V11 was the Ringwood bus, 309 was on line D1 (that's our secret code for the bus that does the driver transfers in and out of Southampton to swap drivers over on the Ringwood bus, and then does Wildern School in the afternoon). 303 was spare and V12 was in for MOT preparation.
Having left on time, all the buses stayed on time as far as I could tell all day. All the drivers appeared at the office at the right times for paying in and breaks.
At the end of the day, the buses appeared at the petrol station at the times I was expecting them, all went up to the yard, parked up and swept, and the drivers were away a bit before their sign off time (which is the way I like it - it means that when it does go pear-shaped, they are ok about staying a bit over to help out).
V7 and V11 had their radiators cleaned out on Thursday night as they were running a bit hot again, and the temperatures on both were absolutely spot on.
Put simply, nothing went wrong.
Wouldn't it be boring if every day was like that!
Wednesday 4 June 2008
Road trip
With all drivers present and correct and a calm day in store, Taz and I went on a road trip today!
The day started early - after yesterday's rain, all the buses were filthy, so Taz, Jamie and I were all in the yard around 0530 and managed to wash and mop all three DAFs before they went out, and mopped the white Dart as well. Tiring, but rewarding. To prove the point, we rewarded ourselves with breakfast after all the buses had gone!
Our excursion took us to the Ringwood area. It is likely that at some point we will seek to run the 35 & 300 from a base somewhere in that area to minimise dead mileage, but that requires finding an off-road site suitable to house one of the DAFs. We therefore went on a top secret (until now, that is) reconnaissance mission of a number of possible sites and to be honest, didn't really see anything that fired our imagination, so we'll have to keep looking for the moment. Bright ideas welcome, if anyone has any by the way!
We also paid a visit to Solent Coaches just to say hello while out on our travels and what friendly, nice people they seem to be!
On the way down, we passed V11 going the other way on the 1045 300 Ringwood - Soton. Sparkly clean V11, with the sun glinting off the roof, looked absolutely stunningly gorgeous! I wish I'd had my camera! (And not driving at 70mph in the other direction!!!) Was so excited I forgot to check how many passengers there were!
Our route back to Eastleigh took us via Winchester where we ordered new football kits for the Monday 5-a-side football time hitherto known as 'Solent Blue Line' but shortly to be officially renamed (whether they like it or not lol!)
Back in Eastleigh by around 1700 hrs and off to do the fuelling. Everyone was in very good time tonight, obviously not much traffic around, so in came Steve with the Crazy Frog Bus (don't ask) at 1810, Paul with V14 at 1815, Matt with V7 at 1845 then Ant with V11 from Ringwood at 1900 - the earliest return yet!
Off to bed now - alarm set for 0445 (I'm opening up instead of Taz tomorrow) ready for a new round of fun and frivolity! But this time with no buses to wash!
The day started early - after yesterday's rain, all the buses were filthy, so Taz, Jamie and I were all in the yard around 0530 and managed to wash and mop all three DAFs before they went out, and mopped the white Dart as well. Tiring, but rewarding. To prove the point, we rewarded ourselves with breakfast after all the buses had gone!
Our excursion took us to the Ringwood area. It is likely that at some point we will seek to run the 35 & 300 from a base somewhere in that area to minimise dead mileage, but that requires finding an off-road site suitable to house one of the DAFs. We therefore went on a top secret (until now, that is) reconnaissance mission of a number of possible sites and to be honest, didn't really see anything that fired our imagination, so we'll have to keep looking for the moment. Bright ideas welcome, if anyone has any by the way!
We also paid a visit to Solent Coaches just to say hello while out on our travels and what friendly, nice people they seem to be!
On the way down, we passed V11 going the other way on the 1045 300 Ringwood - Soton. Sparkly clean V11, with the sun glinting off the roof, looked absolutely stunningly gorgeous! I wish I'd had my camera! (And not driving at 70mph in the other direction!!!) Was so excited I forgot to check how many passengers there were!
Our route back to Eastleigh took us via Winchester where we ordered new football kits for the Monday 5-a-side football time hitherto known as 'Solent Blue Line' but shortly to be officially renamed (whether they like it or not lol!)
Back in Eastleigh by around 1700 hrs and off to do the fuelling. Everyone was in very good time tonight, obviously not much traffic around, so in came Steve with the Crazy Frog Bus (don't ask) at 1810, Paul with V14 at 1815, Matt with V7 at 1845 then Ant with V11 from Ringwood at 1900 - the earliest return yet!
Off to bed now - alarm set for 0445 (I'm opening up instead of Taz tomorrow) ready for a new round of fun and frivolity! But this time with no buses to wash!
Tuesday 3 June 2008
303 goes to Fareham
South West Trains tricked me today! Maybe they read this blog (yeah, right :-S) but I never saw the 0208 number on my phone! No, they were far too clever for that - they called on the land line!!!
The call came at around 1240 - could we find two buses to help replace the Eastleigh - Fareham line, closed by flooding at Botley? In fact I could only provide one - we have six o-licences and use five of them on weekdays, so even if all seven vehicles are available I can't use them all. So I offered one, to be required at Eastleigh 1330-1345.
The bus had to be 303, but this was due in for service, so a quick call to Brenhaul, our maintenance contractors, and this was rescheduled for tomorrow just in the nick of time!
Driver-wise I took Ant at his word. Having asked him to come in for our short five hour duty 5 today, he said to me this morning that if anything extra came up during the day, to let him know. So I texted him that I would cover his last scheduled trip - 1320 service A Eastleigh-Botley-Eastleigh - and could he please do the rail rep? Next I spoke to Taz and asked him to cover the trip on the A.
All straightforward enough except that Ant didn't read the text, so was surprised when Taz turned up to relieve him on the A, but was up for it nevertheless!
I went round to Eastleigh station with Ant, arriving dead on 1345, only for the station staff to tell us that we would not be used until 1430! Not to worry, Ant did two trips - at 1430 and 1630 from Eastleigh to Fareham (curiously the northbound line was open and trains running throughout) - and was stood down at 1825, so another successful day playing trains!
The call came at around 1240 - could we find two buses to help replace the Eastleigh - Fareham line, closed by flooding at Botley? In fact I could only provide one - we have six o-licences and use five of them on weekdays, so even if all seven vehicles are available I can't use them all. So I offered one, to be required at Eastleigh 1330-1345.
The bus had to be 303, but this was due in for service, so a quick call to Brenhaul, our maintenance contractors, and this was rescheduled for tomorrow just in the nick of time!
Driver-wise I took Ant at his word. Having asked him to come in for our short five hour duty 5 today, he said to me this morning that if anything extra came up during the day, to let him know. So I texted him that I would cover his last scheduled trip - 1320 service A Eastleigh-Botley-Eastleigh - and could he please do the rail rep? Next I spoke to Taz and asked him to cover the trip on the A.
All straightforward enough except that Ant didn't read the text, so was surprised when Taz turned up to relieve him on the A, but was up for it nevertheless!
I went round to Eastleigh station with Ant, arriving dead on 1345, only for the station staff to tell us that we would not be used until 1430! Not to worry, Ant did two trips - at 1430 and 1630 from Eastleigh to Fareham (curiously the northbound line was open and trains running throughout) - and was stood down at 1825, so another successful day playing trains!
Sunday 1 June 2008
Blues and Queues
On Thursday we suffered delays on the A for a while because of an accident at the White Swan - apparently two cars ran into the back of an ambulance (because of course ambulances are so hard to see! :-S)
We first heard of the delays through a phone call from Steve, who was heading towards Botley at the time. Nothing odd about that you may think, except that when he rung us Steve was sat in the queue, couldn't yet see the accident and ordinarily wouldn't have known what the problem was.
So what happened? Well, it seems a police woman driving her patrol car in the other direction away from the accident scene, actually pulled up alongside Steve's bus, opened her window and suggested to Steve that he might like to ring his company (ie. us) to warn us of the likely problems, before closing her window and continuing on her way.
I have never ever come across this before, so just wanted to big up the policewoman concerned and offer full marks and a bonus for having the presence of mind to do that! Awesome!
We first heard of the delays through a phone call from Steve, who was heading towards Botley at the time. Nothing odd about that you may think, except that when he rung us Steve was sat in the queue, couldn't yet see the accident and ordinarily wouldn't have known what the problem was.
So what happened? Well, it seems a police woman driving her patrol car in the other direction away from the accident scene, actually pulled up alongside Steve's bus, opened her window and suggested to Steve that he might like to ring his company (ie. us) to warn us of the likely problems, before closing her window and continuing on her way.
I have never ever come across this before, so just wanted to big up the policewoman concerned and offer full marks and a bonus for having the presence of mind to do that! Awesome!
