In Tray

When appointed, the new managing director at First Devon and Cornwall will have an interesting in-basket. This follows news that the incumbent Marc Reddy, currently splitting his time between Plymouth and Southampton, will in future be working full time much nearer his Bournemouth home, as MD for First Hampshire & Dorset.


For the rest of an interesting post on First in Cornwall head over to Omnibuses...

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TGP - Dads Daily: Dolls House

A Transport of Delight: Bitter - sweet Network Rail

Uncle Terry: 127 Cornerstone

Transport Illustrated: BAC 100 Great collection of Bristols

Communications

"We must be doing something right. Question is can we keep it up? ”

Omnibuses 2.0 is one of the daily must read sites as far as I am concerned as it often covers the areas that the usual enthusiast sites don't. This latest post is no exception, and although it covers the South Coast specifically, it does raise some general points about customer communication. All very interesting of course but its actually a couple of the comments that make it interesting from a Plymothian Transit point of view. Look for the comments from someone ‘big’ in Plymouth Citybus. Informative as usual! LINK

Important UK Modern bus livery styles?

The excellent Omnibuses blog kicked off an interesting post this way:
Fifth in the ‘7+1’ series, here is Omnibuses2.0's quick review of seven-plus-one important UK modern bus livery styles. Feel free to add your own comments on these or other modern bus liveries we might've missed.

At this point I didn't expect anything local - although the Stagecoach national livery might be mentioned.
Then I came to number 4 which reads:
Not quite the first, but Peter Sefton’s Plymouth Citybus and Countrybus livery of 1982 was perhaps the most significant in literally redrawing the boundaries of livery design. Not only did this increase the amount of cream, the depth under the lower- or single-deck window was kept the same to maintain a uniform appearance no matter the size or body style. A new departure in livery application. Local independent Tally Ho! was similarly minded in ignoring beading.

I was at first very surprised at this but I guess the more I think about it, I do see his point.

View the rest of his list - along with the comments attracted so far here.
One thing I am not surprised about is the current Citybus livery not appearing in the list!

Omnibuses 2.0

The excellent Omnibuses blog has had a refresh and now calls itself omnibuses 2.0! Its certainly a lot easier on the eye and still has the same up-to-date content that makes it so interesting. The post today is a useful one as its a quick listing of other notable bus related blogs out there.
The list can be found here.

I have also added links to most for them on this blog to the right (I thought I already had links there but they seem to have been lost somewhere along the line!)

First Devon and Cornwall Turned a corner

It’s taken more-or-less a year but former Yellow Buses man turned managing director of Frist Devon & Cornwall Marc Reddy now believes the difficult years in the far south west are over, and that what was once perhaps England’s lamest operator has turned the corner.

This is the start of the latest entry in the excellent Ominbuses Blog. Click here to read the whole article which nicely sums up the position that FDC sees itself in these days. It certainly has turned a corner since Marc Reddy turned up. In Plymouth we have seen the full benefits while other areas in Cornwall no longer see FDC at all. North Devon has seen a fair bit of pulling back too. Now we are beginning to see a fight back by FDC with a couple of skirmishes with Stagecoach Devon both in North Devon and also in Torbay with Stagecoach now running extra Plymouth - Paignton buses. I hope to try one out this week!

Soap Box Sunday

"A soapbox is a raised, improvised platform on which one stands to make an impromptu speech, often about a political subject. Alternately, the word may be used to describe the box that soap comes in." Wikipedia

There has been a lot mentioned locally about the new Great Western train franchise starting soon which has been awarded to First. Locally First have a very poor image mainly down to their First Devon & Cornwall bus operation, which, apart from a few 'showcase' routes with new buses running in partnership with local authorities seem to be very poorly run.

