More Busway

Further to my previous post about the contractors placing blocks on the Guided Busway, the media have finally clicked onto it... having said that, the majority of the blocks have now been removed.

Clock ticking as slabs block St Ives-Cambridge guided busway

12:40 - 05 November 2009

WITH the St Ives-Cambridge guided busway still not handed over by the contractors to Cambridgeshire County Council, huge concrete slabs now block the access points to keep joy riders away.

Contractor BAM Nuttall said the slabs had been put in place for security reasons, "because some people were getting onto the site and joy riding," a spokesman said.

But the busway has still not been handed over, as should have happened on October 31. Unless the county council gets control soon, it will not meet the planned start of public services on Sunday, November 29.

Bus operators need at least two weeks of trials on the full length of the guideway for driver training and to test the robustness of the guidance equipment in intensive service.

Although Nuttall and the county council agreed in September - when the opening was delayed for the second time - that the section between St Ives and Cambridge Science Park would open ahead of the even more heavily-delayed southern section to Addenbrooke's Hospital and Trumpington, there is no contract in place for the move.

Lawyers were meeting last night to thrash out the details. "There are some important contractual points," a county council spokesman said.

Meanwhile, long-term opponents CAST.IRON, which promoted a re-opening of the railway line in preference to the guided bus, are saying: 'We told you so.'

Chairman Tim Phillips said today: "The story behind the project has been - and continues to be - a catalogue of spin, hype, planning failure and PR disasters. Opponents of the scheme have grave doubts about its future success and viability.

"By the time the scheme is fully completed as far as Trumpington park-and-ride and Addenbrooke's Hospital, it is likely to be three to four years late and will probably have cost over three times as much as the figure used to promote it to the public in 2003.

"Incredibly, despite all this time and money, the journey from Cambridge city centre to St Ives centre will be longer via the busway, both in terms of time and of distance."

Mr Phillips also blamed the fragmented rail industry for failing to support the case for re-opening the mothballed railway line, which has become the route of the guideway.

"At every level and in every detail the misguided bus scheme has been a failure so far, so its prospects for operational success are slim," Mr Phillips continued. "I firmly believe its promoters will be forced into ever higher levels of spin and hype to claim the system is viable.

Web stuff down: UPDATED 1145

I've been having problems with my websites, Forums etc. - tried on both connections, not currently working. Have submitted a ticket, details to follow. Keep refreshing this page for further updates.

ADDED 1105: Hi there, We are currently suffering an outage on the server 'rampage.3v0.net' due to a cPanel and Kernel issue regarding memory, we are currently working on the issue and will be rebooting the server once the cPanel issue has been resolved to fix the memory issue and updates are being provided here: www.twitter.com/evohosting We will update you again once this is resolved.

ADDED 1126: Quota check now finished, a few other things are being fixed now - hopefully we can reboot soon and get things back to norm.

ADDED 1145: Web has been up for about ten minutes now

We're great. (No you're not!)

Some of you may recall that earlier in the week, I mentioned that I’d got all the (birthday & xmas) gifts for the rest of the year. I’d spent a three-figure sum with a certain mail order/store/online retailer that I’ve bought from before, and asked for next day delivery, paying for it accordingly, and ensuring that I had the order in plenty of time for the cut-off.

Well, it had been due on Wednesday, and after waiting for most of the day, no show from the courier. So, I gave them a ring (just before closing time) to which they blamed a “computer problem” as to why it had not been sent out, and they said they’d refund the delivery charge. Couldn’t say much more than that, although I’d decided to take my business elsewhere by the time they opened the following morning.

I gave them a phone call on Thursday morning, asking to cancel the order. No questions from them, no real interest. About five minutes later, one of the managers called back to apologise for the problems that had been had, and offered a few items by way of apology. (These arrived earlier today, and will be shared with Caroline, as I’ve had many problems to grouch about this week!)

Today I spotted an interesting thread on Facebook. Now I don’t normally use it as an excuse to bitch, but dear reader, the wording threw me…


…was I supposed to ignore that? I mulled it over during lunch, and I decided that I had to reply.


If anyone’s came to follow me as a result of that, don’t worry I’ve unsubscribed from their group, so it certainly won’t be happening again, irrespective of anything.