Tuesday 27 May 2008
Playing trains (2)
I can remember travelling by train the odd time when I was younger when it would go wrong, and the line would be blocked or something would happen and we'd all get turfed out and told that buses would happen and - guess what - buses would magically appear! I just kind of assumed there was a big bus printing machine somewhere and if buses were needed in a hurry, the handle would be turned and out they would pop!
Fast forward to present day and why is it that I have a mental block about 0208 numbers? When my phone rings at odd times (and it does ring at some very odd times, because we divert the company landline to it out of hours), if I see an 0208 number I think that it will be some polite old chap enquiring about coming down from London for cricket at the Rose Bowl and how can he get from Parkway Station? Any why is there a 90 minute gap going home just as the cricket finishes? (HCC please note! Both HCCs for that matter - the County Council and the Cricket Club who still thing that Red Rocket run the bus to the ground despite us e-mailing them to tell them otherwise!)
One day, I will realise that an 0208 number on my phone means just one thing - South West Trains Wimbledon Emergency Control Centre (I don't know if that's its real name but it'll do for now!)
After a pleasant evening out with friends Sunday evening, I was ready for a relaxed start to Bank Holiday Monday. Sure it was raining, sure I had to go into Eastleigh to see Ant off on the service 8 duty, but once he was gone I could sneak off for a much needed coffee and breakfast and plan the rest of the day from there.
It's 0810 and I'm just leaving the flat. My phone goes and it's the 0208 number!!! Bit early for a cricket enquiry methinks! As soon as I press the green button I can hear the hubbub in the background and my brain suddenly realises it's SWT Control before the lady can even say the words! Southampton Central station is flooded. They need buses! I need thinking time. I'll ring them back.
First need is to count to 30 to avoid the easy temptation to say "sorry, can't help", and enjoy the leisurely Bank Holiday upon which my heart was set.
Second need is to think about what I can actually do for them. Obviously there's me. First to call would normally be Taz, but his parents in law are staying so that's probably a non-starter. Next nearest is Jamie. He was out with me and friends last night but seemed to be ok and didn't get too drunk so could be a possibility. Take a deep breath and dial the number, and he sounds pretty awake and he's up for it. So that's one double decker each then - single deckers are better if we have to go through the New Forest, but SWT are going to need seats this morning I suspect. Ring them back - "two double deckers?" - turns out I'm a diamond!
On the way in to Eastleigh, think I'd better ring Taz and check there were no problems on Sunday (he was on call, I was having a rare day off) that might affect my vehicle options this morning. He's in bed. Nicki, his wife, wakes him and he rings me back. We run through yesterday's highlights and I tell him Jamie and I are going out on emergency for SWT and leave it at that.
As I arrive at the yard no more than 10 minutes later, who's walking in but Taz! In full uniform! Puts me to shame! He tells me he's not missing out on some train action, regardless of in-laws staying! I ring SWT back, offer them a single decker in addition to the doubles and they say no thanks, they've got enough!!! I tell Taz this, but tell him not to go anywhere because I suspect that's not the end of the story. Sure enough, five minutes later, is the offer of the single decker still available? Can we go to Eastleigh station - they want one of us on Eastleigh - Bournemouth directs and two doing Eastleigh - Southampton shuttles. Jamie can go to the seaside in 303 I decide.
Can't remember when 303 and 309 were last fuelled, and in fact 309 hasn't turned a wheel for a week or more, so I take 309 and Jamie and I stop off at the petrol station. While we are there, Taz roars past us in V7, which means that the last person to know about the job is first on the scene at Eastleigh station!
In fact, from an initial call by SWT at 0810 on a Bank Holiday morning, I'm pretty impressed that we've got three buses at Eastleigh station by 0900!
Taz loads up for Southampton and he's gone straight away. Jamie is no more than a minute or two behind with a load for Bournemouth. Within ten minutes I'm on my way to Southampton too. Southampton Road in Eastleigh is horribly flooded over a short section. There's a car stranded in the middle, marooned, helpless! The traffic is getting round it ok, but you have to pity the poor driver. Later turns out that he was the car directly in front of Taz, and Taz says he was going way too fast for the conditions and got caught out so he has no-one else to blame!
I go to Southampton, weighing up the dilemma of which side of Southampton station to head for. Rail replacement action is normally on the south side (platform 4) but there's not much room there and I know they've done big rail jobs on the north side before. From a distance, I can see a police car at the top of the hill leading down to the platform 4 side, so I guess the road's closed and head for the north side - I've guessed right.
Back to Eastleigh, then back to Southampton again. A good few Brijan vehicles around but not much else yet. Arriving in Southampton the second time, I catch up with Taz so he loads up for a service to Eastleigh and I'm sent empty to St Denys where there are loads of people waiting to come into town apparently.
They are supposed to wait at the junction between Belmont Road and the road that leads down to the station itself, because you can't get a bus down that road really. So where are they waiting? At the station entrance of course. So 309 goes to places a double decker may never have been before. I trust that I will find somewhere to turn round, and luckily I do.
Back into Southampton, where traffic is now getting very heavy indeed because Millbrook Road - the main road out to the west - is apparently also closed for flooding so everything to and from the west is being funnelled through the choked artery of Shirley High Street. Or so Ant tells me - his 0944 from Hythe should be in Soton by 1038 but he's adrift in traffic.
I unload and, thinking myself to be an Eastleigh shuttle, start shouting for stations to Eastleigh. A train person sidles up. Is there * any chance * (going into severe grovel mode now) I could go to Bournemouth. They are inundated with Bournemouth people and haven't had any coaches for ages. I must admit I'm not overjoyed. I never managed that coffee break and certainly had no food so I'm feeling a bit sluggish, and a gentle plod to and from Eastleigh quite suited my mood, but life is never perfect so it's a deep breath and of course I'll go to Bournemouth.
From leaving Central, going up Shirley High Street because I'd love to think of something better but just can't for the moment, it takes 45 minutes to reach the M27 - passing Ant on the inbound 8 approaching an hour late in Shirley. A lady says "are you going to Brockenhurst?". I'm not, because the station staff needed me to go non-stop and have told Brockenhurst people to get a train back from Bournemouth. Five minutes later she's back... "If you're not going to Brockenhurst station, are you going through the town of Brockenhurst". Of course I resist the obvious retort that if I was going anywhere near the town I'd be going to the station, and instead offer a second apology and a just slightly firmer statement that I'm afraid I'm not.
309's demisters are not up to the task of overcoming 70-odd wet people inside the bus and driving rain outside and they are not really demisting anything. Luckily, in a flash of inspiration before leaving the yard, I picked up the blue roll. For those that don't know, blue roll is basically blue tissue paper, thicker than your domestic stuff but equally absorbent. Blue roll is the lifeblood of the bus industry. Without blue roll, the industry would be in its death throes. It's more important than oxygen it seems, and I've got our supply. So I'm driving down the motorway with a handful of blue roll at the ready for occasional wipes to keep the windscreen clear.
Mrs Brockenhurst comes forward again, "would you like me to wipe the windows for you driver?". Ok, nice offer, but NOOOO. I'm ok thanks, honest. I'm living in a small little world of my own, just me and my blue roll and that pane of glass in front of me that will eventually guide me to the coast. I've shut out of my mind the audience of 70 wet people - it's just between me, the rain and the traffic now! I see 303 going the other way, big wave from Jamie so he's ok. I'm also aware of continual traffic jams the other way - that'll be me in an hour.
Somewhere near Ringwood, the sun comes out. As it brightens up outside and the rain stops, the windows clear, my mood lifts and it's suddenly the greatest pleasure to be crusing down the dual carriageway in my beautiful bus, totally unruffled despite its 19 years.
5 minutes from Bournemouth Station, here comes Mrs Brockenhurst again... "Is this all the heat you've got driver, or do you have any more to give us". All the heaters are on full pelt - the bus is roasting. "No sorry madam, you've got everything I have, but we'll be there in five minutes". She returns to her seat and I can see the theatrical shivering in my mirror - luckily the sentiment doesn't appear to be shared by anyone else.
I arrive in Bournemouth and it's a lovely sunny day! Pull up alongside the big queue of people. The station staff ask me if I can do non-stop to Eastleigh! Joy!!! Load up and away we go. As we cruise north in glorious sunshine, I celebrate in the certain knowledge that I will be dropping off in Eastleigh, the trains will be running again, we'll be stood down and all I have to do is take my bus round the corner and park u and I can finally go for my coffee! The traffic jams don't hold us up too much either - it's all good now!
Arrive at Eastleigh and three things are immediately apparent...
1) There are millions of buses - especially Stagecoach ones and indeed it appears that Stagecoach bus people are in control now (must be an afternoon thing?)