12:00 - 22 February 2006 (This is Plymouth)
Cornwall County Council has condemned cuts to rail services in the county announced by the First Group in its new Great Western Franchise timetable. The proposed cuts, which will come into effect in December, will have a devastating effect on rail services in Cornwall, said a county spokesman."First is proposing massive cuts to both rural and commuter services in Cornwall, which will cause major inconvenience to rail users and damage the local economy," he said.
12:00 - 22 February 2006 (This is Plymouth)
Proposals which would see the number of three-hour rail journeys between Plymouth and London slashed from four to one are to be challeged by the city council. Rail users, business leaders, and MPs have already criticised First Great Western's draft timetable, which is currently out for consultation.The council has now joined the campaign to overturn the plans, which would see the number of three-hour journeys drop to just one a day from December. The new timetable follows First Great Western's successful bid for the Greater Western rail franchise

Cornwalls attitude to First taking over is this:

We worked very successfully with Wessex Trains, who hand over their services to First on April 1, to improve rail services throughout the county. This resulted in a level of service which was well above the minimum requirement, with significant increases in the numbers of trains on branch lines, and a corresponding increase in passenger numbers – up 40% on the Newquay branch line, 21% on Falmouth and a 16% increase on the Looe line." "All this hard work has been destroyed by First who are proposing to run the bare minimum of services to meet the Government's specification."

The changeover to First for most of our train services is now viewed as a bad one by most passengers in the local area. They see what First have done to our buses and now see them doing the same to our local trains as well - even before they officially take over. It really makes you wonder how they dare still use the slogan "First Transforming Travel" when its use down here just makes people laugh (or cry?)

To be fair to First though, it does not all look like Firsts fault. There is an item from the Times which was sent to me by 'Busing' who runs the excellent Omnibus blog.

DOZENS of branch lines and stations are to lose up to half their trains as the Government looks to cut more than £1 billion in rail subsidies. The cuts are concentrated in the West Country but the Department for Transport is also considering reducing services on the South Coast and across northern England. Even those branch lines that have recently begun to show an upturn in usage, such as the scenic St Ives line in Cornwall, are to have their services reduced. Despite ministers publicly offering support for what they have labelled “community railways”, they have privately decided that many are too lightly used to justify their cost. Passenger groups fear that the cuts, the biggest since the Beeching closures of the 1960s, are a forerunner to widespread cuts after the next election.
Commuters into Plymouth will suffer the greatest loss of services under the draft timetable published this week by First Great Western and due to start in December.

On the Great Western cuts, it (Department for Transport) said that the train operator, First Group, was responsible for deciding “when exactly trains should run and where they should stop”. But First blamed the DfT, saying: “The department provides the specification and we have to meet it.”

We now seem to be in the situation where the Government is passing the buck to the train operator and the train operator is passing the buck to the Government. And in the middle? Yep - its the passengers who will see public transport even further reduced from its current poor state. This government is very good at promising lots and delivering very little. By passing public services on to private operators it can reduce government spending on services whilst the private operator gets the blame for the poorer service, but as long as they make big profits from it they dont shout too much either. With these cuts being very much focused on the Westcountry they are a long way from London so important people wont get upset. Would they dare make so many cuts in the South East - London commuter belt areas?

Whilst I am sure that a lot of this current situation is down to central government I am not letting First off the hook! The poor bus service offered by First down here in Devon & Cornwall is purely down to First Group HQ. Its well known that Cornwall in particular is never going to be a highly profitable operation. Its just not sort of area. It cant be the easiest place to run a bus service. But people only have to look around and see how smaller companies are stepping in and taking routes withdrawn by First and running them much better and a lot more reliably to see that a decent bus service can be provided - even in Cornwall. As First withdraw from more and more routes in Cornwall you would expect them to be able to provide better buses on the few remaining routes they do run. So far though there is no sign of this happening.

What amazes me is the poor level of service provided in Plymouth by FDC. They are withdrawing from routes, putting up fares, and still not able to run services reliably and with decent buses. Very soon they are taking over Park & Ride operations in Plymouth and have already upset the council by asking to increase the fares on that service. The council have said no! It remains to be seen how well First do on that one. Park & Ride travel is certainly going to be transformed...

Strike News

Just a quickie tonight

Plymouth Citybus drivers have withdrawn the threat of strike action. Staff had started the process of voting for industrial action in a dispute with the company over the sacking of a driver.But a union leader today confirmed that Terry Prout would instead be taking a claim for unfair dismissal to an employment tribunal.
Whilst still not knowing the full story it is good to see that this is going to be sorted out the proper way and not through strike action.
Omnibus covers this story in his own blog today which is worth a read here.
In that context its worth noting the one comment the story has on the This is Plymouth web page.

Managing director John Ackroyd said: "The last thing we wanted was for our
passengers to suffer a major disruption in service.WE SUFFER EVERY DAY WHEN WE GET ON A CITY BUS.