|
Post by Dillon95 on Feb 23, 2018 1:02:23 GMT
51 from Sidcup, High Street/Station Road to Orpington, High Street/War Memorial 353 to Addington Road Pumping Station I fancied some fresh air so I tried out Spring Park in between Coney Hall and Addington Village.
The journey home was miserable, loads of school bratts got on in Hayes and they gave me a headache. Something happened downstairs when we reached Keston, the driver switched his engine off and we didn't move for ages. In the end a kid got off crying and all the other children cheered and we went on with the journey. God knows what happened but I've never seen such a misbehaved bus of middle classed posh kids in my life. Was glad to get off.
The rusty old trident home on the 51 was jam packed, stood up the whole way.
|
|
|
Post by routew15 on Feb 23, 2018 17:39:10 GMT
On the 20 - WVL460 tonight and this driver is great every passenger that gets off he is saying "see ya/bye" to and everyone who gets on he is saying hello to. Not to mention he handles the bus really well. UpdateDidn’t expect such a quick response but here it is Attachment DeletedThe journey I had was in the evening but i will forgive the typo due to the quick response 👍
|
|
|
Post by snoggle on Feb 23, 2018 20:52:23 GMT
On the 20 - WVL460 tonight and this driver is great every passenger that gets off he is saying "see ya/bye" to and everyone who gets on he is saying hello to. Not to mention he handles the bus really well. UpdateDidn’t expect such a quick response but here it is
The journey I had was in the evening but i will forgive the typo due to the quick response 👍 IME they tend to respond very quickly on staff related complaints / commendations. Far faster than how they handle any other feedback.
|
|
|
Post by snoggle on Feb 24, 2018 0:18:36 GMT
A little jaunt to try to find EB3 and WES1. 123 - VLW906 with the young driver at the helm that I described in another recent post. Fairly belted up Forest Road so looks like it's been "fettled" by AR to run OK. Tube Got to Finsbury Park just before the PM extra bus is due out. EB3 had done this duty in the AM so was hopeful. Unfortunately it was not to be. 153 - first time on a BYD electric bus. Still smelt completely new inside but the driver had set off early so we got the inevitable "wait" call from the controller before we'd even got to the first stop. As it's not practical to wait under the railway bridges we stopped by Arriva HQ round the corner for about 3 mins. (rolls eyes). I took this through to the Angel. The buses themselves feel like a "big bus" in terms of ride quality but that will no doubt be due to the weight. The 153 is plagued by speed humps so it was a slow but steady trip. Not many people riding it but it was mid afternoon. The bus itself was quiet but the interior noise from the "ventilation" system was near deafening - seems a bit daft to me. Almost as soon as I went out the door LVF fell over so I had no idea what was where so I gave up on heading to Vauxhall to try to snap WES1. Seems this was a good idea as the bus went off service when there was a driver change not long after 1400. I was hopeful of a 56 but the Countdown display was borked on Upper St so it was off to Highbury. Opted not to get a 4 which was oversubscribed but a 30 was just behind - just a standard DN so nothing special. Tube to Tottenham Hale VLA6 turned up on the 123 and the driver recognised me so he pulled up right where I was standing so I could get on first given there was something of a crowd of impatient young kids trying to get on first. Shame the unique demonstrators have such a limited driving pool which limits their time out of routes.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2018 0:18:41 GMT
436 to New Cross Gate London Overground to Canada Water Jubilee line to West Ham c2c to Rainham 103 to Chase Cross 499 to Noak Hill 294 to Romford (Western Road) 294 to Havering Park 365 to Orchard Village, then back to Queen's Hospital 5 to Canning Town DLR to Tower Gateway RV1 to London Bridge 343 to Elephant & Castle 12 to home
|
|
|
Post by Dillon95 on Mar 7, 2018 18:22:03 GMT
I hadn't been to Croydon in a while so I paid a visit today.
269 Sidcup, The Green to Bromley, Town Hall (DW427) There was a 15 minute wait for the next 119 so I went the other way instead.
227 to Beckenham Junction Station (23107) It's a lot easier for me to get to Croydon with the Beckenham High Street diversion in place I must say.
Tramlink to East Croydon I did a bit of window shopping for a couple of hours.
