Bus Christmas cards

Every Christmas we get a few bus cards from family and friends. This year it has been nos. 2 and 3 below. The top one is from 2016 and is stuck to the wall by my desk at home and is my favourite to date. It's a scene c.1950 and that probably explains why. In those days there was more snow about and whilst I can't remember Christmas street decorations in Wembley I do remember going 'into town' (ie. London) to see the Christmas lights.

I would love to see Christmas bus cards like this for Nottingham and other cities. Maybe 2020 will be the year. In the meantime enjoy looking at the cards I have found together with the ones I already have.

You can find this card on the web (click here).

You can find this card on the web too (click here).

This is one I rather like, but that's the London Transport bus nerd in me. For the record is probably meant to be RT1, which entered service in 1939 but never on route 164A. For some of us with an interest in London buses, the RT trumps the RM Routemaster for its importance and comfort. You can find this on e-bay if you click here.

This one is captured from the Cards for Good Causes website (click link here).

The cards below have all been captured from the web today using 'Christmas Xmas bus card' for my search. There is not a single non-London card, this I find a little disappointing but I know from making bus boxes to take to local history fairs in Nottingham and near-by Mansfield, my London bus boxes go a lot quicker than my Nottingham City Transport and Trent-Barton bus boxes/

The similarity between these two cards is striking. In the absence of having them in my hand I can only wonder where they have been painted/creasted by the same artist/graphic designer?

And, finally, part of another Christmas card I found on the web, which you can buy. Click here for more details 

Of scenes outside London, there are a few showing my beloved trolleybuses and if you are looking for transport cards with a difference, then look no further than this link.

So, why not go in search of bus cards and see what you can find. You may well do better than me.

More Conservative promises which are not what the headline suggests

Barely a week ago this was what the Conservatives (and other political parties) said about public transport when I posted this summary from the BBC News website:



Today BBC News is running a story headlined 'Conservatives pledge £4.2bn for trains, buses and trams'.

Er, not until 2022! The report reads
The Conservatives have promised £4.2bn of new spending on local train, bus and tram services if they win the 12 December general election. The party said the cash, which would become available from 2022, would help fund transport projects outside London. 
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said it would transform services "in towns and cities across the country". 

The Conservatives are banking on the fact that come 2022 this belated £4.2bn public transport pledge will have long been forgotten by the muppets who voted for them. 

This is the political party with the slogan 'Let's get Brexit done'. A great many people believe if the Conservatives win we will leave the EU on 31 January 2020. NO WE WON'T! We'll be lucky to leave by the end of 2020.

Present-day Conservatives have no interest in public transport other than what profits it can make for their big business/corporate backers. Once it was very different. They created many of the municipal bus and tram systems in England, Scotland and Wales in the late-19th/early-20th centuries before the Labour Party existed. This is something you can read about in an earlier blog posted by me, headed: Take the slow bus no more dated 14 August 2019.

The Conservatives used to believe in and understand why public utilities exist to serve all us. Not any more. This makes me sad. They would be a better, and more acceptable, party if they could recapture some of the historic decency they once had. 

Catch a 35 and explore Nottingham's wild side

I am trying to persuade BBC Radio 4's Open Country series to do a programme about Nottingham City Transport's 35 bus route, which I champion at every opportunity. In the meantime a new map and leaflet to enjoy (click on the images to enlarge)

New singles for West Bridgford

I am fearful that after the General Election, should the Conservatives win and do a trade deal with America, they will see Nottingham City Transport as a prime municipal asset they can take away from the people of Nottingham and sell off, for that it was a free trade agreement with the Americans means.

However that's a thought for the future. Right now I'd like to celebrate NCT's purchase of 10 brand new Alexander Dennis E200MMC low emission midi-buses, which will allow NCT to complete its upgrade to a fully Euro VI fleet and meet Nottingham City Council’s Clean Air Plan to improve air quality.

Click on the bus to enlarge.

These light, spacious buses feature on-board Wi-Fi, USB chargers, comfortable seating and double passenger information screens which NCT are currently trialling.

The new buses are primarily operating on Bridgford Bus routes 5, 7, 8 and 9 which link Gamston, Wilford Hill, Compton Acres and West Bridgford to Trent Bridge, the Railway Station and City Centre. 

West Bridgford section of NCT Bus Map, Sept. 2019 Click on the map to enlarge.