2) There are millions of people
3) There are no trains
Jamie and Taz are both there. Jamie is just leaving for another Bournemouth and Taz is nearly loaded for Southampton. Apparently I'm to be next. The 0208 number again - can I confirm my buses are still all on the job. Yes, in fact I can see them all! Apparently some buses have been sneaking off. Can't move for the damn things here!!! Take the opportunity to ask whether they have an estimate for when trains will be running again. They estimate the line reopening at 1700 hrs - that's nearly three hours away!
Loaded once more, within 20 minutes or so of my arrival I'm on my way to Southampton again. I'm sorry to say that the next two hours are a drag. I'm bored out of my brain, and all I can do is keep thinking of the money! Back to Eastleigh, then back to Southampton a second time. At Parkway station they have glued pictures of the flooding at Central Station on the front door. This is probably a wise move, I can guarantee there will be people who refuse to believe that there was ever any flooding and just think that it is a cunning ploy by SWT to ruin their day!
As we roll down the hill to Central, we see a train leave heading towards Portsmouth! A real, actual train, running on the real actual railway! In the station we are told that trains are running again to Portsmouth and Cardiff. Two people ask me for Bristol. I tell them there are trains. They say the station staff have told them there aren't. Bristol is on the way to Cardiff. I'm losing the will to live, but after suggesting they go back and talk to the station staff again they don't reappear so perhaps their luck is in. So's mine, we're off back to Eastleigh now for what must be the last time!
At Parkway station, two mouthy teenage girls get off and harangue the station staff. They need to get to Portsmouth. The station guy tells them the best bet is to stay on the bus to Eastleigh and get a train from there, or they could get another bus back to Southampton now that there are trains running from there. On hearing this latter news, the two girls stomp back on to my bus and one of them bends down and shouts in my face, "the station guard says there are trains running from Southampton now, so you've brought us here for NO REASON!!!" I remember them getting on but they never told me where they were going. This doesn't improve my mood, but I'm friendly and polite as always and they calm down and sit back down on the bus.
Back in Eastleigh it's a mess. There are trains, but no-one knows quite when. So they seem to be despatching buses at random intervals, with the odd train in between. One minute we are being told we will be kept on standby for 30 minutes, then an hour, then two hours. Then a train leaves for Poole (via Southampton) and this is treated almost as if it were a miracle by the rail staff. They still won't release the buses though. I wander off to refuel - there's nowhere near enough space to park, and then decide that it's now 1830 hrs, I'm supposed to be playing football at 1910 hrs, there are seven buses in the railway station and another five or so parked down various side streets. The trains are running again. They can surely do without us now. Not that I mind the money you understand, it's just that we were first on the job at 0900 hrs and we're flagging. They ask Taz to stay until 2000 hrs, he agrees, but he hasn't seen his in-laws all day so Jamie very kindly steps in to take his place.
Did I enjoy it? Mostly yes, but it just went on too long. A bit like this post perhaps! But next time you get turfed off a train and a magical bus appears from the bus printing machine, you may now know a little more about how it all happens!
Fast forward to present day and why is it that I have a mental block about 0208 numbers? When my phone rings at odd times (and it does ring at some very odd times, because we divert the company landline to it out of hours), if I see an 0208 number I think that it will be some polite old chap enquiring about coming down from London for cricket at the Rose Bowl and how can he get from Parkway Station? Any why is there a 90 minute gap going home just as the cricket finishes? (HCC please note! Both HCCs for that matter - the County Council and the Cricket Club who still thing that Red Rocket run the bus to the ground despite us e-mailing them to tell them otherwise!)
One day, I will realise that an 0208 number on my phone means just one thing - South West Trains Wimbledon Emergency Control Centre (I don't know if that's its real name but it'll do for now!)
After a pleasant evening out with friends Sunday evening, I was ready for a relaxed start to Bank Holiday Monday. Sure it was raining, sure I had to go into Eastleigh to see Ant off on the service 8 duty, but once he was gone I could sneak off for a much needed coffee and breakfast and plan the rest of the day from there.
It's 0810 and I'm just leaving the flat. My phone goes and it's the 0208 number!!! Bit early for a cricket enquiry methinks! As soon as I press the green button I can hear the hubbub in the background and my brain suddenly realises it's SWT Control before the lady can even say the words! Southampton Central station is flooded. They need buses! I need thinking time. I'll ring them back.
First need is to count to 30 to avoid the easy temptation to say "sorry, can't help", and enjoy the leisurely Bank Holiday upon which my heart was set.
Second need is to think about what I can actually do for them. Obviously there's me. First to call would normally be Taz, but his parents in law are staying so that's probably a non-starter. Next nearest is Jamie. He was out with me and friends last night but seemed to be ok and didn't get too drunk so could be a possibility. Take a deep breath and dial the number, and he sounds pretty awake and he's up for it. So that's one double decker each then - single deckers are better if we have to go through the New Forest, but SWT are going to need seats this morning I suspect. Ring them back - "two double deckers?" - turns out I'm a diamond!
On the way in to Eastleigh, think I'd better ring Taz and check there were no problems on Sunday (he was on call, I was having a rare day off) that might affect my vehicle options this morning. He's in bed. Nicki, his wife, wakes him and he rings me back. We run through yesterday's highlights and I tell him Jamie and I are going out on emergency for SWT and leave it at that.
As I arrive at the yard no more than 10 minutes later, who's walking in but Taz! In full uniform! Puts me to shame! He tells me he's not missing out on some train action, regardless of in-laws staying! I ring SWT back, offer them a single decker in addition to the doubles and they say no thanks, they've got enough!!! I tell Taz this, but tell him not to go anywhere because I suspect that's not the end of the story. Sure enough, five minutes later, is the offer of the single decker still available? Can we go to Eastleigh station - they want one of us on Eastleigh - Bournemouth directs and two doing Eastleigh - Southampton shuttles. Jamie can go to the seaside in 303 I decide.
Can't remember when 303 and 309 were last fuelled, and in fact 309 hasn't turned a wheel for a week or more, so I take 309 and Jamie and I stop off at the petrol station. While we are there, Taz roars past us in V7, which means that the last person to know about the job is first on the scene at Eastleigh station!
In fact, from an initial call by SWT at 0810 on a Bank Holiday morning, I'm pretty impressed that we've got three buses at Eastleigh station by 0900!
Taz loads up for Southampton and he's gone straight away. Jamie is no more than a minute or two behind with a load for Bournemouth. Within ten minutes I'm on my way to Southampton too. Southampton Road in Eastleigh is horribly flooded over a short section. There's a car stranded in the middle, marooned, helpless! The traffic is getting round it ok, but you have to pity the poor driver. Later turns out that he was the car directly in front of Taz, and Taz says he was going way too fast for the conditions and got caught out so he has no-one else to blame!
I go to Southampton, weighing up the dilemma of which side of Southampton station to head for. Rail replacement action is normally on the south side (platform 4) but there's not much room there and I know they've done big rail jobs on the north side before. From a distance, I can see a police car at the top of the hill leading down to the platform 4 side, so I guess the road's closed and head for the north side - I've guessed right.
Back to Eastleigh, then back to Southampton again. A good few Brijan vehicles around but not much else yet. Arriving in Southampton the second time, I catch up with Taz so he loads up for a service to Eastleigh and I'm sent empty to St Denys where there are loads of people waiting to come into town apparently.
They are supposed to wait at the junction between Belmont Road and the road that leads down to the station itself, because you can't get a bus down that road really. So where are they waiting? At the station entrance of course. So 309 goes to places a double decker may never have been before. I trust that I will find somewhere to turn round, and luckily I do.
Back into Southampton, where traffic is now getting very heavy indeed because Millbrook Road - the main road out to the west - is apparently also closed for flooding so everything to and from the west is being funnelled through the choked artery of Shirley High Street. Or so Ant tells me - his 0944 from Hythe should be in Soton by 1038 but he's adrift in traffic.
I unload and, thinking myself to be an Eastleigh shuttle, start shouting for stations to Eastleigh. A train person sidles up. Is there * any chance * (going into severe grovel mode now) I could go to Bournemouth. They are inundated with Bournemouth people and haven't had any coaches for ages. I must admit I'm not overjoyed. I never managed that coffee break and certainly had no food so I'm feeling a bit sluggish, and a gentle plod to and from Eastleigh quite suited my mood, but life is never perfect so it's a deep breath and of course I'll go to Bournemouth.
