The Empire Grows

More success in the competitive tendering process means more routes!

I had bid on a schools service between Frampton Mansell and Cirencester which I proposed to start in Minchinhampton and number it 128. I received the call to say that our bid was successful and started to make plans for its introduction in January. I was then tactfully informed that this was an emergency tendering arrangement and that it starts on Monday! Note to self: read documents properly in the future and do not assume anything!

I also put in a bid to operate route 278 between Tetbury and Malmesbury. I knew this was a short notice arrangement and that it starts next Wednesday. It only runs two days per week and fits nicely inbetween a school bus!

Its Quads!

The cheque book fell into my hands today with disastruous consequences! Once I have this little book in my hand and a writing implement (pen, pencil or crayon) money tends to disappear from the company bank acount at an alarming rate! I am sure these two events are somehow connected.

The result of this lack of security was the arrival of another Dennis Dart (M94 WBW) and the purchase of L720 JUD. Our collection of larger darts has now increased to four.

M101 WBW has been repainted into fleet colours and fitted with a new LED destination kit and should be in service on Monday. M94 WBW will head to the painters on Friday evening!

Another Family Member

And so my enthusiasm for updating the fleet bears fruit again!

M101 WBW joins the fleet. Another Dennis Dart with Plaxton bodywork. H886 LOX has been sold for preservation to John Potter and now resides with the Stroud RE Group collection in rural Gloucestershire. It left the yard last Friday to begin its new life.

We can now afford to buy vehicles with larger capacity as the PSV seating capacity restriction in Stroud town centre is about to be lifted! HURRAH!

In other news, our bids to operate some St Peter's School buses appears to have been unsuccessful but we have a bid in for another service to the Cirencester schools which has more of a chance of being successful. We also are in line to operate route 278 (Tetbury to Malmesbury) from the beginning of December. Should have that confirmed early next week!

Photo Number 6 - P637 ARN

The Metrorider. Before the fitting of its new wheels and some vinyls. Already a hit with some after its first outing yesterday afternoon! If this overwhelming enthusiasm continues then I cannot see why this vehicle will not be with us for some time to come!

The Changing Of The Fleet

Again I cannot resist the temptation to buy more vehicles. The age profile of the fleet improves a bit more with the latest purchases!

New in is our first (and probably only) Optare Metrorider P637 ARN from Lancashire United ( a part of the Transdev group) and another Dennis Dart L720 JUD from Chepstow Classic Buses. I am hoping that another Scania will follow soon as F705 BAT is due for withdrawl at the end of the week! H886 LOX is also not long for this world (at least in service) and should be out of the fleet by mid November.

I cannot bear to part with H843 NOC or H886 LOX and so I am trying to negotiate some secure storage for them until I decide what to do!

Another One Bites The Dust

And so it is a sad farewell to another Carlyle Bodied Dart. H887 LOX has now made its final journey to the great bus depot in the sky (well, actually a scrapyard in Barnsley but I prefer the poetic version!).

After months of sitting in the corner, quietly donating parts to other vehicles, the opportunity of creating more parking space could be avoided no longer. It was the last vehicle remaining in the former Ebley Bus colour scheme (not sorry to see the back of that).

The reign of the Carlyle bodied darts is now coming to an end. Already H887 LOX and H889 LOX have journied to Barnsley, H843 NOC is delicenced and sits out of action in the corner soon to be joined by H886 LOX. I am still hoping to keep one but not in active service, purely as a preservation project!

Ebley Bus did have another one of these darts (H142 MOB) but this went to Barnsley some time before the company was sold.

The Day The Earth Stood Still

A title from one of my favourite old sci-fi movies and also a good description of the beginning of the new school year where an otherwise stable bus network can descend into chaos!

The problem, as always at this time of year, is passenger numbers. We carry many students to school who, because of their parents choice of schools, are not entitled to a bus pass or dedicated school transport. There is no way of knowing how many new students will travel, how many will change from one form of transport to another or which route(s) will begin to burst at the seems!

Early indications showed that Cirencester Deer Park School would be up and Thomas Keble School would be down. If this became reality, then a simple switch of resources and problem solved. Every year, no matter where I have worked, I find that it can never be that simple!

Cirencester Deer Park School's numbers travelling were up! so that's one point to me! However Thomas Keble Schools numbers were static with the exception of route 5 which shot up by about a third! The terrain this service negotiates means that it has been difficult to find a bus small enough to go round the route but big enough to carry the required number of passengers! I believe I have found one and so should be able to sort that one out by half term. I am hoping to go and pick it up on Monday!