Between West Bridgford Town Centre and the City Centre, Bridgford Bus operates up to every 5 minutes on Monday to Saturday daytimes and every 15 minutes in the evenings and on Sundays.

David Astill, NCT Commercial and Operations Director, said, “We are delighted to introduce these brand new buses to our customers in West Bridgford. With almost 40% of Bridgford Bus customers telling us that they have a car they could use for their journey, but they proactively choose to use the bus, we expect the modern design and features of the new buses will attract more motorists on board.”

From 1914 until 1968, the then West Bridgford Urban District Council had its own fleet of municipal buses. In 1968 the Council transferred its buses to Nottingham City Transport and some reading this might remember the celebrations which took place in 2014 to mark the centenary of municipal bus services in West Bridgford. Here is a link to a BBC News feature and a photograph of a West Bridgford UDC single decker from 1954. It is a pity that the modern buses, with all there wonderful gizmos, have lost the soft, elegant line of earlier buses.

Click on the bus to enlarge.

As a result of the 10 new buses entering service, the ten oldest NCT buses in the fleet (two dating back to 2001) are being withdrawn. This sees NCT’s average bus age fall to just 4.5 years old (UK average 8.5 years) and the oldest bus drop by half from 18 years to just 9 years.

Other routes and areas to receive new buses in 2019 include Brown 17 and Yellow 68, 69 to Bulwell; Lilac 27 to Carlton; Pink 28 to Bilborough, Lime 58 to Arnold; Turquoise 77 to Strelley and Purple 89 to Rise Park.

2019 General Election party offerings when it comes to buses and HS2

One thing jumps out when looking at the transport policies of the main parties. There is no mention of light rail/trams by any party and is it all hot air when it comes to buses? The devil is always in the detail.

Below is a BBC News list of what the manifestos of the main political parties are offering us in the forthcoming 2019 general election when it comes to transport.

HS2 will do nothing for the East Midlands or most of the Derby-Nottingham conurbation. It will not lower journey times door-to-door because of the time people will spend getting to Toton (e.g. 34 minutes by tram from the Nottingham city centre plus more minutes to get to the HS2 station) and I am one of those, should I still be alive when its completed, who will benefit, living in Beeston as I do. However, I am still against HS2.

The Greens want to upgrade the capacity of the existing railway network and electrify all railway lines and, quite simply, want to give local authorities control of local bus services. All too often good policies get lost in the detail and the Greens seem to understand this better than the other three main parties.

The Conservatives promise hardly any money for buses, only £220m over 5 years and a ‘superbus network’ (this link might help explain the aim). What we need are regular daily services operated by good quality buses serving neighbourhoods and local town centres, not just inter-urban main roads, if more car users are to be persuaded to use buses.

Labour will extend free bus travel to all under-25s ‘where routes are run by councils’ and 'restore 3,000 bus routes' and promise 'more local control'. How much more they don't say?  Nottingham City Council own Nottingham City Transport, an ‘arms length’ company, so will they qualify to provide free bus travel to all under-25s and will it just be within the Nottingham City Council boundary? Then there is what happens to Trent-Barton bus services? Surely, it is not Labour's intention to penalise a well loved excellent private bus company? You see what I mean about a seemingly good policy getting lost in the detail and, perhaps most important of all, the policy will not be fair to all under-25s.

And the Liberals are vague. The problems buses face in England cannot be solved with money alone. Government money means Government control. The Greens understand that. It’s about local control at the end of the day. What’s right for Nottingham and Beeston in a conurbation will be different in rural areas and small towns.

The choice between the main parties is stark. If the Conservatives win things will stay much the same in Greater Nottingham (we already have bus lanes and inter-urban 'superbuses' in the form of the Red Arrow and a few others), and whilst Labour and the Liberals promise lots of money, the Greens promise unambiguous local control.

On Thursday 12 December 2019 you get to choose.

Click on the lists below to enlarge:

We're so lucky – Nottingham City Transport does it again!

THIS IS SO OLD HAT… 

NOW FOR THE 5TH TIME IT'S
UK BUS OPERATOR OF THE YEAR!

It is so easy to forget how good the buses are in Nottingham and it's a pity that the national and regional media, with all the talk right now about transport, us being as we are in the middle of a general election campaign, ignores the annual UK Bus Awards. It's the same every year, so here is my attempt at sharing the good news with you, thanks to a press release I received from Nottingham City Transport.