From leaving Central, going up Shirley High Street because I'd love to think of something better but just can't for the moment, it takes 45 minutes to reach the M27 - passing Ant on the inbound 8 approaching an hour late in Shirley. A lady says "are you going to Brockenhurst?". I'm not, because the station staff needed me to go non-stop and have told Brockenhurst people to get a train back from Bournemouth. Five minutes later she's back... "If you're not going to Brockenhurst station, are you going through the town of Brockenhurst". Of course I resist the obvious retort that if I was going anywhere near the town I'd be going to the station, and instead offer a second apology and a just slightly firmer statement that I'm afraid I'm not.
309's demisters are not up to the task of overcoming 70-odd wet people inside the bus and driving rain outside and they are not really demisting anything. Luckily, in a flash of inspiration before leaving the yard, I picked up the blue roll. For those that don't know, blue roll is basically blue tissue paper, thicker than your domestic stuff but equally absorbent. Blue roll is the lifeblood of the bus industry. Without blue roll, the industry would be in its death throes. It's more important than oxygen it seems, and I've got our supply. So I'm driving down the motorway with a handful of blue roll at the ready for occasional wipes to keep the windscreen clear.
Mrs Brockenhurst comes forward again, "would you like me to wipe the windows for you driver?". Ok, nice offer, but NOOOO. I'm ok thanks, honest. I'm living in a small little world of my own, just me and my blue roll and that pane of glass in front of me that will eventually guide me to the coast. I've shut out of my mind the audience of 70 wet people - it's just between me, the rain and the traffic now! I see 303 going the other way, big wave from Jamie so he's ok. I'm also aware of continual traffic jams the other way - that'll be me in an hour.
Somewhere near Ringwood, the sun comes out. As it brightens up outside and the rain stops, the windows clear, my mood lifts and it's suddenly the greatest pleasure to be crusing down the dual carriageway in my beautiful bus, totally unruffled despite its 19 years.
5 minutes from Bournemouth Station, here comes Mrs Brockenhurst again... "Is this all the heat you've got driver, or do you have any more to give us". All the heaters are on full pelt - the bus is roasting. "No sorry madam, you've got everything I have, but we'll be there in five minutes". She returns to her seat and I can see the theatrical shivering in my mirror - luckily the sentiment doesn't appear to be shared by anyone else.
I arrive in Bournemouth and it's a lovely sunny day! Pull up alongside the big queue of people. The station staff ask me if I can do non-stop to Eastleigh! Joy!!! Load up and away we go. As we cruise north in glorious sunshine, I celebrate in the certain knowledge that I will be dropping off in Eastleigh, the trains will be running again, we'll be stood down and all I have to do is take my bus round the corner and park u and I can finally go for my coffee! The traffic jams don't hold us up too much either - it's all good now!
Arrive at Eastleigh and three things are immediately apparent...
1) There are millions of buses - especially Stagecoach ones and indeed it appears that Stagecoach bus people are in control now (must be an afternoon thing?)
2) There are millions of people
3) There are no trains
Jamie and Taz are both there. Jamie is just leaving for another Bournemouth and Taz is nearly loaded for Southampton. Apparently I'm to be next. The 0208 number again - can I confirm my buses are still all on the job. Yes, in fact I can see them all! Apparently some buses have been sneaking off. Can't move for the damn things here!!! Take the opportunity to ask whether they have an estimate for when trains will be running again. They estimate the line reopening at 1700 hrs - that's nearly three hours away!
Loaded once more, within 20 minutes or so of my arrival I'm on my way to Southampton again. I'm sorry to say that the next two hours are a drag. I'm bored out of my brain, and all I can do is keep thinking of the money! Back to Eastleigh, then back to Southampton a second time. At Parkway station they have glued pictures of the flooding at Central Station on the front door. This is probably a wise move, I can guarantee there will be people who refuse to believe that there was ever any flooding and just think that it is a cunning ploy by SWT to ruin their day!
As we roll down the hill to Central, we see a train leave heading towards Portsmouth! A real, actual train, running on the real actual railway! In the station we are told that trains are running again to Portsmouth and Cardiff. Two people ask me for Bristol. I tell them there are trains. They say the station staff have told them there aren't. Bristol is on the way to Cardiff. I'm losing the will to live, but after suggesting they go back and talk to the station staff again they don't reappear so perhaps their luck is in. So's mine, we're off back to Eastleigh now for what must be the last time!
At Parkway station, two mouthy teenage girls get off and harangue the station staff. They need to get to Portsmouth. The station guy tells them the best bet is to stay on the bus to Eastleigh and get a train from there, or they could get another bus back to Southampton now that there are trains running from there. On hearing this latter news, the two girls stomp back on to my bus and one of them bends down and shouts in my face, "the station guard says there are trains running from Southampton now, so you've brought us here for NO REASON!!!" I remember them getting on but they never told me where they were going. This doesn't improve my mood, but I'm friendly and polite as always and they calm down and sit back down on the bus.
Back in Eastleigh it's a mess. There are trains, but no-one knows quite when. So they seem to be despatching buses at random intervals, with the odd train in between. One minute we are being told we will be kept on standby for 30 minutes, then an hour, then two hours. Then a train leaves for Poole (via Southampton) and this is treated almost as if it were a miracle by the rail staff. They still won't release the buses though. I wander off to refuel - there's nowhere near enough space to park, and then decide that it's now 1830 hrs, I'm supposed to be playing football at 1910 hrs, there are seven buses in the railway station and another five or so parked down various side streets. The trains are running again. They can surely do without us now. Not that I mind the money you understand, it's just that we were first on the job at 0900 hrs and we're flagging. They ask Taz to stay until 2000 hrs, he agrees, but he hasn't seen his in-laws all day so Jamie very kindly steps in to take his place.
Did I enjoy it? Mostly yes, but it just went on too long. A bit like this post perhaps! But next time you get turfed off a train and a magical bus appears from the bus printing machine, you may now know a little more about how it all happens!
Sunday 18 May 2008
Sunday driver
It fell to me to do the Sunday duty on the 8 today! It was Steve's turn on the rota, but we were tight last Tuesday so I did a deal with him that he came in then on his rest day, in exchange for which I'd cover his Sunday turn. What that was supposed to mean of course was that I would find someone to do his Sunday duty, but there was nobody really available and interested, and to be honest I didn't try all that hard because I've fancied a day on the 8's ever since we got the contract!
Turns out it's exactly as most of the drivers have said - a really enjoyable duty. Four hours plodding up and down between Hythe and Southampton, half an hour off, then the same again on a very nice enjoyable steady route, half countryside, half urban.
One of the highlights was the bloke who got off in Hounsdown and said "that's a lovely bus you've got here - I take it it's brand new?" He was really shocked when I said it was 8 years old but newly refurbished. V12 it was - a very smooth effortless steed for a 10 hour shift. These DAFs really are awesome buses to drive.
The break is in Hythe Multi-Modal Interchange (aka the ferry yard) from 1339 to 1414. There was a chalkboard in the entrance to the ferry saying "no ferry at 1410 - Sunday break!" I don't know if this happens every week, but there is definitely a 1410 in the timetable. I wonder how our customers would react if we decided to cancel a journey with such casual nonchalance. Never mind the Traffic Commissioner.
"Dear Customer, there will be no buses for the next hour or so. We can't really be bothered. Tough!"
Not impressed! I kind of hoped this might push some business my way, since people would turn up in droves to catch the ferry, and then on learning of their stupidity for daring to turn up for an advertised sailing that happened to coincide with lunchtime, divert their attention to the lurid purple bus parked immediately adjacent with "Southampton" on the front, but sadly those few who did wander up seemed content to shuffle off down the main street, presumably feeling too abashed to dare venture into Southampton after realising their mistake.
All in all though, a very enjoyable day. I think I'll go to the pub to celebrate - haven't been in there for weeks and weeks!
Turns out it's exactly as most of the drivers have said - a really enjoyable duty. Four hours plodding up and down between Hythe and Southampton, half an hour off, then the same again on a very nice enjoyable steady route, half countryside, half urban.
One of the highlights was the bloke who got off in Hounsdown and said "that's a lovely bus you've got here - I take it it's brand new?" He was really shocked when I said it was 8 years old but newly refurbished. V12 it was - a very smooth effortless steed for a 10 hour shift. These DAFs really are awesome buses to drive.
The break is in Hythe Multi-Modal Interchange (aka the ferry yard) from 1339 to 1414. There was a chalkboard in the entrance to the ferry saying "no ferry at 1410 - Sunday break!" I don't know if this happens every week, but there is definitely a 1410 in the timetable. I wonder how our customers would react if we decided to cancel a journey with such casual nonchalance. Never mind the Traffic Commissioner.
"Dear Customer, there will be no buses for the next hour or so. We can't really be bothered. Tough!"