So that is one of the many issues that have stopped me from attending to the important business of updating the blog. Look out for more posts that I intend to publish over the next week or so including the following subjects:

• our new pet duck
• fleet changes
• more school route tales of woe
• two new drivers
• fuel duty rebate
• the night bus
• fuel
• Stroud Town Centre
• return of the squirrel

and I am sure many more!

They're Here!

The ticket machines have arrived and are up and running!

The software works fine and now I have a staggering amount of information at my fingertips. The concessionary fare reports do, however, depress me. It reminds me of the phrase 'here's what you could of won!' from the classic gameshow Bullseye!

Onwards and upwards!

EU Legistlation Thwarts Progress!

Our ticket machine system has been delayed!

All we are apparently missing is a depot reader which, as it contains lead, cannot now be sold by the manufacturers under EU legislation.

My sense of dissapointment cannot be explained by mere words but the sight of me pacing up and down the yard often leads to people to avoid me, as they know that this represents a time when I am best left alone! Eventually the pacing turns to mumbling choice phrases under my breath before heading slowly towards a form of normality, or at least as close as I am likely to get.

Possibly up to another three weeks to wait!

The Bus Station?

Anybody famaliar with Stroud over the past few years will remember that it had a Bus Station. It was not a pretty place. In fact Dank, Grubby even threatening after dark but it was a proper bus station with loading bays, information and ample parking. Although Merretts Newsagent had disappeared from the bus station some years before and the empty shop was boarded up the rest of the adjacent shopping centre was refurbished leading to the replacement of the often not working escalator with stairs and an often not working lift!

The site was located on top of a culverted brook, which due the age and instability of the culvert, led to bus parking being withdrawn and replaced with a pay and display car park which in turn left less bus parking.

Judgement day occurred when Stagecoach sold the remainder of the site lease to the District Council for a reasonable sum (leading to anguished cries of 'assett strippers' by some) and the idea of redevelopment of the site came to be a reality, it was just a question of time. By this stage, services were departing from the town centre and the bus station was a signing on/off point with driver facilities and also a schools service interchange point. Even the travel shop was relocated to John Street.

Services eventually returned to the bus station after the District Council enforced a restriction of PSVs in the town centre meaning that vehicles above 33 seats in capacity could not access Russell Street (with the exception of buses involved with rail replacement services). The travel shop also returned.

And then the redevelopment came!

The existing bus station was replaced by a series of 'on road' stops as a temporary measure whilst a new interchange was to be built at the railway station. STILL WAITING!

Is there another bus station in the country with an 'A' road passing through the middle! The safety fears of people being run over passed without realisation although this perhaps due to the fact that traffic rarely moves at a significant speed due to congestion!

To illustrate how it is, I provide a picture of an ordinary weekday, taken at a quite random moment from the adjacent car park. Please note the delivery lorry illegally parked and the Stagecoach double deck parked up on bay N in the foreground!

The original bus station used to be to the right on a site now occupued by a cinema.

Advertisement Break

The advertising deal that I am so proud of displayed on L718 JUD. There are three versions of side adverts but only one version of the rear advert.

The property version on the side of F705 BAT.

The Camera Never Lies

More CCTV being fitted today! N913 NAP today joins the ranks of H430 EFT, H431 EFT, L101 HHV and L118 HHV.

The system uses a high capacity hard drive instead of the old video technology that I had been familiar with in the past and the results are impressive. The system has been bought for us by Gloucestershire County Council as a part of the BUSCAM project.

The BUSCAM project is to be launched in a blaze of publicity in mid september at a Sir William Romney School in Tetbury.

Noc Knock Knocking On Heavens Door!

H843 NOC is now withdrawn from service! I cannot justify the expense of putting it through an MOT for another year as I believe it will need an engine change. It will be up for sale soon unless it is used as a part exchange on another vehicle.

H886 LOX has just had its head gasket replaced and so should be back in service on 1st September to keep the Carlyle bodywork prescence in the Stroud area going for another couple of months.

H886 LOX will probably last until November when its MOT expires.

One Small Step For Man, A Giant Leap For Cotswold Green!

The ticket machines are coming! Not a cry of alarm concerning the invasion of the planet by errant items of ticket issuing technology (although what a 'B' movie that would be!), but a call to say that our Wayfarer TGX system is due for delivery next week!

So at long last, the old Wayfarer 2 machines can be consigned to history or more realisticly the bin! I just wish I had not ordered so many ticket rolls!

