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(05/06/2012 06:20)M60lad Wrote: [ -> ]Few service changes coming up shortly for First Manchester:

610 Wigan-Hawkley Hall Circular, this will be extended to serve Lockett Road (Bryn Depot) from 22nd July, route will be normal route to St Paul's Avenue, left onto Carr Lane, right Fulbeck Avenu (basically the opposite way round Hawkley Hall than currently), left Warrington Road then down to Lockett Road past the depot (stopping for staff) continuing around Industrial Estate, right back upto Bryn Cross, right along A49 down to Marus Bridge roundabout, back on itself along A49 upto Ben Johnson then left then normal route back through Hawkley Hall to Wigan

As for 26 this is actually being withdrawn completely and X34 is being rerouted through Boothstown to partly cover the missing 26 and 12 is also being changed to incoporate part of the missing 26 and new service 25 which I haven't got any info as of yet

So, will the 610 extension be designed for ferrying drivers between the depot and Wigan bus station?

I had a feeling that the X34 would be re-routed to Boothstown. What route will it take through Boothstown? Presumably, Chaddock Lane, Leigh Road, Simpson Road and Ellenbrook Road to the East Lancs? Will the service be increased to every half hour as a result?

The new 25 service will be intriguing to see what route it'll take. No doubt more information will come out in the next 6 1/2 weeks until the changes take place on 22 July.

This situation is already feeding down to the main customer base, and has caused disbelief with a lot of people... especially the thought of the X34 going through Boothstown.

The 26 has gone steadily downhill ever since the X34 was upgraded from the old 34. First made a number of big mistakes with that, the main one being making the X34 an all-stopper between Leigh and the East Lancs. The X34 should have remained a fast service with a small number of stops, (now its sometimes such a long slog to do this bit of route), with the 26 picking up traffic along the intermediate stops. The diversion up to Swinton Civic Centre is the other put-off, as people generally think it "goes round the houses" now, when it doesn't really make that many detours.

Despite this, the 26 is still quite a busy service (the journey arriving in Leigh at 7am carrying a very healthy load of around 25 people on Friday!). It is mainly the through traffic to/from Manchester that doesn't use it, with people either going 15 minutes later or 15 minutes earlier to catch the X34 instead.

The other thing First will need to do is either increase the afternoon peak service to run every 15-20 minutes, or ensure they run double deckers on ALL journeys. The 1642 is often run as single deck, and often ends up either leaving people behind or exceeding the legal capacity because of how busy it is. Add the Boothstown custom to it and it'll be knackered!

was waiting for a 350 today at Uppermill home to Mossley and yet again been a bank holiday it did not turn up ended up getting 354 at 14.05


also a 58/59 branded bus on service 184

I'm getting sick to death of the 600/1 now! I arrived in Leigh at 15:50ish to get the 16:00 600 home, but guess what? It was cancelled because of a 'staff shortage'!!! Disgraceful. This happened the other week in Wigan too on 18th March 2012, where it said a similar thing but the bus still turned up anyway.

I'd forward that to the Traffic Commissioner - you've got good evidence there.

bevely bell i would love to see you sort out this

Re the 58/59 branded on 184 think I can answer this one, with the past 2 days being a Bank Holiday its been a Sunday/Public Holiday service on quite allot of routes in Greater Manchester and this means that some services that dont interwork with each other do or do end up doing during the day and I'm sure this still happens with 59s & 180/184s with services starting off as one service and sometime during the afternoon/early evening changing to operate the other service, I saw the same when I was on my way home last night and imeddialy thought that the wrong bus had been allocated to the wrong route but then realized what day it was

(05/06/2012 17:57)thomasl1231 Wrote: [ -> ]I'm getting sick to death of the 600/1 now! I arrived in Leigh at 15:50ish to get the 16:00 600 home, but guess what? It was cancelled because of a 'staff shortage'!!! Disgraceful. This happened the other week in Wigan too on 18th March 2012, where it said a similar thing but the bus still turned up anyway.

sounds to me like they could not care less

(05/06/2012 18:21)Nicholas Wrote: [ -> ]I'd forward that to the Traffic Commissioner - you've got good evidence there.

If I knew how to, I would! People even walked away from the 600/1bus stop in Leigh today just outside of the bus station in that lay-by thing and didn't come back, so I assume that they walked it to wherever they were going! It's not just First that are at it too, twice now the FIRST South Lancs Travel 126 of the day from Leigh has rolled up late for me! It came at like 9:25-9:30ish when it should have come at 9:15 on Saturday 26th May. People were complaining saying that it's a frequent thing and it's making them late for work. A passenger made a similar remark on the 601 that set off at about 16:30 from Leigh today. Are they having a laugh these companies or what? Yeah traffic blah blah blah, but really, traffic around the Atherton and Leigh area on a Saturday at that time in the morning? Bull, I've never seen it 'drastically' bad at that time in my life, and I go out a lot around there! As for First with staff shortages, surely they'd get some reserve staff going? Oh yeah, sorry, that is too costly. It takes the mick.

On Saturday 2nd June too, I was on 66932 on the 600 with an 'unfamiliar'-looking driver. Coincidently, a Wigan-based driver was on the bus. I happened to over-hear a conversation they had when the Wigan-based driver got off the bus, and the driver of the bus said that he was from the Bolton depot. Even better, he said that he wasn't even a driver, and if I remember correctly, he said that he was the 'pits manager' or 'pits supervisor' or something! Is this what it's really come to? What a disgrace. It's funny how other companies like Arriva and Maytree never seem to have inconvenient 'staff shortages' all of the time isn't it?! Imagine if you were going on holiday and then oh dear the plane is cancelled because of a 'staff shortage'. Really?

Rant over!!!

As was mentioned on the SLT thread before the forum went belly-up, the 126 is being looked at in terms of possible changes to the timetable to make it more reliable.

I don't know if it still does, but I know the bus used to work off another service before going onto the 126. I'd mention it on the SLT thread as hopefully Chris can take it into consideration and forward it on to the day-to-day management of the company to find out what is happening. The thing is, if its late leaving on the first trip, then its not going to make it back for the rest of the morning.

As for First and its staff shortages, its been happening for years at Wigan - they cannot do anything about it as First have a recruitment freeze on.