Not impressed! I kind of hoped this might push some business my way, since people would turn up in droves to catch the ferry, and then on learning of their stupidity for daring to turn up for an advertised sailing that happened to coincide with lunchtime, divert their attention to the lurid purple bus parked immediately adjacent with "Southampton" on the front, but sadly those few who did wander up seemed content to shuffle off down the main street, presumably feeling too abashed to dare venture into Southampton after realising their mistake.
All in all though, a very enjoyable day. I think I'll go to the pub to celebrate - haven't been in there for weeks and weeks!
I love Delays!
If ever there was a band with a name with worse connotations for the transport world than "The Delays", I'd like to meet them!
However, all jokes aside, The Delays are truly an awesome band. It so happens they are from Southampton, but that was irrelevant when I first started following them in my Cheltenham days - it's pure coincidence that I now live in their home town - but it's amazing how many people even here have not heard of them, or have heard of them but don't know anything about them.
A couple of weeks ago, they released their new album "Everything's the Rush" - their third major album - and it's fantastic. Last night, they played live at Southampton Guildhall. They were brilliant - loved every minute. I've seen them live previously in London and Portsmouth, and they were really good both times, but for some reason last night they seemed on a different level.
The performance was jumping from beginning to end, with a slow bit in the middle when they sang one of the song's on their latest album - "Pieces" - which just tears me apart! Very emotional and brilliantly performed!
I don't know what else I can say about them - I think you get the message! :-)
However, all jokes aside, The Delays are truly an awesome band. It so happens they are from Southampton, but that was irrelevant when I first started following them in my Cheltenham days - it's pure coincidence that I now live in their home town - but it's amazing how many people even here have not heard of them, or have heard of them but don't know anything about them.
A couple of weeks ago, they released their new album "Everything's the Rush" - their third major album - and it's fantastic. Last night, they played live at Southampton Guildhall. They were brilliant - loved every minute. I've seen them live previously in London and Portsmouth, and they were really good both times, but for some reason last night they seemed on a different level.
The performance was jumping from beginning to end, with a slow bit in the middle when they sang one of the song's on their latest album - "Pieces" - which just tears me apart! Very emotional and brilliantly performed!
I don't know what else I can say about them - I think you get the message! :-)
Saturday 17 May 2008
Good Luck Year 11
We quite like Wildern School students. Every day we take around 30 of them to school and bring 50-70 home again, and they are one of the best behaved, friendliest bunches of students I've come across.
We got wind of the fact that it was Year 11's last day on Tuesday, before they get let off regular school to concentrate on exams. (By the way, this makes me feel really old, year 11 didn't exist in my day - it was the Fifth Form in those days - at my school at least! I also did my GCSEs in the second year of their existence after they replaced O-levels.)
We therefore decided to programme the destination for the afternoon bus to convey our sincerely meant good wishes to the kids. Unfortunately, Year 11 came out at a different time to everyone else, so everyone else caught the bus - and not Year 11!
So, just in case any of Year 11 should happen to stumble across this blog (and you never know, one of them just might), this is what you missed....
We got wind of the fact that it was Year 11's last day on Tuesday, before they get let off regular school to concentrate on exams. (By the way, this makes me feel really old, year 11 didn't exist in my day - it was the Fifth Form in those days - at my school at least! I also did my GCSEs in the second year of their existence after they replaced O-levels.)
We therefore decided to programme the destination for the afternoon bus to convey our sincerely meant good wishes to the kids. Unfortunately, Year 11 came out at a different time to everyone else, so everyone else caught the bus - and not Year 11!
So, just in case any of Year 11 should happen to stumble across this blog (and you never know, one of them just might), this is what you missed....
Sunday 11 May 2008
Black Velvet Travel - Alison says "bye"
On Wednesday, Alison became our first ex-employee! Faced with all kinds of domestic pressures, trying to keep the job going while travelling up from Portsmouth each day was clearly proving difficult and in the end proved to be an unsustainable situation.
I'd like to publicly wish Alison every possible success in her future career. She's a lovely person and deserves to do really well, and I hope she will be proud of the fact that she was a founding member of the Black Velvet team!
Good luck Alison!
I'd like to publicly wish Alison every possible success in her future career. She's a lovely person and deserves to do really well, and I hope she will be proud of the fact that she was a founding member of the Black Velvet team!
Good luck Alison!
Monday 5 May 2008
Seeing the wood for the trees
As followers of the gricernet (or indeed our website) will know, we've won some more contracts!
From Tuesday 27th May, we will be operating the Ringwood - Lyndhurst - Southampton corridor in place of Wilts & Dorset.
There are a number of reasons why this contract attracted me. Chief among them is the fact that Ringwood is a major town without a rail station, and I simply refuse to believe that there isn't a meaningful (if not commercial) market for travel to and from Southampton. While the town benefits from an excellent service to Bournemouth and Salisbury courtesy of W&D, and I appreciate that Southampton might take third place in order of importance, to only have two direct buses a day (as has latterly been the case) and then only via Burley and Lyndhurst - hardly all that direct really - must surely underestimate the potential market.
The tender as published invited quotes for various versions of present and current timetables. There was no mention of anything more direct between Ringwood and Southampton. This might partly be because Hampshire County Council invited bids for a direct service when W&D pulled their commercial X33 a couple of years ago, and either didn't receive any bids or at least nothing they could afford. At the time, I was very keen to offer something based on an extension of the Solent Shuttle, to create a Portsmouth - Southampton - Ringwood - Bournemouth corridor, but was told in no uncertain terms by Go South Coast High Command that our appearance on Ringwood - Bournemouth would not be welcomed. Heaven forbid we should actually do something exciting!
However, despite what some people would have you believe, I am not on a one man crusade against my former employer, and in lots of ways they do a good job, I wish them well and there is not a single member of the Go South Coast top team that I would not shake his/her hand and buy a beer. In the case of X35 however, they have steadily run the service down over a number of years, which says two things to me...
1) It's an area they have clearly decided is not remunerative for them and their attention is better focussed elsewhere
2) For this reason, they can hardly object if someone else steps in who thinks they can do better
Ringwood - Southampton is a corridor that seems to me to have some development potential. The successful package that we proposed as a "tenderer's alternative" to the options supplied is one that has been bouncing round in my head for a while...
- Look after the established 'unique' market with a Ringwood - Lyndhurst service that offers timings suitable for workers, shoppers and leisure travellers (to be the 35)
- Look after the Ringwood - Southampton market with an express service straight up the A31 (to be the 300. Where did we get the number from? Don't know really - I hate 'X' numbers, and I suppose a round number in the hundreds sounds perhaps a bit more expressy?!?)
Happily, there is a workable timetable that covers both with one bus and this is what we proposed.
The art of proposing "tenderer's alternatives" is a tricky one. My commercial instincts often tell me that we should be maximising the elements that are marketable and developable and not be afraid to throw away insignificant or declining flows. The local authority's social conscience will instruct it first to look after the people it already serves, and then see how it can improve on that. Logically therefore, in proposing a "tenderer's alternative", you have to find the point that gives the best of both worlds. I have wasted too much time in the past proposing tenderer's alternatives that - with the benefit of hindsight - could never have been accepted because they just didn't pay enough respect to what the local authority's priorities would be.
In the case of South West Hampshire, the cards are played by a chap called Colin Wright. I have nothing but the greatest respect for Colin. He is ultra-professional, experienced and knowledgeable. I suppose I would say that - he has just given us £xx,000 worth of annual income - but I mean it. He is not given to radical change, and sometimes I would argue he should be more open to this, but has proved in this case that he can spot a good thing when he sees it!
Not that I would suggest the decision was entirely his - clearly there are others within the county who have to have their say, and I am just glad that we have managed to propose something that seems to have struck a collective chord with them.
There are plenty of other declining markets that will come out for tender that will offer nothing more than the opportunity to oversee ongoing decline for a further four or five years. This is one of the rare ones where there seemed to be the opportunity to offer something genuinely better at a reasonable price, and that is why we put a lot of effort into it!
Now all we have to do is get the good folk of Ringwood out on our buses. Can't wait!!!
From Tuesday 27th May, we will be operating the Ringwood - Lyndhurst - Southampton corridor in place of Wilts & Dorset.
There are a number of reasons why this contract attracted me. Chief among them is the fact that Ringwood is a major town without a rail station, and I simply refuse to believe that there isn't a meaningful (if not commercial) market for travel to and from Southampton. While the town benefits from an excellent service to Bournemouth and Salisbury courtesy of W&D, and I appreciate that Southampton might take third place in order of importance, to only have two direct buses a day (as has latterly been the case) and then only via Burley and Lyndhurst - hardly all that direct really - must surely underestimate the potential market.