So why did I want everything now? Well, I was intending to send out some Xmas and Birthday gifts for the family at the same time, as there are two birthday’s due this month, and we’re having the holidays here this year. Maybe because I put all my eggs in one basket… never mind, hopefully the other order will be here later today, and I can get them on their way early next week. In case you think I am being unfair, I should point out my previous order from Lush Mail Order also had items not sent/missing, so it’s not the first time.

First Capital Connect staff refusing to work on Sundays

Rail services face severe disruption on Sunday as drivers refuse to work rest days and overtime

TRAIN operator First Capital Connect (FCC) is advising people to make alternative arrangements if they are planning to travel to London on Sunday as there will be a very limited rail service on its great northern route owing to a lack of available drivers.

The disruption is being caused by drivers refusing to work rest days and overtime, which they are not obliged to do, following the start of pay talks.

This will mean very few FCC services from Hitchin, Stevenage, Letchworth GC and Royston stations and London.

No service on the Great Northern route

Sunday 8 November 2009

We are sorry to announce that owing to a lack of available drivers, there will be no First Capital Connect train services on the Great Northern route this Sunday.
We strongly advise against travel unless absolutely necessary. The services that we can operate are likely to be extremely busy.
If your journey is essential, First Capital Connect Great Northern route tickets will be accepted on the following alternative routes:

Buses

• Replacement buses will operate between King's Lynn and all intermediate stations to Cambridge (for National Express East Anglia services to/from Liverpool Street)
• Replacement buses will operate between Huntingdon, St Neots, Sandy and Bedford (for First Capital Connect Thameslink route services to/from central London stations)
• Replacement buses will operate between Royston and Whittlesford (for National Express East Anglia services to/from Liverpool Street)
• Replacement buses will operate between Hitchin, Stevenage and Luton Airport Parkway (for First Capital Connect Thameslink route services to/from central London stations)
• Bus routes 300 and 301 between Hatfield and St Albans (for First Capital Connect Thameslink route services to/from central London stations)
• First Capital Connect tickets will also be accepted on London bus services via any reasonable route

Trains

• National Express East Anglia services between Ely, Cambridge and London Liverpool Street
• First Capital Connect Thameslink route services between Bedford and all intermediate stations to central London
• National Express East Coast services between Peterborough, Stevenage and London King's Cross
• National Express East Anglia services between Hertford East/Enfield Town and London Liverpool Street
• Northern line services between High Barnet and all intermediate stations to central London and Piccadilly line services between Cockfosters and all intermediate stations to central London

Customers may park at any First Capital Connect operated car park free of charge on this date (this does not include National Express East Anglia operated car parks at Ely and Cambridge and the National Express East Coast operated car park at Peterborough).

Customers with restricted mobility or special needs should contact our Special Assistance Helpline:
Telephone: 0800 058 2844 Textphone: 0800 975 1052

We are continuing to work towards a resolution to these problems and to provide alternative transport where possible and will post any updates on this website.
We regret any inconvenience this disruption will cause.

More STV

In this post, I mentioned STV had reused one of my images. Well, I've now had word back from the media company...

Hello

I was forwarded your email regarding the use of your bus picture of our website, thanks for drawing our attention to the matter.

I did not realise that the picture had been taken from another site, as normally we only use our own material. I have had a word with the person responsible, and made clear that we should not do this again, and deleted the image from our picture archive, so it will not be used again in the future.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.

Not my week - running out of icons!

Further to my earlier post about problems with Lush Mail Order, yesterday I put in an order with Boots.com instead, for delivery today. Well, guess what? It’s not here either!

I got an email from them today saying it had been despatched this afternoon (they’ve put it as three parcels) at 1548ish. The delivery company show one as being out for delivery since early this morning (how???) and the other two currently sat in Lichfield. Yet again, more questioning and apologies and part refund etc.etc.etc. I’m going to clear my mind of it now to prepare for new stuff tomorrow, but whatever way you look at it, it’s yet another problem, where it’s not been sent out in enough time.

If you are planning on ordering from any of these between now and the end of the year, it might be advisable not to expect it before the holidays.

Next year when Caroline says she’d be happy with another iTunes gift card, I might just take her up on it.