Nottingham City Transport have won five of the top gongs at the 2019 UK Bus Awards in London on Tuesday, including the highly contested ‘best in show’ category, UK Bus Operator of the Year (which NCT has now won for a record breaking five times).

Jatinder Kumar took the Top National Bus Driver title sponsored by Volvo Bus. This is the second year in a row a bus driver from the Nottingham bus company has won the coveted award, following Aaron Johnson’s win last year.

HR Admin Manager, Sheila Swift won the Unsung Hero accolade sponsored by Backhouse Jones, recognising her 37 years of dedicated service at the company and NCT’s Managing Director Mark Fowles was presented with the Services to the Bus Industry honour sponsored by Buses Magazine.

 No one could knock NCT off the top spot either, as Nottingham City Transport took the gold once again in the Top City Operator category, sponsored by INIT Innovations, which saw them through to the grand final where they went on to win the UK Bus Operator of the Year, sponsored by Gallagher & QBE Insurance.

NCT previously won UK Bus Operator of the Year in 2004, 2012, 2014 and 2016.

Newly crowned, Top National Bus Driver Jatinder, fought off competition from tens of thousands of bus drivers nationwide. The award recognises outstanding achievements in delivering exceptional customer service and always going above and beyond to exceed passengers’ expectations.

Jatinder is described by Nottingham City Transport as ‘one of the most compassionate and caring people you could ever meet.’ Jatinder grew up in a rural Indian village, he moved to the UK so he could pay for his sisters' education, and putting other people first comes second nature to him. A recent mystery traveller assessment read: "He is a perfectionist, doing his job to the maximum with no fuss and a pleasure to travel with. A fantastic asset to the company."

Unsung Hero winner Sheila's love, commitment and dedication to NCT over nearly 4 decades is unquestionable. Joining City of Nottingham Transport in 1981 as a short-hand typist, Sheila has progressed to be Nottingham City Transport’s HR Admin Manager, where she has responsibility for recruitment, making sure NCT's rules, policies and procedures are followed, delivering many HR projects and GDPR compliance.

Mark Yexley, Chairman of the UK Bus Awards, said: “A massive congratulations to Nottingham City Transport! To win five awards, including Top National Driver and Bus Operator of the Year, is an outstanding achievement. The judges were really impressed with the investment the business is making in its fleet and infrastructure too. The company has seen fleet emissions fall by 90% and 8000 tonnes of CO2 and 70 tonnes of NOX emissions were avoided in the last 12 months. They also commended the company’s substantial investment in gas buses and its achievement in encouraging and attracting more young people on to its services.”

Mark added: “Jatinder’s dedication shone through, and Sheila’s outstanding contribution over the past 37 years to the business has been remarkable, just as Mark Fowles commitment has to the industry where he has become synonymous with high standards, innovation and a clear intent to put customers at the heart of everything it does.”

“The whole city should be immensely proud of the company and its employees!”

Nottingham City Transport’s Jack Moore was also a finalist in the Engineer of the Year category.

Anthony Carver-Smith, NCT Marketing Manager commented, “Wow! 2019 has been the best year yet for Nottingham City Transport at the UK Bus Awards and we are over the moon to have been crowned UK Bus Operator of the Year for a record breaking fifth time! A massive thank you to everyone throughout NCT who work so tirelessly to deliver the best bus service in the country! It is without a doubt the people within NCT that make it so successful, as demonstrated by Sheila, Jatinder and Mark winning awards today”.

The last 36 to Chilwell. One of my favourite photographs, taken close to midnight at the Beeston Interchange. If I was fitter I would take more such photographs of Nottingham buses late at night. In so many other towns, the last bus would have been in the garage by 9 or 10 o'clock. You can see why I've headlined this post 'We're so lucky'.

Let's have a day out in Beeston: How to get there by bus

You will also find this map on my new Beeston Maps blog:

It has been designed to print A3 but it can be read when printed A4 landscape if you have good eyesight!


Click on the map to enlarge.

Take the slow bus no more...

If I ever get to go on Radio 4's Desert Island Disks one of the tracks I will take with me is 'Take the slow train' by Flanders and Swann from 1963. One reason will be for the melancholy of it, of what we have lost, and the other reason will be as a remembering exercise. So many place names to remember, some which I knew not just as names but places too.