The Beast Of Nailsworth Mills

Today has proved to be an odd day! Glyn has had his gaze fixed on a tree all afternoon. A small crowd had gathered to witness the sight of a strange animal hitherto unknown to man. The desription was of a white animal with a huge black tail and large head!

The prospect of ridiculing Glyn was too much to resist for several people in the yard. The conclusion was swiftly drawn that he had inhaled a substance with similar properties to LSD causing halucinations on a grand scale!

I finally could not resist and so gazed upon the tree only to see a squirrel going about its normal business of gathering food. I immediately feared for the squirrels safety with this mythical beast lurking somewhere in the depths of the foliage! I now realise that the beast in question was actually the squirrel!

Despite photographic evidence being acquired, Glyn would still not beleive that this was an ordinary squirrel but the size of its head and tail, not to mention the colouration, gave the impression that this was evidence of some grotesque mutation currently afflicting the squirrel population.

I maintain that it was just a squirrel and here is the photograph as evidence of this fact!

What Do You Mean 2 Months Since I Last Posted?

Two months is not a long time! I regret that I have completely overlooked the blog in recent weeks. I was reminded of this by Nigel with his helpful "when are you going to put more on the blog!" and then he told me that the last entry was 5th June!



So what happened?

• Still chasing our new ticket machines! It would appear that the construction time includes mining the ore and refining it to form the raw materials ready to be made into componants!


• We bid for a contract, lost it, won it and then lost it again much to my regret. It would have provided a welcome boost to the 54 service.


• We won an evening contract to start in early September between Dursley and Stroud (Fridays only).


• Looks like the 620 service contract will be extended for another 12 months which is very good news! I don't think the Varios (R629 YOM and R630 YOM) will make it though. I am, however, not aversed to a bit of bus shopping!


• Many hours completing our claim for rebate of some of the fuel duty that we have paid.


• Painted the National (VAE 499T) but not too happy with the job!


• Exibited at the Stroud Running Day (H843 NOC, F705 BAT and H430 EFT). H843 NOC working a Cashes Green free bus run as part of the event.


• And much, much more!

I promise that more posts will follow!

Sleeper

I have a reputation for being able to sleep for large amounts of time, even in the most trying of circumstances. This morning was a classic example!

If needed I can rise early and complete a full days work, but if I don't set the alarm who knows when I will wake up! If I was ever needed to work through the night, that would be no problem! Possibly a throw back to a period of my career operating nightclub buses in the early hours. My favourite of which picked up in Swindon at around midnight and then set back from Milton Keynes at around 0600! Seeing the sunrise at the end of my working day has always felt comforting!

This morning I was woken by a phone call just after midday!

After a short 'milling about the house' session in the hope of acheiving some form of conciousness, I headed to the yard.

My arrival after midday is no longer a surprise to anybody. The occasional use of the greeting 'morning' at two in the afternoon still amuses me no end! Wendy was running the show as usual and absolutely nothing was happening (it would not dare!). A note was left for me to ring John Groves Ticket Systems which I did immediately in the desperate hope that the ticket machine order was in production and due imminently! It isn't! Possibly still six weeks away.

The on bus advertising deal is about to bear fruit and most of our vehicles will be adorned with side and rear adverts at the end of next week. The interior adverts will follow at a later date.

I have noticed that I have not replaced many vehicles this year so far and so I think some bus shopping is in order! A call has been made to our secret contact, who has access to two of the big groups disposal lists, hoping to find either a suitable dart or Mercedes 811D in good condition to replace H843 NOC. I love the Carlyle body darts, and they have certainly earned their money, but the time has come to replace them. H886 LOX is already in the 'reserve fleet' whilst H887 LOX is semi-dismantled to provide spares for the other two. I will try to find a way of keeping one on as a preservation project!

The rest of the day continued with the usual paperwork pressures, disturbed by a fleeting visit from our accountant, until I felt it was time to go home at about six. Wendy is doing the late shift tonight!

Time Flies!

I can't believe that it was the 17th May since I last posted on the blog.

Part of the reason for this was my holiday in Jersey where public transport really is a viable alternative to the car. We either walked or caught the bus!

Cotswold Green however continued without me for a week with not too much extra paperwork to complete on my return. We have retained the 256 service which had been recently retendered although the Saturday journeys have been removed due to the usual budget pressures. I have taken the opportunity to introduce a new 63 route to cover some of the territory. The choice of number is a reminder of the old 63 route that used to run between Dursley and Cheltenham many years ago!

