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Why is Trent Barton better than other operators?

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ashworth

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What is meant by the statement ‘Mango will no longer be accepted’?
Mango has never been accepted on Pronto even on Trent Barton’s own buses. Zigzag has also never been accepted. It’s not just Trent Barton because Stagecoach Day Explorer Tickets are also not accepted on Pronto even on Stagecoach buses.

Hopefully all will now change and Stagecoach will begin to accept and sell their Day Explorer Tickets on Pronto. Stagecoach will now have a significant presence at Nottingham Victoria Bus Station with Pronto, Sherwood Arrow and the new X1.
 

NorthOxonian

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What is meant by the statement ‘Mango will no longer be accepted’?
Mango has never been accepted on Pronto even on Trent Barton’s own buses. Zigzag has also never been accepted. It’s not just Trent Barton because Stagecoach Day Explorer Tickets are also not accepted on Pronto even on Stagecoach buses.

Hopefully all will now change and Stagecoach will begin to accept and sell their Day Explorer Tickets on Pronto. Stagecoach will now have a significant presence at Nottingham Victoria Bus Station with Pronto, Sherwood Arrow and the new X1.

Hopefully they'll launch a service from there to Leicester, if only because then you'd be able to travel on Stagecoach only all the way from Bath or Trowbridge up to Leeds.
 

TheGrandWazoo

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Hopefully they'll launch a service from there to Leicester, if only because then you'd be able to travel on Stagecoach only all the way from Bath or Trowbridge up to Leeds.

Living near Bath and originally hailing from Yorkshire, it's a facility I miss ;)

TBH, I did Trowbridge to Market Harborough in 2018 courtesy of Stagecoach via Swindon, Oxford, C Norton, Banbury, Dav and Northampton. Did Stagecoach ever get to Nottingham on the X61 from Leicester?
 

Robertj21a

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Hopefully they'll launch a service from there to Leicester, if only because then you'd be able to travel on Stagecoach only all the way from Bath or Trowbridge up to Leeds.

W
Living near Bath and originally hailing from Yorkshire, it's a facility I miss ;)

TBH, I did Trowbridge to Market Harborough in 2018 courtesy of Stagecoach via Swindon, Oxford, C Norton, Banbury, Dav and Northampton. Did Stagecoach ever get to Nottingham on the X61 from Leicester?

Yes, I think so and, briefly, also an X60 variation. Wasn't there also a 757 (?) from Sheffield (?) to Leicester ?
 

tbtc

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As asked on the "Nottinghamshire" thread - how "cordial" was the takeover of Pronto by Stagecoach?

Wasn't there also a 757 (?) from Sheffield (?) to Leicester ?

Going back a few years, but my memory was something like:
  • 737 - Nottingham - Mansfield - slow road to Chesterfield (like the modern day Pronto)
  • 747 - Nottingham - Mansfield - fast road to Chesterfield - Sheffield - Meadowhall (like the old X2)
  • 757 - Nottingham - Mansfield - Doncaster (via Worksop?)
...each hourly - combining to be a twenty minute service from Nottingham to Mansfield.

The Chesterfield - Sheffield - Meadowhall service was the Chesterfield Transport X10/X11/X12, which was extended to Barnsley via Rotherham for a period (when they took over the old X36 Rotherham - Barnsley service - a route named in sequence with the X31/X32/X33/X34 services from Sheffield to West Yorkshire).

Once scaled back, the X12 number was retained by the operators who kept subsequent tenders for the Barnsley - Rotherham express service (one of those quirks, where a service number ends up far away from the sequence that it used to belong to - the 42 in North East Fife is a similar example - it used to be a service that ran parallel to other forty-something services in Fife but now goes nowhere near them, given many years of service changes) - maybe that's one for another thread though!

I don't remember any Stagecoach service from Sheffield to Leicester - there may well have been a 7x7 from Nottingham to Leicester though (?) - this was at the time when Stagecoach had a 767 from Sheffield to Worksop, so the 7x7 numbering sequence was their "thing" << nothing to do with airport services though
 

NorthOxonian

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Living near Bath and originally hailing from Yorkshire, it's a facility I miss ;)

TBH, I did Trowbridge to Market Harborough in 2018 courtesy of Stagecoach via Swindon, Oxford, C Norton, Banbury, Dav and Northampton. Did Stagecoach ever get to Nottingham on the X61 from Leicester?