For those not old enough to remember or know, the Beeching Report recommended the wholesale closure of branch railways lines and stations across Britain. This was a cross-party act: both Conservative and Labour played a part in closing railway lines not because they lost money but because they got in the way. Of course some lost money but factor in their social importance and they were worth every penny.

The example I knew personally as a child and teenager was Grantown-on-Spey in the Highlands of Scotland, where I would go to relatives for holidays, often on my own, from Wembley, where I lived then. The train would pick up mums with pushchairs or prams and their children and take them to Elgin or Inverness on shopping trips. When the railway line closed in 1968 these families were left isolated. They didn't meet up with other people they knew, they got to see family less often. Need I go on? I think you should have the gist of my argument by now.

A lot of the hidden argument was about capacity and you can hear echoes of the same arguments in the voices of those who support the construction of the HS2 railway line.

Local bus companies, both public and private, have suffered a similar demise and deserve a song of their own. If it was any good it would probably become my Desert Island choice, simply because I prefer buses to trains.

The demise of municipal (council owned) buses is a similar story to branch railway lines. Conservative, Labour and Liberal parties at a national level have all played a part in the run-down, sell-off and demise of municipal bus services, Nottingham being one of the few remaining council owned bus companies in England, albeit with 20% in private hands.

The demise of municipal bus services might best be shown as a table. Against each year listed I have shown the number of then local council owned bus companies. They all began life as council departments and a good few were created or municipalised before the First World War (1914–1918) by Conservative and Liberal councillors. The Labour Party did not exist before 1918 and there were very few Labour councillors. In other words there was nothing 'socialist' or 'Labour' about them (the same, by the way applies to public utilities like water sewerage, gas and electricity, even airports health care).

YEAR   No. of municipal bus departments/companies.
1939    93
1976    50
1991    38
2001    17
2011    11
2019      9

A surprising fact that has to be acknowledged is that at least 50 of the 93 council owned bus departments/ companies in 1939 disappeared whilst the Labour Party was in power nationally. The largest number (43) were forced to become part of large conurbation based 'Passenger Transport Authorities'  (or Executives) in 1969 following the Labour Transport Act of 1968. Matching local authorities didn't follow until 1974 under a then Conservative led governent. Again, all the main political parties were involved in killing off locally controlled services and councils.

For those who might otherwise miss it, I am going to point out that only 35 council owned bus companies have disappeared under Conservative governments.

A further six council owned bus companies were sold off by local councils between 2006 and 2009 whilst Labour was in power nationally (Blackburn, Bournemouth, Chester, Eastbourne, Islwyn and Plymouth), all after facing intense competition from the new national corporate style bus giants which had emerged following de-regulation by the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. The changes were, in fact, piecemeal and happened at different times in different ways to different services. It was all very clever and a good few local councils thought, mistakenly as it turned out, that the best way to protect local bus services was to sale the buses to the council employees who managed and crewed the bus. Unfortunately these sold out to the new large bus operators (the stories behind Stagecoach, First Bus, Arriva, National Express and the like make are not for this post, but you will find them on Wikipedia if you care to look).

One link I will give you is to the Wikipedia list of former municipal bus companies, post 1986.

The other two references are at the top and bottom of this post.

A LONDON FOOTNOTE:

None of the above includes London and the surrounding counties which, historically, made up the London Transport operating area and was seen by some as a great act of privatisation (but not de-regulation) under Maggie Thatcher and the Conservatives. London Transport was formed as a public utility of sorts in 1934 by the then Conservative led National Government, with a few renegade ex-Labour politicians on board, plus Liberals of course. In other words the taking of private bus companies into public ownership wholesale was a Conservative act — not a Labour one, but from the way the story is told it is difficult to believe.

Public transport is a complex story and not one which, despite the best efforts of biased politicians, both local and national, has a heroic narrative. It is often a story ion which local bus passengers are the losers as politicians play out their games at the expense of passengers.

A CONCESSIONARY FARE FOOTNOTE:

Again, far too complex a story for here and is one I have told before.

Beeston Buggibus network goes public – without comment – see my last post

Click in the map to enlarge. This is an exercise of the imagination. Much of the map is deliberately blank. The idea is that you imagine where the little buses go and if you don't live in Beeston, then you can create your own network of little buses to take you where you want to go!

Theses little French buses are part of the future when it comes to public transport

I am sharing this post with my BeestonWeek blog. My interest in buses is as a means of travel and making it easier for everyone to move about seven days a week. Mobility and access matter if we are to make the most of where we live and these little French buses offer a way forward.