The new ticket machines have not arrived yet whilst our existing system (Wayfarer 2) has pretty much given up! This is going to cause me a headache when it comes to getting all of the figures together at the end of the month!

Photo Number 5 - The Yard

A broad view of the entrance to the yard taken in the evening when all of the buses are home. The Leyland National in the corner (VAE 499T) is not a part of the fleet but is part owned by myself.

That Was The Week That Was!

And so I now admit to not having enough time to publish blog posts on a daily basis and must resort to sumarising the week just passed!

The new ticket machine system order has had the final configuration set, three new LED destination kits are on their way, an on bus advertising deal has been signed, we have bid to retain our route 256 and L718 JUD has now been repainted!

A quiet week!!!!!

The Days All Merged Into One

Not enough hours in the day to keep this blog maintained!

Thursday was bus shopping day! A trip to Chepstow in the morning gave me a chance to peruse some more Mercedes 709D's. N963 NAP looked promising but too small to justify its acquesition! On to Devon and another Dart has joined the fold (L718 JUD), a forty seater for the Gloucester services. It drove back from Devon without any problems whatsoever even though a 50mph journey behind it on the M5 was a little tedious. After arrival at the depot, the pleasant task of vinyl stripping began prior to sanding down and repainting. The first vinyl to go was the rear advert for a care service in Torbay that I had now read so many times! The bus was collected from Winkleigh where many First vehicles are in storage (mainly Dennis Lances and Darts). It also happens to be the site of a large vintage vehicle collection that took and hour to get round with our impromptu guided tour! The Mercedes Vario that I had gone to see had been stripped of too many parts and so I quickly walked away from it!

Friday gave me the chance to drive routes 11 and 241 again. Starting them off myself and then being joined by route learners until I left them to it. I was collected from Gloucester at 13:00 and returned to Nailsworth HQ. Just time to load the new destination software and read the instruction book before hometime! H430 EFT and H431 EFT now have working destination kits but due to an access code problem L118 HHV now does'nt! Must phone for help on Monday!

Saturday is usually a quiet day for me and today was indeed no different! A little bit of paperwork in the morning and away by lunch time!

Photo Number 4 - L889 VHT

A blast from the past! The first Mercedes 709Ds that served Cotswold Green originated from First Group. This one is illustrated fresh from repaint (27/03/2007). They were capable machines although they gave the impression that they had not been well cared for in the past and hence their replacement with ex Stagecoach vehicles. Out of the three that had been part of our fleet K693 UFV definately went to Poland where L889 VHT is rumoured to have followed and K872 NEU is rumoured to be in Kenya!

The Sun Shines On The Righteous!

A beautiful sunny day in the Cotswolds! The birds were singing, the passengers were paying and all was right with the world. Well, all but N966 NAP deciding that it was too nice a day to be working! A quick bus change and back to normal.

The new routes in Gloucester were quieter today but expected to be busy tomorrow (rumoured to be pension day!).

A trip to view a potential addition to the fleet tomorrow, having so few spare buses makes me a bit nervous!

Our route 256 comes up for re-tendering next week and appears to be suffering from the County Councils budget cuts. The Saturday journey will be discontinued although the enevitable uproar has'nt hit the local papers yet!

Photo Number 3 - H430 EFT

The superb Scanias! This photo illustartes where they come from. We now favour buying second hand from certain Stagecoach areas (Devon and East Kent are favoured at the moment) and this shows H430 EFT (13/11/2007) in Exeter coach park prior to purchase. The battery packs are not a good sign and we failed to start this one on the day despite the attentions of at least three engineering staff. A couple of days later it arrived safely in our yard.

A Tale Of Two Cities

Well one town and one city!

Todays entry will have to cover for yesterday as the miles I had driven sapped my limited reserves of energy (that and the James concert I went to last night!).

Monday began with the start of a new contract. Routes 11 and 241 in Gloucester being the next phase in the expansion of the Cotswold Green empire. The passenger numbers were surprising to say the least although with the expansion of free concessionary travel, revenue was expectedly low! Being more used to rural services, more than ten passengers on the bus at any one time is a bit alien to us! The first day went smoothly with a bit of enthiast attention. We were of course not the only company to begin former Stagecoach routes in Gloucester on Monday, Independant Coaches took over route 13.

The ticket machines have now been ordered and I look forward to shiny new Wayfarer TGX machines gracing our vehicles in the not too distant future. Much work lies ahead in converting what we do into proceedures that a computer system can understand!

