Recap of the week

It’s been a busy week, of highs and lows. Lots of highs towards the end of the week! Hello again to everyone who has added me to their LJ Friends, or if I have added them. A random seven-pointer…

 

1. Firstly, congratulations to auntysarah for getting elected as a Lib Dem councillor for Cambridge City/Petersfield ward. I will admit that I was refreshing the results page every few minutes, after the count started!

 

2. Speaking of the Lib Dems, they had two people acting as tellers on the way into the Polling Station. As we left, I overhead “Do you have a number?” “No, I’m the returning officer”. Oops!

 

3. Mind you, given the current state of the parliament, I was surprised to find Nick Clegg up for sale on eBay. Seeing as thebustocrookes has Mr C for his MP, will you be looking forward to a bye-election, if this sale goes through? ;-)

 

4. Times are starting to speed up. Friday 7^th saw me working on Helpline, and Saturday 8^th saw a day in the office of Woottens & Tiger Line. Keep watching… (Oh, and I fired off some pictures of the exteriors and interiors of the buses & coaches, while putting up the T2 service change posters. You can see all the pictures here)

 

5. Speaking of which, from Monday 10^th May, Tiger Line Service T1 (Aylesbury - Bovingdon) is being changed, with a vey short notice amendment. This is intended to further help reliability to this route, as the April change was insufficient. Times will be changed by a few minutes, and the bus will now run between Aylesbury and Whelpley Hill, with the bit to/from Bovingdon being withdrawn. Two weeks later, Monday 24^tH May, Service T2 (Chesham/hemeL hempstead - Watford) will have a revised timetable. Following changes elsewhere on the corridor (mentioned here), the times are changing to ensure we can still get on the bus stands at both ends. A new T1 is now on tigerlinebuses.com with the T2 one going up later today.

 

6. Arriva’s changes start this weekend, around Watford (and to/from Hemel). I forgot to mention last time, but the 32 (Northchurch – Hemel) is being dropped entirely. Little Jim’s Service 502 is being revised to cover, to maintain a service.

 

7. Last Spring I sampled the “ghost bus”, a rail replacement bus running in London. one journey on Tuesdays off-peak only, between Ealing Broadway, Kensington Olympia and Wandsworth Road. As you will recall, there was never a passenger service between these points, but to ensure that the track remains covered after the dropping of the Crosscountry bit from Reading to Gatwick Airport. You will recall, at £500 a day, it was hardly value for the public purse (indeed, my sample journey was then subsidised to the cost of £125!) Well, the Olympia – Wandsworth Road bit is being covered by Southern Railways, off-peak, with a train spare during the day. The plan was that Southern would pick up the Ealing – Olympia section for a train service, as part of the franchise commitment. But, Network Rail have refused them access to the track around Ealing, allegedly claiming that train types were incompatible. As for what happens now, I’ve no idea. But if you see a TGM empty coach driving around West London on a Tuesday…

Motherwell 6 Hibs 6...

In another of the all-too-occasional series, one for even the outsiders to watch. The highlights are there to see, but the reaction of the commentator as the 12th goal goes in, just has to be believed... well, heard, because it was radio...