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.