119 to Bromley (Somewhere along Hayes Road) I forgot about the burst water main towards Bromley South and was stuck here for around 30 to 45 minutes. I gave up in the end and walked the rest of the way.
269 Bromley North Station to Sidcup, Carlton Road (DW448)
|
|
|
Post by galwhv69 on Mar 13, 2018 17:15:51 GMT
Had an interesting one today 1=Nicest/Best 5=OK/Bad Walk from home HV1 or 2 (cant remember) on rte 333 2 8191 on rte 201 1 Walk to school Walk from school SE on rte 322 4 SE226 on rte 315 3 E116 on rte 57 5(Screaming its engine off) Walk to home
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2018 10:31:17 GMT
Yesterday's trip to North East London 436 to Oval Station 333 to Elephant & Castle 133 to Liverpool Street London Overground to Chingford (Class 315) 385 to Salisbury Hall Sainsbury's 397 to Debden 20 to Loughton 167 to Ilford 145 to Wanstead 101 to Gallions Reach 262 to Stratford Greater Anglia to Liverpool Street (Class 90+Mark 3 coaches) 388 to Elephant & Castle 12 to home
|
|
|
Post by snoggle on Mar 14, 2018 21:23:37 GMT
123 to Tottenham Hale. 20+ min gap in the service so this was busy for a lunchtime journey. Train to Stratford - lots and lots of track has been delivered for the STAR alignment. All in place except where work is underway to replace bridges or strengthen foundations. Some new electrification masts have been installed too. DLR to Woolwich Fair number of snaps at Woolwich to capture what's changed or about to change. Still slightly amazed to see Dart / Pointers in use. Train to Lewisham. Opted to use Southeastern - what a dreadful train company this is. Unappealing stations, dull dreary trains, shoddy frequencies. Ugh. The nightmare of Lewisham Town Centre - that traffic layout. (rolls eyes) More snaps. Accosted verbally an Abellio driver on the 484 demanding to know why I was taking photos. "Because I want to" was my rather unamused reply. What did he think I was? A company spy or something? 225 turns up so I thought "I'll try that". We were doing reasonably well as he we headed north from Lewisham to Deptford. Busy but not horrendous. And then we get to New Cross and it's school kicking out time. Vast crowd near New Cross Stn, even more people at the next stop on the "solo" section. The school kids were a little loud but well behaved. On we go and people can't get on so are left behind. We carry on some more and the driver somehow squeezes more people on. We then leave more people behind at another stop and have to skip the stop at Surrey Canal Road too. One lady spots the bus is stuck at the junction so sprints to the next stop and strikes lucky as some people get off so some can get on. The lady bus driver was a no nonsense character so she stood up and yelled at the kids to move down the bus and make room which they duly did. The bus only really empties out near Surrey Quays when the school kids alight en masse as do some others. Not sure that frequency cut is working - it's a pretty shoddy state of affairs to be leaving people behind on a 20 minute headway. Oh and the school kids were all travelling a decent distance, not 1 or 2 stops before the usual remarks are made about school time travel. The irony is that they'd have a faster journey if they took the Overground from New Cross to Surrey Quays. I think TfL need to rethink this cut to be honest - I'd be livid if I was being left behind on a 20 min headway. Overground to Highbury 123 from T Hale. 30 minute gap in the service this time. One bus at 1559, next bus at 1630 (VLW903). How on earth you get that sort of shambles I don't know. Thankfully I didn't have to suffer a 30 min wait. I waited for VLA15 which was running just behind and, inevitably, it overtook VLW903 so I got home marginally faster and on a nicer bus too.
