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Post by Alex on May 9, 2020 0:19:52 GMT
Think there was a big tactical mistake by having the lockdown till the 7th (not exactly rocket science to understand that if a lockdown deadline is till the day before a bank holiday weekend people will be out in droves....). Should have been till the 10th. Now the pressure is on the govt to ease the lockdown which in my view is the wrong way to go .... Agree. With news sources trying to preempt things, a jovial VE day weekend and good weather - along with the date issue you've picked up on - a lot of people seem to have got the wrong end of the stick. Get things moving gradually I agree, open up the economy steadily with a focus on social distancing and good practice, but don't let it become a free for all. People are still in big trouble with this virus, in some ways the way things have been recently have become the norm so the attitude of people has probably relaxed on a big scale. There needs a push to get this back to something sensible.
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Post by Alex on May 9, 2020 0:00:33 GMT
Net curtain ... do people still use those? I must admit I haven't seen one for years. I haven't got a major issue with double deckers going past houses either, when I lived in North Cheam I had route 93 buses going past the house very regularly during the day and being a 24 hour service going past at literally all hours. It never worried me, I shouldn't imagine people are interested in me watching TV or tapping away on my laptop. The buses are only going past for a second anyway.....things like getting changed etc I would hope people would draw the curtains before anyway
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Post by Alex on May 8, 2020 23:05:00 GMT
Whoever said lockdown was finished in East London has it bang on the money. Cue a Bank Holiday weekend and my road ends up with more cars than there are houses. Parking is never normally a problem (several of the houses have driveways and there's more than enough spaces) but today after my Covid-19 delivery to elderly mother-in-law, I couldn't even park in the road. I went outside to check a minute ago and it's still the same. Lockdown definitely seems to have finished at several houses in my road.....
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Post by Alex on May 8, 2020 12:52:18 GMT
Only change that I would do is to make the Barking Town Centre stops as the first/last stop in the same way as the 169 does and to make the London Road stand as the main stand of the route and to take shorter stand time at Newbury Park Station instead. I wasn't sure about this, when I went on Google StreetView it appeared there were quite a few stands there but I wasn't sure how much the 169 used these up and also if any other routes used these, even in times of disruption. Barking is not an area I am very familiar with bus-wise. its probably one of best ideas that I have seen on making the missing Yes, Snoggle had a good one there - I was toying with the idea if the route could run from Aldborough Road South via Suffolk Road and Hertford Road to a new stand the other side of the subway from Newbury Park Station It would save a fair bit of mileage and give some back roads a new service. I then decided it would probably be in the interest of more people if Aldborough Road South was served in it's full length. I was thinking the back road nature of the route could give rise to some interesting curtailment points and how these would be executed. I think I may take a look at some similar (real life) routes and see how it all comes together.....
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Post by Alex on May 8, 2020 10:18:56 GMT
I think you got too much time on your hands!! That was done over a little while - I have a fair bit on my plate and this was done when I had a few odd minutes here and there to fill up. With the route idea itself I think Snoggle had a good one there which is why I picked it to look at. There's a lot of good links between differing bus and rail routes and a fair bit of gaps being filled in. It's a shame the old suggestion thread disappeared.....
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Post by Alex on May 8, 2020 0:01:34 GMT
This is fantastically done! How did you go about creating the schedule? Thanks I've deleted the page in the spreadsheet where I came up with the times. It was something like this: Where a route existed on a section I used the times from that. So from Barking Station to Barking Bus Garage was easy as there's so many, and also I could work out the route 66 timings along Eastern Avenue for that bit. As for the rest, I had to use timings of 20 mph road routes (I think Snoggle had the 'Bungalow Estate' part as hail and ride) and settled on using the Meads Lane area timings of the 364. I had to look at the variance of timings in the Green Lane area on routes 128 and 150 to work out how delayed things could get there as well. Once I had the timings, I measured the route to give an average MPH, then measured the bits that had been invented to give a running time. This was just off-peak. I then had to look at timings over rush hours and where the longest timings were and adjust the timings to the new average MPHs that I had found I devised the off-peak service first and then had to build the longer trips around it into the rush hours (this is where 705 comes along as it's needed to keep 3 bph in the peaks), and then get buses running back to the garage and use the stand time at Newbury Park to get the 20 min service to the 30 min service in the late evening. Certainly kept me busy
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Post by Alex on May 7, 2020 23:39:59 GMT
As a lockdown project I wanted to revisit a route which Snoggle suggested last year - however the thread disappeared when the forum moved over to HTTPS I have enough of a memory of the idea to post it up here, we decided to tweak the route in the Seven Kings Station area due to the road layout. Snoggle didn't give it a number, most of the post was the list of roads and specifying a 20 minute frequency. I've given it a number - route 361 - as that number is unused and ties in with other east London single deck routes with numbers in that area (thinking 362, 364 and 366). Here goes: Route 361 - Barking Station to Newbury Park Station Roads traversed: Station Parade, Longbridge Road, South Park Drive, Ashburton Avenue, Meadway, Levett Gardens, Gyllyngdune Gardens, Breamore Road, Water Lane, Green Lane, New Road, High Road, Cameron Road, Aldborough Road South, Eastern Avenue, Newbury Park Station 3 bph most of the time, 2 bph evenings and Sundays. Single deck route. Now this is where the lockdown project comes in, using some timings and maths of similar routes, and measuring the length of the route I managed to come up with some timings and attach a schedule of what this route could have looked like on paper. I've also resurrected AP garage again (as I did for that 85 schedule project) just to see what driver duties might have looked like as well. I've just attached Monday to Friday - I do have a schedule for Saturdays and Sundays but saving that up for another time where I might need to be occupied I'll just point out that I couldn't find anywhere easy in Barking for the route to turn around near the station - so I put all the stand time at the Newbury Park end and Barking is a hesitation point using the 169 stand in London Road just to turn around in. I don't know Barking too well so can imagine other members might see a better plan......