Tuesday meant a morning of returning the calls I had missed on Monday and then driving the almost obligatory school bus. Routes 7 and 129 with a H430 EFT and surprisingly well behaved children! The weather is good, Ebley coaches were short of vehicles and hired F705 BAT for the afternoon and no complaints or breakdowns, how could a day be better!

Photo Number 2 - N951 NAP

Photographed near Bibury (16/04/08) after working the 09:00 service 860 from Cirencester before travelling empty to Fossebridge to commence service 864 back to Cirencester. I still fail to understand why Stagecoach would be selling these buses (even retrimmed) whilst in the area we serve they still operate older, shabbier vehicles on a daily basis! Still their loss I suppose. These vehicles, in my opinion, are a godsend to the small operator. Good on fuel and reliable, you don't get that with a Vario!

The Calm Before The Storm?

I thought it would be a bad day and it was, but only because we were so meticulous yesterday preparing for the worst, that when the worst did not happen we had too many drivers, all of the buses available and other than the dizzying heights of 'mount paperwork', nothing to do!

The chance to discuss our presence at the Stroud Bus Running Day in June provided a surprisingly pleasant interlude and so I have now decided not to decant the entire fleet from our yard to the display area but to send possibly three vehicles for display at the main site. Two scanias and a dart seem the most popular combination so far.

Another consequence of all of this free time was that the NVQ programme made some more progress today with another two completions. More NVQs scheduled for Tuesday.

Also my obsession with finding Cotswold Green referenced on the web brought me to the realisation that not all published information is correct! The Wikipedia entry that I started has the fact that we have been awarded route 13 in Gloucester (Centre to Abbeymead) but unfortunately this is not true. My other searches yielded little in the way of new information. Nobody seems to have published fleet photos for a while!

Not much else to say today!

Photo Number 1 - H843 NOC

The first of an occasional series of photos I have taken whilst at work! H843 NOC after finishing its school run near Miserden and about to run empty to Cirencester for the 1626 service 54A (31/03/08). This bus was acquired from Ebley Bus Ltd on 01/12/06 and so has been with us from the beginning. Prior to Ebley Bus Ltd this bus worked for Warrington Borough Transport. I have developed a fondness for the appearance of the Carlyle bodwork and the size of the vehicle is perfect for our operation. It is a shame that no bus currently on the market can replace these in terms of size and capacity!

An Inspector Calls

The phone rings at 06:30. That is never a good start to the day! It can only mean that we are at least two drivers short today. A short conversation with the supervisor confirms my fate, I already know that the options are few at such short notice. Still, a couple of trips in the Cirencester area on a clear and sunny morning can't be all that bad. Many people would pay for an excursion around idyllic Cotswold Villages and I get all this for free! After a few phone calls duties are changed, another driver is drafted in, I am collected from Cirencester to return to Nailsworth HQ and a sense of normality returns. So much frantic activity just to make sure all of the services run and to time! What will tomorrow bring and how much did today cost?

A day of more paperwork (how many trees had to die?) follows this unexpected early start. The in-tray disappeared some time ago under a teetering mountain of paper and I often dream of the day when I may catch a glimpse of black plastic, indicating that I have nearly reached the bottom!

The good news today is that commercial advertising may soon be gracing most of our vehicles with a new contract in the offing. All the income possible is needed to offset the horrendous fuel price increases of recent weeks.

But it can also be fun to spend! Finally the finance for a new ticket machine system is coming together and an order will soon be placed! Less paperwork is promised and the data will be at my fingertips instead of deciphering endless streams of numbers which then have to be entered into a spreadsheet to make any sense of them!

Not the best of days today but certainly not the worst!

The Day Of The Blog

Today is the day I have decided to start this blogging thing. I hope that there will be time enough in my hectic life to portray the trials and tribulations of running a small bus company!

Cotswold Green currently runs sixteen vehicles from its base in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire covering the southern half of the county and straying as far afield as Bath. Somewhere in the region of 26 employees inhabit our little world and maybe more about some of them another day!

Today was an ordinary low pressure day where the office was quiet except for the occasional timetable enquiry and the inevitable sales call. The final preparations for our new routes in Gloucester (241 to Sandhurst and 11 to Podsmead) should now be complete and I look forward to the start of these on Monday. The weather was nice today and reminds me that our depot sits in a really nice spot, in a valley surrounded by trees. Got to be better than the typical industrial estate location!

So that is all I have for the first installment, more another day.