The tender as published invited quotes for various versions of present and current timetables. There was no mention of anything more direct between Ringwood and Southampton. This might partly be because Hampshire County Council invited bids for a direct service when W&D pulled their commercial X33 a couple of years ago, and either didn't receive any bids or at least nothing they could afford. At the time, I was very keen to offer something based on an extension of the Solent Shuttle, to create a Portsmouth - Southampton - Ringwood - Bournemouth corridor, but was told in no uncertain terms by Go South Coast High Command that our appearance on Ringwood - Bournemouth would not be welcomed. Heaven forbid we should actually do something exciting!
However, despite what some people would have you believe, I am not on a one man crusade against my former employer, and in lots of ways they do a good job, I wish them well and there is not a single member of the Go South Coast top team that I would not shake his/her hand and buy a beer. In the case of X35 however, they have steadily run the service down over a number of years, which says two things to me...
1) It's an area they have clearly decided is not remunerative for them and their attention is better focussed elsewhere
2) For this reason, they can hardly object if someone else steps in who thinks they can do better
Ringwood - Southampton is a corridor that seems to me to have some development potential. The successful package that we proposed as a "tenderer's alternative" to the options supplied is one that has been bouncing round in my head for a while...
- Look after the established 'unique' market with a Ringwood - Lyndhurst service that offers timings suitable for workers, shoppers and leisure travellers (to be the 35)
- Look after the Ringwood - Southampton market with an express service straight up the A31 (to be the 300. Where did we get the number from? Don't know really - I hate 'X' numbers, and I suppose a round number in the hundreds sounds perhaps a bit more expressy?!?)
Happily, there is a workable timetable that covers both with one bus and this is what we proposed.
The art of proposing "tenderer's alternatives" is a tricky one. My commercial instincts often tell me that we should be maximising the elements that are marketable and developable and not be afraid to throw away insignificant or declining flows. The local authority's social conscience will instruct it first to look after the people it already serves, and then see how it can improve on that. Logically therefore, in proposing a "tenderer's alternative", you have to find the point that gives the best of both worlds. I have wasted too much time in the past proposing tenderer's alternatives that - with the benefit of hindsight - could never have been accepted because they just didn't pay enough respect to what the local authority's priorities would be.
In the case of South West Hampshire, the cards are played by a chap called Colin Wright. I have nothing but the greatest respect for Colin. He is ultra-professional, experienced and knowledgeable. I suppose I would say that - he has just given us £xx,000 worth of annual income - but I mean it. He is not given to radical change, and sometimes I would argue he should be more open to this, but has proved in this case that he can spot a good thing when he sees it!
Not that I would suggest the decision was entirely his - clearly there are others within the county who have to have their say, and I am just glad that we have managed to propose something that seems to have struck a collective chord with them.
There are plenty of other declining markets that will come out for tender that will offer nothing more than the opportunity to oversee ongoing decline for a further four or five years. This is one of the rare ones where there seemed to be the opportunity to offer something genuinely better at a reasonable price, and that is why we put a lot of effort into it!
Now all we have to do is get the good folk of Ringwood out on our buses. Can't wait!!!
Playing trains
Very kind of most readers not to point out the lack of activity here in a while! Truth is, the workload has been a bit overwhelming, among the reasons being (in no particular order)...
1) Financial year end
2) Winning new contracts (of which more anon)
3) Looking after Taz's cat
Tommy (Taz's cat) - or Thomas the Tank Engine to give him his full name (honestly, would you let a three year old name your pet? Oh ok, you would...) - was great company for a week, but tore my arms and hands to shreds. I now discover it is quite a normal feature of young cats that they will play with you with claws fully extended. Tommy will nuzzle up to you, let you stroke him for ages and then - completely without warning - take a swipe at you, often drawing blood, or - if he is feeling particulary playful, try to bite your hand off. Then, when you retreat feeling that you have perhaps upset him in some way, will come running after you looking for more attention. But I love him to bits and will gladly have him again when the time comes.
One other highlight of the last week has been our debut appearances on rail replacement for two separate train companies.
Much to our surprise, the Go-Ahead Group actually gave us a job on the Three Bridges to Brighton line the Sunday before last. This involved one double decker out all day, with two shifts - one early, one late. Jamie did the early, I did the late. Three Bridges is in Crawley, in case you didn't know, so it wasn't exactly local, but I've done the Brighton Main Line before in Solent Blue Line days and it's always fun. Needless to say it's a very busy line, and at times they were firing off two fully loaded double deckers at roughly ten minute intervals. It makes quite a sight, driving down the A23 seeing this procession of deckers from all over the south east trundling past.
We used F303 MYJ, looking resplendent with its new interior, and including the long dead journeys to and from Eastleigh at the start and end of the day, covered 464 miles in one day. It performed faultlessly, although 10 mph up Handcross Hill was a bit disconcerting! Easily made it back and more on the flat bits though!
I got back to Eastleigh at 0130 on the Monday morning and promptly drove in to the petrol station. The attendant was one of the ones who's regularly there when we fuel up in the evening. He didn't bat an eyelid when I presented myself at this time, nor when I reappeared ten minutes later with V384, which had been used on service 8!
On Wednesday last week, we got an emergency callout from South West Trains. Emergency, as in they wanted the buses on Thursday night. So at least we had some time to think about it. They wanted two buses - one each to do 0040 and 0140 Southampton to Bournemouth in the early hours of Friday morning. With me, Taz and Jamie all available and up for it, I decided to proceed on the basis that we would take three down, as I had a hunch that one bus each trip didn't seem like a lot for the numbers likely to arrive on the connecting trains.
So after a tortuous exercise to give everyone enough rest before and/or after to keep them legal, we were all set to go on Thursday night. At 2215 the phone rang - South West Trains - any chance of two more buses??? Well, I thought about it theatrically for a moment, looked at Taz, Jamie, looked myself up and down and announced that we could probably muster a third. A fourth was stretching it a bit too much though, and in the end they got Brijan Tours to provide the fourth vehicle. The guy at the other end of the phone took a deep breath and said, would one of us be able to go as far as Weymouth if required on the 0140? I took a deep breath and said yes, knowing that would be my job as I know where all the stations are!
Taz and I then wandered off to the office for a bit and when we got back to the compound at 2345, Jamie had got the three working DAFs - V7, V11 and V12 - up and running, all lit up with "rail replacement" on the destination. They looked absolutely stunning! At that moment I really wanted my camera to have a better phone! You'll have to take my word for it.
We all set off in convey into Southampton, getting to the station at 0015. By 0020, the first bus was full! So with the approval of the station staff we despatched Jamie, and made Taz the only bus for the 0040 - worried now about how he'd cope with the numbers. Luckily we had nothing to worry about - they'd cancelled the connecting train, so he left on time with three passengers!
That left me to do the 0140, and in due course Mr Brijan Tours himself - Brian Botley - appared with a coach called "Alfie" and we spent a pleasant hour or so chatting until departure time.
Anyway, despite being primed to go to Weymouth (a bit odd, since there wouldn't normally be any trains going anywhere near Weymouth at that time), Brian took the Bournemouth and Poole passengers and left me to go all the way to.... Brockenhurst and New Milton!
Thoroughly enjoyed the job though, and got back to the yard at around 0330, hoping for more soon!
1) Financial year end
2) Winning new contracts (of which more anon)
3) Looking after Taz's cat
Tommy (Taz's cat) - or Thomas the Tank Engine to give him his full name (honestly, would you let a three year old name your pet? Oh ok, you would...) - was great company for a week, but tore my arms and hands to shreds. I now discover it is quite a normal feature of young cats that they will play with you with claws fully extended. Tommy will nuzzle up to you, let you stroke him for ages and then - completely without warning - take a swipe at you, often drawing blood, or - if he is feeling particulary playful, try to bite your hand off. Then, when you retreat feeling that you have perhaps upset him in some way, will come running after you looking for more attention. But I love him to bits and will gladly have him again when the time comes.
One other highlight of the last week has been our debut appearances on rail replacement for two separate train companies.
Much to our surprise, the Go-Ahead Group actually gave us a job on the Three Bridges to Brighton line the Sunday before last. This involved one double decker out all day, with two shifts - one early, one late. Jamie did the early, I did the late. Three Bridges is in Crawley, in case you didn't know, so it wasn't exactly local, but I've done the Brighton Main Line before in Solent Blue Line days and it's always fun. Needless to say it's a very busy line, and at times they were firing off two fully loaded double deckers at roughly ten minute intervals. It makes quite a sight, driving down the A23 seeing this procession of deckers from all over the south east trundling past.
We used F303 MYJ, looking resplendent with its new interior, and including the long dead journeys to and from Eastleigh at the start and end of the day, covered 464 miles in one day. It performed faultlessly, although 10 mph up Handcross Hill was a bit disconcerting! Easily made it back and more on the flat bits though!
