Diamond Bus North West

[St Helens Rider]

RE: South Lancs Travel

(20/06/2012 20:54)bolton bus basher Wrote:  does anyone remember what the start date for the new 319 timetable is? not been posted since we got new fourm

12th August, so would come into force on Monday 13th as 12th is a Sunday.

[T42 PVM (Moderator)]

RE: South Lancs Travel
thanks for that!

[FirstGroup]

RE: South Lancs Travel

(17/06/2012 17:57)M60lad Wrote:  As I've mentioned before SLTs 126 seems to be tight for running time with no leeway what so ever in the timetable and that's before we start with any problems that the wonderful M60 like to throw at it from day to day, I've seen it quite a few times in Leigh running anything upto 15mins late which is why I think on Saturdays they have a vehicle spare in Leigh that goes out on time if the original bus is running late.

One thing I'd love to know is why in the past 126 hasn't been used much when it ran on Sunday's surely if loadings on Saturdays are anything to go by (I know it seems to be mainly schoolkids) then it should have been busy if not busier on the Sundays

They seriously need to do something about the 132, its by far the most unreliable service in Tyldesley and Atherton, used on both a schoolday where it was fair quiet and yesterday when it was busy, it should of arrived on friday at 1109, it arrived at 1121, yesterday the 1209 did not arrive till 1226!!! The amount of times they have changed the timetable and have still not resolved this problem is a joke! can't say its a one off thing too, the 12 is due at xx19 the hour and near enough always arrives before it!
Rant Over

Wonder what buses will operate the new 126's, new singles or the 2 double deckers?

[South Lancs Travel]

RE: South Lancs Travel

(24/06/2012 12:33)FirstGroup Wrote:  

(17/06/2012 17:57)M60lad Wrote:  As I've mentioned before SLTs 126 seems to be tight for running time with no leeway what so ever in the timetable and that's before we start with any problems that the wonderful M60 like to throw at it from day to day, I've seen it quite a few times in Leigh running anything upto 15mins late which is why I think on Saturdays they have a vehicle spare in Leigh that goes out on time if the original bus is running late.

One thing I'd love to know is why in the past 126 hasn't been used much when it ran on Sunday's surely if loadings on Saturdays are anything to go by (I know it seems to be mainly schoolkids) then it should have been busy if not busier on the Sundays

They seriously need to do something about the 132, its by far the most unreliable service in Tyldesley and Atherton, used on both a schoolday where it was fair quiet and yesterday when it was busy, it should of arrived on friday at 1109, it arrived at 1121, yesterday the 1209 did not arrive till 1226!!! The amount of times they have changed the timetable and have still not resolved this problem is a joke! can't say its a one off thing too, the 12 is due at xx19 the hour and near enough always arrives before it!
Rant Over

Wonder what buses will operate the new 126's, new singles or the 2 double deckers?

Hmmm... I'll add the 132 to my list of services to look at. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know. A lot of the problems on this route are caused by the never-ending stream of roadworks that seem to blight the Wigan area.

As for the 126, the plan is to continue using the current double-decker, plus one of the Scanias (probably 71 or 72). On a Saturday there will be three buses, so one double-deck and two singles. The older double-decker is destined for service 300.

Chris.

[FirstGroup]

RE: South Lancs Travel

(24/06/2012 13:50)South Lancs Travel Wrote:  

(24/06/2012 12:33)FirstGroup Wrote:  

(17/06/2012 17:57)M60lad Wrote:  As I've mentioned before SLTs 126 seems to be tight for running time with no leeway what so ever in the timetable and that's before we start with any problems that the wonderful M60 like to throw at it from day to day, I've seen it quite a few times in Leigh running anything upto 15mins late which is why I think on Saturdays they have a vehicle spare in Leigh that goes out on time if the original bus is running late.

One thing I'd love to know is why in the past 126 hasn't been used much when it ran on Sunday's surely if loadings on Saturdays are anything to go by (I know it seems to be mainly schoolkids) then it should have been busy if not busier on the Sundays

They seriously need to do something about the 132, its by far the most unreliable service in Tyldesley and Atherton, used on both a schoolday where it was fair quiet and yesterday when it was busy, it should of arrived on friday at 1109, it arrived at 1121, yesterday the 1209 did not arrive till 1226!!! The amount of times they have changed the timetable and have still not resolved this problem is a joke! can't say its a one off thing too, the 12 is due at xx19 the hour and near enough always arrives before it!
Rant Over

Wonder what buses will operate the new 126's, new singles or the 2 double deckers?