|
|
|
Post by busaholic on Mar 14, 2018 22:02:04 GMT
123 to Tottenham Hale. 20+ min gap in the service so this was busy for a lunchtime journey. Train to Stratford - lots and lots of track has been delivered for the STAR alignment. All in place except where work is underway to replace bridges or strengthen foundations. Some new electrification masts have been installed too. DLR to Woolwich Fair number of snaps at Woolwich to capture what's changed or about to change. Still slightly amazed to see Dart / Pointers in use. Train to Lewisham. Opted to use Southeastern - what a dreadful train company this is. Unappealing stations, dull dreary trains, shoddy frequencies. Ugh. The nightmare of Lewisham Town Centre - that traffic layout. (rolls eyes) More snaps. Accosted verbally an Abellio driver on the 484 demanding to know why I was taking photos. "Because I want to" was my rather unamused reply. What did he think I was? A company spy or something? 225 turns up so I thought "I'll try that". We were doing reasonably well as he we headed north from Lewisham to Deptford. Busy but not horrendous. And then we get to New Cross and it's school kicking out time. Vast crowd near New Cross Stn, even more people at the next stop on the "solo" section. The school kids were a little loud but well behaved. On we go and people can't get on so are left behind. We carry on some more and the driver somehow squeezes more people on. We then leave more people behind at another stop and have to skip the stop at Surrey Canal Road too. One lady spots the bus is stuck at the junction so sprints to the next stop and strikes lucky as some people get off so some can get on. The lady bus driver was a no nonsense character so she stood up and yelled at the kids to move down the bus and make room which they duly did. The bus only really empties out near Surrey Quays when the school kids alight en masse as do some others. Not sure that frequency cut is working - it's a pretty shoddy state of affairs to be leaving people behind on a 20 minute headway. Oh and the school kids were all travelling a decent distance, not 1 or 2 stops before the usual remarks are made about school time travel. The irony is that they'd have a faster journey if they took the Overground from New Cross to Surrey Quays. I think TfL need to rethink this cut to be honest - I'd be livid if I was being left behind on a 20 min headway. Overground to Highbury 123 from T Hale. 30 minute gap in the service this time. One bus at 1559, next bus at 1630 (VLW903). How on earth you get that sort of shambles I don't know. Thankfully I didn't have to suffer a 30 min wait. I waited for VLA15 which was running just behind and, inevitably, it overtook VLW903 so I got home marginally faster and on a nicer bus too. The last time I was at Surrey Quays it was still known as Surrey Docks, so aeons ago, but bus services in that neck of the wood have always been a lottery. The old 202 route used to terminate next to New Cross Station (Clifton Rise was the official description) but you hardly ever saw one from a train at the station! It did improve briefly when flat-fared with the P1, but it was always New Cross garage's lowest priority, seemingly, which meant very low indeed. Do the routes of inner S.E. London still account for most of the Top 10 complained-about routes, as they were about five years ago?
The 123 sounds like a relic of its former self.
|
|
|
Post by snoggle on Mar 15, 2018 0:08:24 GMT
The last time I was at Surrey Quays it was still known as Surrey Docks, so aeons ago, but bus services in that neck of the wood have always been a lottery. The old 202 route used to terminate next to New Cross Station (Clifton Rise was the official description) but you hardly ever saw one from a train at the station! It did improve briefly when flat-fared with the P1, but it was always New Cross garage's lowest priority, seemingly, which meant very low indeed. Do the routes of inner S.E. London still account for most of the Top 10 complained-about routes, as they were about five years ago?
The 123 sounds like a relic of its former self. That sort of gap on the 123 is fairly unusual. I'm just glad I wasn't stuck for 30 mins waiting for it. I am not very familiar with inner SE London routes but my limited experience with them is that they work pretty well. They are often busy but what do you expect in areas of dense housing with lowish car ownership? Obviously my ride on the 225 is a very limited sample but it does highlight the problem with turning inner city routes into pretty low frequency services. It doesn't take much for buses to be overloaded to the point that people are left behind. Some people may have been waiting for 30-40 mins if they'd just missed the previous bus. It's really not acceptable when there are no other buses along a particular corridor. Low frequency routes really need to be left to outer London where demand is lower and housing density is lower. To highlight the nonsense with the 225 it is less frequent at school times than the 397 is and that trundles round suburban Chingford and out into Essex! TfL run extra buses at school times on the 397 to give a x15 min headway. Not sure what complaint stats you're referring to but if it was the list the London Assembly Transport Cttee released as the "worst bus services in London" then I'd chuck a couple of packs of Saxa Salt on that. That list was not objective nor backed with TfL statistics. It was about routes that people moaned to Assembly members about than a properly analysed and ranked list of complaints to TfL. There was also no balancing list of commendations or positive remarks. I can't think of a route in London that is perpetually bad with no redeeming aspects. It is pretty unusual for relatively low usage routes, as featured on that Assembly list, to have enormously high levels of complaints. Complaint levels tend to track patronage so high use routes would typically attract more complaints. It's the same sort of trend as with accidents on buses - the more people carried, the more accidents you're likely to have.