I got back to Eastleigh at 0130 on the Monday morning and promptly drove in to the petrol station. The attendant was one of the ones who's regularly there when we fuel up in the evening. He didn't bat an eyelid when I presented myself at this time, nor when I reappeared ten minutes later with V384, which had been used on service 8!
On Wednesday last week, we got an emergency callout from South West Trains. Emergency, as in they wanted the buses on Thursday night. So at least we had some time to think about it. They wanted two buses - one each to do 0040 and 0140 Southampton to Bournemouth in the early hours of Friday morning. With me, Taz and Jamie all available and up for it, I decided to proceed on the basis that we would take three down, as I had a hunch that one bus each trip didn't seem like a lot for the numbers likely to arrive on the connecting trains.
So after a tortuous exercise to give everyone enough rest before and/or after to keep them legal, we were all set to go on Thursday night. At 2215 the phone rang - South West Trains - any chance of two more buses??? Well, I thought about it theatrically for a moment, looked at Taz, Jamie, looked myself up and down and announced that we could probably muster a third. A fourth was stretching it a bit too much though, and in the end they got Brijan Tours to provide the fourth vehicle. The guy at the other end of the phone took a deep breath and said, would one of us be able to go as far as Weymouth if required on the 0140? I took a deep breath and said yes, knowing that would be my job as I know where all the stations are!
Taz and I then wandered off to the office for a bit and when we got back to the compound at 2345, Jamie had got the three working DAFs - V7, V11 and V12 - up and running, all lit up with "rail replacement" on the destination. They looked absolutely stunning! At that moment I really wanted my camera to have a better phone! You'll have to take my word for it.
We all set off in convey into Southampton, getting to the station at 0015. By 0020, the first bus was full! So with the approval of the station staff we despatched Jamie, and made Taz the only bus for the 0040 - worried now about how he'd cope with the numbers. Luckily we had nothing to worry about - they'd cancelled the connecting train, so he left on time with three passengers!
That left me to do the 0140, and in due course Mr Brijan Tours himself - Brian Botley - appared with a coach called "Alfie" and we spent a pleasant hour or so chatting until departure time.
Anyway, despite being primed to go to Weymouth (a bit odd, since there wouldn't normally be any trains going anywhere near Weymouth at that time), Brian took the Bournemouth and Poole passengers and left me to go all the way to.... Brockenhurst and New Milton!
Thoroughly enjoyed the job though, and got back to the yard at around 0330, hoping for more soon!
Wednesday 23 April 2008
Monday: Where are we going?
Niggly, frustrating day with lots of little problems - nothing too major, just lots of those "oh for (insert word of choice here) sake" moments.
However, that's not the reason for the title - this isn't some reflective musing on the state of the universe. No, Monday's theme was destinations. All our buses (apart from V384 which has a piece of laminated card - albeit a professionary produced piece!) have electronic destinations. That means we programme the destinations we want on a computer in the office, transfer them to the bus using something called a "Portable Memory Unit" that looks more like a dodgy prop from a 1970's sci-fi movie, and then at the touch of a button the driver can display the destinations on the front.
On the basis that it's really easy to do, I'm surprised that more bus companies don't have a little bit of fun with what they show on the front. When you are running on service, the rules are very very clear. Service number (or letter) and destination. If you don't show those things you stand to get fined, because the lovely Traffic Commissioner (if he/she catches you doing it) deems that failing to show the service number (or letter) and destination effectively means you haven't run the service - because if the public can't see which bus it is and where it's going, how do they know it's their bus.
However, when you have a bus parked up in the bus station for ages, or running out of service then I think you can have a bit of fun!
All our buses are programmed so that each driver can display a screen showing "Black Velvet Travel - (insert name here) says 'hi'". Slightly to my surprise, this has been universally accepted by the drivers (and Taz and me of course) as the normal thing to display if you drive a bus between the yard and the bus station, especially if you are leaving the bus in the bus station for lengthy periods. Numerous passengers and bystanders have commented favourably on this.
We have also done special destination screens for Maria's birthday and Nickie's birthday (see below), and for Taz and Jamie in particular (who have most got into the spirit of this exercise) have developed a number of variations to this theme, such as...
Black Velvet Travel - OMG it's Taz! :-)
and...
Black Velvet Travel - Jamie spreads the love
Now some people will look at these and think we are completely barking (or just not understand them) and we really should have far more important things to concentrate on, but my view is that this kind of fairly simply touch makes a big difference in whether we are seen to passengers as an approachable, friendly organisation or an impersonal, anonymous corporation. The main audience is probably the students of Wildern School, who see one of our double deckers just after 1500 every day, and I *hope* this kind of thing is appreciated by at least a few of them.
The moral of the story is, why don't more bus companies do this kind of thing???
By way of an afterthought, writing this paragraph much later in the week, SBL have an open-top Volvo Olympian on hire from Southern Vectis for the special Docks Tours they are running this weekend, and the destination that has been programmed for that is fabulous, matching the 'Do the Docks' logo complete with outline pictures of ships - but nothing too detailed or fussy - so it can be done!
However, that's not the reason for the title - this isn't some reflective musing on the state of the universe. No, Monday's theme was destinations. All our buses (apart from V384 which has a piece of laminated card - albeit a professionary produced piece!) have electronic destinations. That means we programme the destinations we want on a computer in the office, transfer them to the bus using something called a "Portable Memory Unit" that looks more like a dodgy prop from a 1970's sci-fi movie, and then at the touch of a button the driver can display the destinations on the front.
On the basis that it's really easy to do, I'm surprised that more bus companies don't have a little bit of fun with what they show on the front. When you are running on service, the rules are very very clear. Service number (or letter) and destination. If you don't show those things you stand to get fined, because the lovely Traffic Commissioner (if he/she catches you doing it) deems that failing to show the service number (or letter) and destination effectively means you haven't run the service - because if the public can't see which bus it is and where it's going, how do they know it's their bus.
However, when you have a bus parked up in the bus station for ages, or running out of service then I think you can have a bit of fun!
All our buses are programmed so that each driver can display a screen showing "Black Velvet Travel - (insert name here) says 'hi'". Slightly to my surprise, this has been universally accepted by the drivers (and Taz and me of course) as the normal thing to display if you drive a bus between the yard and the bus station, especially if you are leaving the bus in the bus station for lengthy periods. Numerous passengers and bystanders have commented favourably on this.
We have also done special destination screens for Maria's birthday and Nickie's birthday (see below), and for Taz and Jamie in particular (who have most got into the spirit of this exercise) have developed a number of variations to this theme, such as...
Black Velvet Travel - OMG it's Taz! :-)
and...
Black Velvet Travel - Jamie spreads the love
Now some people will look at these and think we are completely barking (or just not understand them) and we really should have far more important things to concentrate on, but my view is that this kind of fairly simply touch makes a big difference in whether we are seen to passengers as an approachable, friendly organisation or an impersonal, anonymous corporation. The main audience is probably the students of Wildern School, who see one of our double deckers just after 1500 every day, and I *hope* this kind of thing is appreciated by at least a few of them.
The moral of the story is, why don't more bus companies do this kind of thing???
By way of an afterthought, writing this paragraph much later in the week, SBL have an open-top Volvo Olympian on hire from Southern Vectis for the special Docks Tours they are running this weekend, and the destination that has been programmed for that is fabulous, matching the 'Do the Docks' logo complete with outline pictures of ships - but nothing too detailed or fussy - so it can be done!
Sunday 20 April 2008
Three is the magic number
Finally achieved it on Friday...!
V7 went out on S1, V12 went out on S2 and V14 went out on S3. They all stuck to their lines all day, did their work and came back in the evening!
Amazing that it has been so elusive - especially as we have not had any major mechanical issues - but finally route A was 100% purple and 100% low-floor, the first time we've achieved both those things on the same day!
And we did it again on Saturday!
And now, having proved that it can be done, we can relax a bit, so the sole remaining Dart (V384 - because W558 was collected by Dawson Rentals on Friday) went out on the 8 today by special request of Steve, and it may well creep back on to the scene a little more over the next few days, as we will be less preoccupied with running DAFs for the sake of running DAFs!
V7 went out on S1, V12 went out on S2 and V14 went out on S3. They all stuck to their lines all day, did their work and came back in the evening!
Amazing that it has been so elusive - especially as we have not had any major mechanical issues - but finally route A was 100% purple and 100% low-floor, the first time we've achieved both those things on the same day!
And we did it again on Saturday!
And now, having proved that it can be done, we can relax a bit, so the sole remaining Dart (V384 - because W558 was collected by Dawson Rentals on Friday) went out on the 8 today by special request of Steve, and it may well creep back on to the scene a little more over the next few days, as we will be less preoccupied with running DAFs for the sake of running DAFs!