Hmmm... I'll add the 132 to my list of services to look at. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know. A lot of the problems on this route are caused by the never-ending stream of roadworks that seem to blight the Wigan area.

As for the 126, the plan is to continue using the current double-decker, plus one of the Scanias (probably 71 or 72). On a Saturday there will be three buses, so one double-deck and two singles. The older double-decker is destined for service 300.

Any plans for any new buses soon, been none since the tempo's arrived back in 2010! Even second hand ones theres only been that 58 reg solo, apart from the strawberry buses of course

[Nicholas]

RE: South Lancs Travel
Bear in mind D&G has a tendency to buy fairly young second hand buses instead of brand new vehicles so there may be no new buses planned for SLT in the near future. However, the Leigh to Bolton QBP may mean some new buses do come into the fleet as I believe the Tempos were originally the first for use on the service, but there were not enough to cover the whole service.

The 132 is a difficult service because of the two congestion hotspots at either end of the route (Ince/Hindley and the M60). It doesn't matter what day it is or what time it is, you'll always find an issue with traffic along the A577. The timings aren't so much an issue (although extending the running time to 55 minutes will help a little), it is the unpredictable nature of the traffic that is the problem.

As Chris has said, roadworks don't help especially at the moment because there is a massive gas main renewal project going on that will take five years to complete. It doesn't help that you'll have works in one place for a few weeks then they'll go away and do the next bit a couple of months later rather than just getting the whole lot done as a job lot in one big go. This is definitely the case with Atherton Road as there are still pockets of work planned, well over 12 months after the first set began!

[FirstGroup]

RE: South Lancs Travel

(24/06/2012 16:28)Nicholas Wrote:  Bear in mind D&G has a tendency to buy fairly young second hand buses instead of brand new vehicles so there may be no new buses planned for SLT in the near future. However, the Leigh to Bolton QBP may mean some new buses do come into the fleet as I believe the Tempos were originally the first for use on the service, but there were not enough to cover the whole service.

The 132 is a difficult service because of the two congestion hotspots at either end of the route (Ince/Hindley and the M60). It doesn't matter what day it is or what time it is, you'll always find an issue with traffic along the A577. The timings aren't so much an issue (although extending the running time to 55 minutes will help a little), it is the unpredictable nature of the traffic that is the problem.

As Chris has said, roadworks don't help especially at the moment because there is a massive gas main renewal project going on that will take five years to complete. It doesn't help that you'll have works in one place for a few weeks then they'll go away and do the next bit a couple of months later rather than just getting the whole lot done as a job lot in one big go. This is definitely the case with Atherton Road as there are still pockets of work planned, well over 12 months after the first set began!

i thought about that, but the 32 seems to cope fine and 90% of the time turns up within 5 minutes coming from Wigan, I think on Saturdays it would be helpful to have an extra bus spare, like on the 126, noticed them doing this once on the bank holiday after christmas, also last saturday S600SLT was in The Trafford Centre bus station for most of the day, don't know what that was doing there...

[Nicholas]

RE: South Lancs Travel
The 32 has incredibly slack running time, plus leaves Wigan 3 minutes after the 598. I would imagine if the service didn't go around Castle Hill, First would tighten the running time enough to lower the PVR by one bus which would be perfectly feasible (knocking five minutes off Pendleton to Manchester for example as its given 20 minutes off-peak, and this can regularly be done in 10 - the X34 usually does it in 15 if it doesn't get stuck behind idiots on Chapel Street who don't understand the concept of a bus lane).

[St Helens Rider]

RE: South Lancs Travel
One idea I have suggested before is a service linking St Helens with either Wigan or Leigh to get more value out of the Day/Weekly tickets for passengers in the St Helens area.

[Nicholas]

RE: South Lancs Travel
If SLT still ran the 600, then an idea would be to renumber it say 602 and extend it to St Helens via the 10 route. Or bring back the old Blue Bus 200!