|
|
|
Post by gloriouswater on Mar 15, 2018 20:42:34 GMT
225 turns up so I thought "I'll try that". We were doing reasonably well as he we headed north from Lewisham to Deptford. Busy but not horrendous. And then we get to New Cross and it's school kicking out time. Vast crowd near New Cross Stn, even more people at the next stop on the "solo" section. The school kids were a little loud but well behaved. On we go and people can't get on so are left behind. We carry on some more and the driver somehow squeezes more people on. We then leave more people behind at another stop and have to skip the stop at Surrey Canal Road too. One lady spots the bus is stuck at the junction so sprints to the next stop and strikes lucky as some people get off so some can get on. The lady bus driver was a no nonsense character so she stood up and yelled at the kids to move down the bus and make room which they duly did. The bus only really empties out near Surrey Quays when the school kids alight en masse as do some others. Not sure that frequency cut is working - it's a pretty shoddy state of affairs to be leaving people behind on a 20 minute headway. Oh and the school kids were all travelling a decent distance, not 1 or 2 stops before the usual remarks are made about school time travel. The irony is that they'd have a faster journey if they took the Overground from New Cross to Surrey Quays. I think TfL need to rethink this cut to be honest - I'd be livid if I was being left behind on a 20 min headway. Feel my pain. I try and avoid the 225 nowadays - the Overground doesn't get me close enough to my house to warrant the extra £1.50 when I'm capped on buses anyway, so I've been getting off a 321 and walking home faster than if I'd waited for a 225! The route doesn't get massively packed off peak any more, certainly not like a few years back when you'd see rammed buses turning up at 10pm on a Sunday night, but in the peaks the service can collapse horribly. It's never been the most reliable of routes but the frequency cut coupled with the heavy school time loads has just annihilated what reliability it did have. Especially if Rotherhithe dies, you get New Cross turns all the time, making it pointless for me as I could just walk that distance in the time I spent waiting for the bus. Your experience sounds normal - Hither Green to Deptford it's not too badly loaded as it has parallel routes to help, then past New Cross it usually gets rammed full. How was the bus itself for that matter? As the LDPs look like they've had trouble recently, they've been making weird noises again and half of them seemed to be off the road the other day when I looked on LVF.
|
|
|
Post by snoggle on Mar 15, 2018 20:53:56 GMT
How was the bus itself for that matter? As the LDPs look like they've had trouble recently, they've been making weird noises again and half of them seemed to be off the road the other day when I looked on LVF. Seemed fine to me - no odd noises and I was sat right at the back.
|
|
|
Post by MoEnviro on Mar 15, 2018 21:28:33 GMT
225 turns up so I thought "I'll try that". We were doing reasonably well as he we headed north from Lewisham to Deptford. Busy but not horrendous. And then we get to New Cross and it's school kicking out time. Vast crowd near New Cross Stn, even more people at the next stop on the "solo" section. The school kids were a little loud but well behaved. On we go and people can't get on so are left behind. We carry on some more and the driver somehow squeezes more people on. We then leave more people behind at another stop and have to skip the stop at Surrey Canal Road too. One lady spots the bus is stuck at the junction so sprints to the next stop and strikes lucky as some people get off so some can get on. The lady bus driver was a no nonsense character so she stood up and yelled at the kids to move down the bus and make room which they duly did. The bus only really empties out near Surrey Quays when the school kids alight en masse as do some others. Not sure that frequency cut is working - it's a pretty shoddy state of affairs to be leaving people behind on a 20 minute headway. Oh and the school kids were all travelling a decent distance, not 1 or 2 stops before the usual remarks are made about school time travel. The irony is that they'd have a faster journey if they took the Overground from New Cross to Surrey Quays. I think TfL need to rethink this cut to be honest - I'd be livid if I was being left behind on a 20 min headway. Feel my pain. I try and avoid the 225 nowadays - the Overground doesn't get me close enough to my house to warrant the extra £1.50 when I'm capped on buses anyway, so I've been getting off a 321 and walking home faster than if I'd waited for a 225! The route doesn't get massively packed off peak any more, certainly not like a few years back when you'd see rammed buses turning up at 10pm on a Sunday night, but in the peaks the service can collapse horribly. It's never been the most reliable of routes but the frequency cut coupled with the heavy school time loads has just annihilated what reliability it did have. Especially if Rotherhithe dies, you get New Cross turns all the time, making it pointless for me as I could just walk that distance in the time I spent waiting for the bus. Your experience sounds normal - Hither Green to Deptford it's not too badly loaded as it has parallel routes to help, then past New Cross it usually gets rammed full. How was the bus itself for that matter? As the LDPs look like they've had trouble recently, they've been making weird noises again and half of them seemed to be off the road the other day when I looked on LVF. Interestingly according to the figures, the route seems to be performing its best in a very long time over the last few months. See report
|
|
|
Post by busaholic on Mar 15, 2018 21:40:06 GMT
The last time I was at Surrey Quays it was still known as Surrey Docks, so aeons ago, but bus services in that neck of the wood have always been a lottery. The old 202 route used to terminate next to New Cross Station (Clifton Rise was the official description) but you hardly ever saw one from a train at the station! It did improve briefly when flat-fared with the P1, but it was always New Cross garage's lowest priority, seemingly, which meant very low indeed. Do the routes of inner S.E. London still account for most of the Top 10 complained-about routes, as they were about five years ago?