Reading the August 2019 issue of Urban Transit I came across a passing reference to this little bus.

Tram enthusiasts, for the most part, see the role of the bus being reduced to a support role, never mind that double-deck buses have more seats and can, in the case of Beeston, get you to a good few places quicker than The Tram. In my book both have an equal roll to play in the Derby–Nottingham conurbation, including little electric buses like the one below, which is French. I love it!

It does all I expect of a buggy bus.

Click here to visit a website showing one of these buses at work in Singapore.

I have blogged in the past about my belief that Beeston needs a community transport network, which I have called the Beeston Buggy Bus network.

I have actually done two posts:

https://beestonweek.blogspot.com/2017/01/hail-beeston-bramcote-buggy-bus.html

https://beestonweek.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-really-interesting-interview-in-verge.html

I really believe that little buses like this French 'Bien Petit' Bus' are the future when it comes to increasing mobility around towns and rural communities every day, not just Monday–Saturday daytime. This little bus is electric with a range of 125km (77 miles) and can carry up to 22 passengers.

Enjoy the ride!

Trentbartonland Days Out Map gets a 3rd edition

Trent-Barton are masters at designing maps which look like works of art and although the style of the Trentbartonland days out 3rd edition map hasn't changed much it it is still worth drawing attention to. You can find a downloadable PDF file version at:

https://trentbarton.co.uk/userfiles/explore2019.pdf

As with all such maps and guides, not all places of interest are included (compare my choices with theirs by comparing locations on this map with my Beeston Days Out 2019 map published a couple of weeks ago)

Ideally you should try and pick up a hard copy either the next time you ride on a Trent-Barton bus or from one of their travel offices. A useful trick is to use your computer's screen capture facility (like I have) to save sections from the map you might like to use.

In the meantime here are three extracts from the map (just click on the images to enlarge):

Beeston Festival sees a Barton's Lego Bus on show

At yesterday's Beeston Festival a young bus lover named Ewan Cooper, aged 11, on The Beestonian stand, was one of the star attractions with his Lego model of an old Barton's Bridgemaster bus.

Ewan's Lego model came apart so that the viewer can see inside the bus, complete with seats and passengers!

What's more, Ewan has a whole page to himself in the July 2019 edition of The Beestonian, Beeston's free streetmag

By chance I have a photograph of the very bus in a copy of a book, Barton in colour — Return Journey, edited by Philip Lamb and published by Prebus Publishing in 2012 (the book appears to be currently out of print but there may secondhand copies about if you search the web). The book says the photograph was taken in 1967 by Derek Bailey

The AEC Bridgemaster was bought by Barton in 1958 and is part of the private Barton collection you can see at The Garage in Beeston.

If you can get along to this year's Heritage Open Day at Barton's Garage on Saturday 14 September you can see all the preserved buses on show as well as displays and stands relating to Beeston heritage in all in manifestations.

There are 64 years between Ewan and me but it's nice to know that there are still some up and coming bus enthusiasts out there despite The Tram's arrival in Beeston.

Finally a P.S.

The banner behind Ewan is one of mine, created for a pop-up shop in Beeston in Autumn 2018 (Click on the banner and all the pics to enlarge):

Beeston Days Out 2019 map and a new Big City Map of Nottingham City Centre

Maps of whatever kind are never finished. At best they are snapshots of time in a world, even here in Beeston and Nottingham.

You can pick the Bays Out map and the Beeston Festival today and the Lakeside History Fair in Highfields Park next Saturday.

Click on the maps to enlarge

In addition here is a copy of what I describe of my Big City Map which first appeared in 2017 and I still regard as an achievement of sorts. I think I can fairly claim it is another unique map which I would like to to something. In the meantime explore and enjoy.

4 walks around Lenton with Primary Arts and me

On Saturday coming (25th May) I am leading a walk around Lenton. Here is a copy of the map I have created and a list of locations. There will be a leaflet on the day. The walk starts from Lenton Lodge on the Derby Road (some of you may know it as the Wollaton Park Gatehouse) at 2.15pm and will last for about 90 minutes.

The focus of the walk will be housing and for health reasons this will also be the last walk I lead (see previous blog post dated 3 May 2019).

Click on the maps and text boxes to enlarge.

The leaflet has seven pages plus a cover by Primary (which I have yet to see). The seven pages have been created by me.