Thursday: Election Fever
Elections are always held on a Thursday of course, and today I won two that I didn't even know I'd entered!
I don't think it's a secret that there are moves afoot to create a "South Hampshire Bus Operators Association", to provide an effective lobbying voice for the bus industry as a whole in the region. This is particularly important as Transport for South Hampshire, the emerging successor to the local authority consortium Solent Transport, should have a very strong strategic role in determining the future shape of the transport infrastructure in the region, and needs effective input from the bus industry to ensure that our interests and contribution is not overlooked.
The Bus Operators' Association has a Board which will include one representative for all the small operators in the region, and it turns out that's me - by the unanimous vote of all the small operators present at the meeting!
By the same token, George Fair of Uni-link has done an excellent job of representing small operators' interests on the Solent Travelcard Management Committee since its inception, but now that the Uni-link operation is to be swallowed up by the Go-Ahead Group, they won't be a small operator any more so a new representative is needed. Once again, it turns out that's me!
May I take this opportunity to thank my parents, my brother, Taz's pet cat, my election agent (if only I knew who it was).....
Actually Taz's pet cat, Tommy, might start to feature a little more regularly on here from now on, because having my offered my flat as temporary cattery when Taz and his family go on holiday in a week's time, I now find I've won that contest as well and I will therefore have a pet cat from Wednesday 23rd for a week!
In the real world of buses and passengers and roadworks and traffic lights, the lights that have been appearing on and off at Haskins for the last week or so are on this afternoon, and causing big traffic delays.
So once again we can't keep three DAFs out, because delays to inbound journeys mean that V384 eventually has to go out on the 1350 to keep the service running on time (which once again we did, with 100% compliance from Eastleigh Bus Station despite the hold-ups), so the late-running 1335 arrival becomes the 1420 departure, and the similarly late-running 1405 arrival becomes the 1450 departure. By this time the lights have gone and the traffic calms down, so when V14 comes in 20 minutes late at 1455 it becomes spare for the rest of the afternoon, as V384 is well in time for the 1520 and Maria can simply keep going in that.
Thanks to Mikey's hard work in the office, we make a successful end to the day as we finally manage to get the service 8 route map up on the website!
I don't think it's a secret that there are moves afoot to create a "South Hampshire Bus Operators Association", to provide an effective lobbying voice for the bus industry as a whole in the region. This is particularly important as Transport for South Hampshire, the emerging successor to the local authority consortium Solent Transport, should have a very strong strategic role in determining the future shape of the transport infrastructure in the region, and needs effective input from the bus industry to ensure that our interests and contribution is not overlooked.
The Bus Operators' Association has a Board which will include one representative for all the small operators in the region, and it turns out that's me - by the unanimous vote of all the small operators present at the meeting!
By the same token, George Fair of Uni-link has done an excellent job of representing small operators' interests on the Solent Travelcard Management Committee since its inception, but now that the Uni-link operation is to be swallowed up by the Go-Ahead Group, they won't be a small operator any more so a new representative is needed. Once again, it turns out that's me!
May I take this opportunity to thank my parents, my brother, Taz's pet cat, my election agent (if only I knew who it was).....
Actually Taz's pet cat, Tommy, might start to feature a little more regularly on here from now on, because having my offered my flat as temporary cattery when Taz and his family go on holiday in a week's time, I now find I've won that contest as well and I will therefore have a pet cat from Wednesday 23rd for a week!
In the real world of buses and passengers and roadworks and traffic lights, the lights that have been appearing on and off at Haskins for the last week or so are on this afternoon, and causing big traffic delays.
So once again we can't keep three DAFs out, because delays to inbound journeys mean that V384 eventually has to go out on the 1350 to keep the service running on time (which once again we did, with 100% compliance from Eastleigh Bus Station despite the hold-ups), so the late-running 1335 arrival becomes the 1420 departure, and the similarly late-running 1405 arrival becomes the 1450 departure. By this time the lights have gone and the traffic calms down, so when V14 comes in 20 minutes late at 1455 it becomes spare for the rest of the afternoon, as V384 is well in time for the 1520 and Maria can simply keep going in that.
Thanks to Mikey's hard work in the office, we make a successful end to the day as we finally manage to get the service 8 route map up on the website!
Wednesday: Three out, two in
Started with three DAFs again Wednesday morning, and Pete our casual driver doing his first weekday stint for us (Alison is on holiday, so he's on duty 4).
V12 seemed to be running a bit hot though, so as a precaution we took her off at lunchtime to get the radiator cleaned out - the radiators on the DAFs are towards the rear on the nearside so in a prime spot to absorb all the muck and dirt on the road!
That solved the problem, but in the meantime V384 took over from 1420, so we'll have to wait another day to get three DAFs to start, stay out and finish their lines! Touch wood though, they're not showing up any new mechanical problems at the moment!
V12 seemed to be running a bit hot though, so as a precaution we took her off at lunchtime to get the radiator cleaned out - the radiators on the DAFs are towards the rear on the nearside so in a prime spot to absorb all the muck and dirt on the road!
That solved the problem, but in the meantime V384 took over from 1420, so we'll have to wait another day to get three DAFs to start, stay out and finish their lines! Touch wood though, they're not showing up any new mechanical problems at the moment!
Tuesday 15 April 2008
PlusBus? Not us!
Eastleigh was beautifully calm and still (albeit freezing cold) at 0400 this morning. Don't ask me why I got there at that time, I just did, and liked it very much. Might do it again before long!
Had a bit of fun washing the bus windows in the yard at 0630ish. Did V12 and V14, Taz washed and I bladed the windows. Trouble is, we only had cold water available and it was freezing on to the glass so quickly that I couldn't dare let Taz do more than one pane ahead of me at a time - normally the washer gets on with it and the blader catches up in his/her own good time.
Lots of financial stuff to work through today so the morning was office-bound. All good though and very necessary, but was able to sneak away after lunch to Barton Park to check up on progress with the water hose on V7 and to put 303 in for safety service.
The bus service operated entirely uneventfully all day, with no changes required to buses, drivers or anything, and every bus observed on time.
We had an enquiry over the weekend from a gentleman who wants to use a Southampton Plusbus to get from Parkway Station to the Rose Bowl tomorrow afternoon, and wondered if we would accept it. My answer was of course that we are not in the scheme at present, but that I would make enquiries to find out how difficult it would be, thinking that it couldn't be very!
So after talking to everyone else on the planet I ended up speaking to Gordon Frost, good guy and Commercial Manager of First H&D. He said there was no problem joining, it was very easy, he would send me a formal offer letter and we could reply. That's all fine, only trouble is, provided we apply by May we will be admitted in September! Just in time for the end of the cricket season!
V7 emerged from Brenhaul late afternoon complete with new air bag to go with its water hose, so tomorrow we are aiming for the "three DAF trick" for the second time.
For those that care, as I've left it tonight, V12 is on line S1 (0708 B-E etc), V7 is on S2 (0738 B-E etc) and V14 is on S3 (0720 E-B etc) tomorrow.
Had a bit of fun washing the bus windows in the yard at 0630ish. Did V12 and V14, Taz washed and I bladed the windows. Trouble is, we only had cold water available and it was freezing on to the glass so quickly that I couldn't dare let Taz do more than one pane ahead of me at a time - normally the washer gets on with it and the blader catches up in his/her own good time.
Lots of financial stuff to work through today so the morning was office-bound. All good though and very necessary, but was able to sneak away after lunch to Barton Park to check up on progress with the water hose on V7 and to put 303 in for safety service.
The bus service operated entirely uneventfully all day, with no changes required to buses, drivers or anything, and every bus observed on time.
We had an enquiry over the weekend from a gentleman who wants to use a Southampton Plusbus to get from Parkway Station to the Rose Bowl tomorrow afternoon, and wondered if we would accept it. My answer was of course that we are not in the scheme at present, but that I would make enquiries to find out how difficult it would be, thinking that it couldn't be very!
So after talking to everyone else on the planet I ended up speaking to Gordon Frost, good guy and Commercial Manager of First H&D. He said there was no problem joining, it was very easy, he would send me a formal offer letter and we could reply. That's all fine, only trouble is, provided we apply by May we will be admitted in September! Just in time for the end of the cricket season!
V7 emerged from Brenhaul late afternoon complete with new air bag to go with its water hose, so tomorrow we are aiming for the "three DAF trick" for the second time.
For those that care, as I've left it tonight, V12 is on line S1 (0708 B-E etc), V7 is on S2 (0738 B-E etc) and V14 is on S3 (0720 E-B etc) tomorrow.
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