The 123 sounds like a relic of its former self. That sort of gap on the 123 is fairly unusual. I'm just glad I wasn't stuck for 30 mins waiting for it. I am not very familiar with inner SE London routes but my limited experience with them is that they work pretty well. They are often busy but what do you expect in areas of dense housing with lowish car ownership? Obviously my ride on the 225 is a very limited sample but it does highlight the problem with turning inner city routes into pretty low frequency services. It doesn't take much for buses to be overloaded to the point that people are left behind. Some people may have been waiting for 30-40 mins if they'd just missed the previous bus. It's really not acceptable when there are no other buses along a particular corridor. Low frequency routes really need to be left to outer London where demand is lower and housing density is lower. To highlight the nonsense with the 225 it is less frequent at school times than the 397 is and that trundles round suburban Chingford and out into Essex! TfL run extra buses at school times on the 397 to give a x15 min headway. Not sure what complaint stats you're referring to but if it was the list the London Assembly Transport Cttee released as the "worst bus services in London" then I'd chuck a couple of packs of Saxa Salt on that. That list was not objective nor backed with TfL statistics. It was about routes that people moaned to Assembly members about than a properly analysed and ranked list of complaints to TfL. There was also no balancing list of commendations or positive remarks. I can't think of a route in London that is perpetually bad with no redeeming aspects. It is pretty unusual for relatively low usage routes, as featured on that Assembly list, to have enormously high levels of complaints. Complaint levels tend to track patronage so high use routes would typically attract more complaints. It's the same sort of trend as with accidents on buses - the more people carried, the more accidents you're likely to have. I can't give you chapter and verse on those Worst 10 routes, but I don't believe it was based on complaints to assembly members, but to London Travelwatch or whatever it is, or was, called. The 343 was top of the list iirc, and the only non South London route was the 38, at about no. 9, and this when it operated at up to every 2 minutes! It was around the time that the BBC were running a series on bus operation and other London traffic matters, so a few years ago, but I do remember there was footage of people waiting for 343s for up to an hour before being able to board, which I think was also around the time Peter Hendy made his (in)famous remark about would-be passengers rioting if sufficient buses weren't available to get them to work.
When my father took early retirement in the 1970s, he became unpaid Secretary of a charity in the Bermondsey area, at a time when it was decidedly untrendy, and on occasion I would meet him for lunch. The supposed bus service was incredibly unreliable : you never waited for a 42, because they were as tare as hen's teeth, the 78 similarly was able to use the opening of Tower Bridge as a reason/excuse for great gaps in service, whereas being part operated out of Dalston Garage was its main problem. The 1, which was the route I should have used to get there, in theory, was operated in two sections, but Bermondsey was in the overlap and, in theory, had a 9 minute offpeak service, alternately to Waterloo and Marylebone. In practice, half hour gaps were followed by three buses, but New Cross buses wouldn't overtake Catford buses and vice versa. 'Control' on the route might have occurred at a couple of the termini, but was otherwise non-existent, and I worked for the organisation at the time. Later on, the 1 came to be worked by East Thames Buses, not because it had been a Durham District Services or Harris Bus route but because no-one wanted to operate it!
|
|