I did a day trip from Oxford to Loughborough using Stagecoach and then Skylink (whose company still confuses me - is it a Kinchbus route or a Trent Barton one?), though I made use of the X5 via MK which is much faster than via Banbury. Another time I made a long trip was after a night out in Bath - I had lost my return train ticket and my wallet but had just enough change to buy an Explorer and get home via Yate, Stroud, Cheltenham, Cirencester, and Swindon!
 

Robertj21a

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I did a day trip from Oxford to Loughborough using Stagecoach and then Skylink (whose company still confuses me - is it a Kinchbus route or a Trent Barton one?), though I made use of the X5 via MK which is much faster than via Banbury. Another time I made a long trip was after a night out in Bath - I had lost my return train ticket and my wallet but had just enough change to buy an Explorer and get home via Yate, Stroud, Cheltenham, Cirencester, and Swindon!

Skylink (yellow) out of Derby is run by Kinchbus. Skylink (blue) out of Nottingham is run by TrentBarton. They are, of course, sister companies within the Wellglade group.
 

Robertj21a

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As asked on the "Nottinghamshire" thread - how "cordial" was the takeover of Pronto by Stagecoach?



Going back a few years, but my memory was something like:
  • 737 - Nottingham - Mansfield - slow road to Chesterfield (like the modern day Pronto)
  • 747 - Nottingham - Mansfield - fast road to Chesterfield - Sheffield - Meadowhall (like the old X2)
  • 757 - Nottingham - Mansfield - Doncaster (via Worksop?)
...each hourly - combining to be a twenty minute service from Nottingham to Mansfield.

The Chesterfield - Sheffield - Meadowhall service was the Chesterfield Transport X10/X11/X12, which was extended to Barnsley via Rotherham for a period (when they took over the old X36 Rotherham - Barnsley service - a route named in sequence with the X31/X32/X33/X34 services from Sheffield to West Yorkshire).

Once scaled back, the X12 number was retained by the operators who kept subsequent tenders for the Barnsley - Rotherham express service (one of those quirks, where a service number ends up far away from the sequence that it used to belong to - the 42 in North East Fife is a similar example - it used to be a service that ran parallel to other forty-something services in Fife but now goes nowhere near them, given many years of service changes) - maybe that's one for another thread though!

I don't remember any Stagecoach service from Sheffield to Leicester - there may well have been a 7x7 from Nottingham to Leicester though (?) - this was at the time when Stagecoach had a 767 from Sheffield to Worksop, so the 7x7 numbering sequence was their "thing" << nothing to do with airport services though

You're right, it wasn't Sheffield, it was the 757 from Doncaster - Worksop - Mansfield - Nottingham - Leicester around 1998-1999. So, to reinforce one of the earlier points, yes - Stagecoach have run a number of Leicester - Nottingham routes on a number of occasions.
 

WillPS

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I think it was only the 737 service which was jointly run. I say jointly but with a livery like this it's easy to assume it wasn't exactly an equal partnership.

Conversely though the Pronto branding always felt very Trent Barton.
 

gazmark

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As asked on the "Nottinghamshire" thread - how "cordial" was the takeover of Pronto by Stagecoach?



Going back a few years, but my memory was something like:
  • 737 - Nottingham - Mansfield - slow road to Chesterfield (like the modern day Pronto)
  • 747 - Nottingham - Mansfield - fast road to Chesterfield - Sheffield - Meadowhall (like the old X2)
  • 757 - Nottingham - Mansfield - Doncaster (via Worksop?)
...each hourly - combining to be a twenty minute service from Nottingham to Mansfield.

The Chesterfield - Sheffield - Meadowhall service was the Chesterfield Transport X10/X11/X12, which was extended to Barnsley via Rotherham for a period (when they took over the old X36 Rotherham - Barnsley service - a route named in sequence with the X31/X32/X33/X34 services from Sheffield to West Yorkshire).

Once scaled back, the X12 number was retained by the operators who kept subsequent tenders for the Barnsley - Rotherham express service (one of those quirks, where a service number ends up far away from the sequence that it used to belong to - the 42 in North East Fife is a similar example - it used to be a service that ran parallel to other forty-something services in Fife but now goes nowhere near them, given many years of service changes) - maybe that's one for another thread though!

