I was recently at a days out with Thomas event at Bo'ness. There was at least 2 members of staff or volunteers just to organise the parking and ensure people were parking optimally, it was full to overflowing.
What surprised me more was that the information about how to get the have no indication of how to get there other than by car. We took the bus which stops outside.
I also visited Bo'ness by public transport (obviously involving an overnight stay). It's never straightforward. I went by train to Linlithgow then caught the bus from there. All the routes that serve Bo'ness are circular ones based on Linlithgow so the route is Linlithgow - Bo'ness - back to Linlithgow. There are, I think, other circular routes from the town. So when you're looking for the right bus stop in Linlithgow you find that they all say 'Linlithgow' on them. Perfectly logical - that's the final destination of the bus - to someone who clearly has never used a bus in a strange town...
On another railway; the first train from London on Sunday mornings arrives at the National Rail station nearest to a station on their line just before mid-day, and it's a 15 minute walk across town to the H.R. station. The H.R. runs trains irregularly at about 1 1/2 hours headway but one departs 10 minutes after the N.R. one making the connection impossibly tight, and then there's a longer than usual gap. When I suggested it might be useful to take that into account and slightly retime the train I was told to alight at the N.R. station further South and join the H.R. there; when I asked what the buses were like between the N.R. and H.R. station on a Sunday morning (it's about 4 miles) they were hazy. But, curiously, in this case, parking near the first-named station is difficult (no car park & parking restrictions) so one might have thought that they would benefit from the custom of those arriving by public transport.
Yet another railway connects directly with N.R. at one end; at the other, the station only has a car park. The timetable on the H.R. is such that, when you are leaving.by the last train, you arrive on the H.R. train in time to see the N.R. still in the platform but by the time you've reached it's platform, the doors are locked. On the third occasion this happened to me I returned to the H.R. station and asked whether they'd ever thought of retiming their trains slightly to avoid a long wait for the next train. Two people gave two different answer; the first, that the T.O.C. should re-time
their trains (and I think he was being serious) and the other that I was being selfish because this would inconvenience people joining at the other end - who, of course, all arrive by car so can be more flexible.
Does using trains to travel (rather than look at) make me a very unusual railway enthusiast?