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Post by Alex on May 7, 2020 21:33:09 GMT
4 routes run from Bexleyheath Town Centre to Woolwich - 96, 99, 301 & 422. That one is 96, 422, 301, 99
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Post by Alex on May 7, 2020 0:32:03 GMT
I know this has been posted on another Proboards forum to do with this area, but I was given a memo by a manager today saying that the normal Working Timetables for tube lines will be starting up again from May 17th. I'm not sure how this is going to play out, as there was a plan to enforce social distancing among staff by having staggered booking on times, duties worked out where not too many people were on breaks at the same time and a ban on travelling between locations during a shift. I can't speak for other lines but where I am (Circle & Hammersmith line) there's no chance of social distancing on the normal duties (as most of the breaks are taken at Edgware Road and there's a few duties that travel - normally between Hammersmith and Edgware Road but in some cases Edgware Road to Barking). I guess we'll find out more in the coming days.....
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Post by Alex on May 6, 2020 0:43:20 GMT
Crikey what an interesting link - thank you so much. I found a lot of that of interest, especially the flats at Nightingale Place under construction. Great stuff, what I can't believe is how unsteady the RTs looked compared to modern buses, though they were rock solid. They knew how to cone up with the goods in the old days!
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Post by Alex on May 5, 2020 2:43:28 GMT
Yep, huge boil next to my nuts! Ended up in A+E, the doctor who lanced it asked what I did for a living, and when I told him I was a bus driver he instantly said 'it's your drivers seat'. I didn't remember exactly where the boil was but I remember you posting that the medical professional you'd chatted to said immediately it was the drivers seat. How rank. Makes sense now why I used to see a 93 driver using one of those beaded seat covers that were all the rage in the eighties - he had the right idea
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Post by Alex on May 4, 2020 2:20:38 GMT
I used to put a towel on the seat before driving, and anything in the cab I had to touch would be wiped down with anti bac wipes. This rings a bell - was it you who said about using a towel because you got some sort of infection because the seats were so bad? I remember thinking when I read it that it was a pretty disgusting situation.....
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Post by Alex on May 2, 2020 23:12:42 GMT
Oh yes it would all have been so much better under Jeremy Corbyn (what were you saying about rose tinted specs?)....... he's probably sat at home counting his blessings about the bullet that he dodged. Yes, that's a conversation the wife and I have had a few times. We both voted Labour in the election (I'm so glad I didn't go down the bookies and put a bet on a Labour-SNP coalition - which I was going to do ) but both of us think this Covid-19 situation would have been a right balls-up if the election had gone differently and we feel this government makes us feel safer. It's not perfect but we feel looked after. What would be even worse is if Theresa May was still there...... EDIT - I see a few members are saying about personal links with the NHS, I'm there too - my wife is a Biomedical Scientist and my mum is an HCA (on a Covid-19 ward) and even filmed for BBC South Today (in said Covid ward)! The latter person is why I get so uppety about PPE..... FURTHER EDIT: MetrolineGA1511 was indeed correct, I meant the SNP
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Post by Alex on May 2, 2020 23:04:32 GMT
He's not going to get fired, after all. Well no, I could imagine a conversation (based on the post above) going like this (only as an example!): Manager: We've had a complaint that you didn't wash your hands or changed gloves using a public toilet, this isn't right and everyone needs to be careful, especially working with the public and with other staff using the cab environment. Driver: How do they know, did they follow me in the toilet? I did wash my hands and changed my gloves. All pairs of gloves look the same so how would they know? Manager says a bit more etc, driver denies it and says he's done everything properly etc.... But - the driver knows his card is marked and he needs to be careful now as he doesn't know who is looking. A chat with a manager will give food for thought. Not taking issue or provoking anything but I personally wouldn't use the term snitch at the moment TBH, this is a time where there is great worry about hygiene and good practice, and many people are raising concerns in all sorts of areas (I think Dillon95 is justified to be aggrieved by this, if anything he's looking out for other drivers who have to use the cab).
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Post by Alex on May 2, 2020 21:15:58 GMT
I just saw a 321 driver go to the public toilet in Tesco, he kept his gloves on and walked out without washing his hands or changing his gloves before returning to his bus. Vile creature. I don’t know about nowadays, but this was commonplace where I lived as a kid. Apart from the places that terminated at a supermarket, there weren’t facilities at outlying terminal points and it was the usual thing for drivers to relieve themselves behind a bus shelter or a nearby set of bushes. I remember one bus station which only had a public toilet and this was locked after 19:00. I’ve seen drivers there in the evening disappear behind the far side of the bus station and then come back a few moments later. My feeling was it was to do with the facilities not being available. Not making excuses and I know that not having facilities is a different kettle of fish to having some and not making use of them properly (as in Tesco) - however I reckon the ‘not washed hands’ issue probably still happens a fair bit (I know it does in train cabs)...... EDIT: Now I'm at home - hopefully the recent situation gets these terminal points and hygiene issues sorted - a long term positive as long as people play the game (as not displayed at Tesco).
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