I don't remember any Stagecoach service from Sheffield to Leicester - there may well have been a 7x7 from Nottingham to Leicester though (?) - this was at the time when Stagecoach had a 767 from Sheffield to Worksop, so the 7x7 numbering sequence was their "thing" << nothing to do with airport services though

The 767 Doncaster to Nottingham, I think was extended to Leicester around the same time the 909 Sheffield > Doncaster > Hull / Grimsby was created and the plan was to interlink both routes at Doncaster to create extra money for the East Midland business as was
 

gazmark

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As asked on the "Nottinghamshire" thread - how "cordial" was the takeover of Pronto by Stagecoach?



Going back a few years, but my memory was something like:
  • 737 - Nottingham - Mansfield - slow road to Chesterfield (like the modern day Pronto)
  • 747 - Nottingham - Mansfield - fast road to Chesterfield - Sheffield - Meadowhall (like the old X2)
  • 757 - Nottingham - Mansfield - Doncaster (via Worksop?)
...each hourly - combining to be a twenty minute service from Nottingham to Mansfield.

The Chesterfield - Sheffield - Meadowhall service was the Chesterfield Transport X10/X11/X12, which was extended to Barnsley via Rotherham for a period (when they took over the old X36 Rotherham - Barnsley service - a route named in sequence with the X31/X32/X33/X34 services from Sheffield to West Yorkshire).

Once scaled back, the X12 number was retained by the operators who kept subsequent tenders for the Barnsley - Rotherham express service (one of those quirks, where a service number ends up far away from the sequence that it used to belong to - the 42 in North East Fife is a similar example - it used to be a service that ran parallel to other forty-something services in Fife but now goes nowhere near them, given many years of service changes) - maybe that's one for another thread though!

I don't remember any Stagecoach service from Sheffield to Leicester - there may well have been a 7x7 from Nottingham to Leicester though (?) - this was at the time when Stagecoach had a 767 from Sheffield to Worksop, so the 7x7 numbering sequence was their "thing" << nothing to do with airport services though

The X12 ran under tender to Travel South Yorkshire (or SYPTE at the time) until Tates went bust, before that it was Dunnline/Veolia who took on a shed load of rubbish no operator in the Rotherham area wanted to take on.

The X12 used to make a decent amount of money at peak times but carried air the rest of the time.
 

AY1975

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Re double deckers on TB, its partly to do with passenger safety, if there's only a single deck, the driver can have an idea of what's happening, not just a view on a camera screen.

Which makes sense in my view.

Back in National Bus Group days in the 1970s and '80s, before bus deregulation in 1986 (and maybe for a few years after that) Trent as it then was used to have some double decker routes (mainly Leyland Atlanteans, Bristol VRs and Leyland Olympians). For example, the Alfreton-Derby route was double deckers in those days. They haven't had any double deckers for years, though, I don't think, probably not at least since Trent merged with Barton and became Trent Barton.
 

AY1975

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The buses are clean, reasonably reliable and with the easy to use online bus tracker and Mango payment system, rather convenient. They seem to be a little bit cheaper too if you pay by Mango and the smart ticketing system doesn't just charge you essentially a flat rate, instead taking into account distance. Mango also speeds up boarding noticeably

Yes, although I've heard that Trent Barton has recently introduced new Ticketer machines, and as part of the new system they have done away with the separate signing-off machine so instead you now "tap off" on the driver's ticket machine in the same way as you "tap on". Surely that is liable to lead to increased dwell times at stops if passengers do not let others get off before they get on.
 

TheGrandWazoo

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Back in National Bus Group days in the 1970s and '80s, before bus deregulation in 1986 (and maybe for a few years after that) Trent as it then was used to have some double decker routes (mainly Leyland Atlanteans, Bristol VRs and Leyland Olympians). For example, the Alfreton-Derby route was double deckers in those days. They haven't had any double deckers for years, though, I don't think, probably not at least since Trent merged with Barton and became Trent Barton.

The last new deckers IIRC were the Volvo Citybuses 600-623 in 1988/89. The last batch arrived just after Trent purchased Barton.

One of the last bastions of TB decker operations (rather than Notts & Derby) was the 107 Derby to Mayfield - I guess it may have been because of schools?
 

Statto

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It's irritating Trent refuse to buy deckers, some routes badly need them, deckers operate fine with other companies even rival companies in Derby & Nottingham
 

AY1975

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On the whole I find Trent Barton to be a fairly good operator. They are generally pretty reliable and user friendly. The one thing that I wish TB would stop doing is using the 12-hour clock. They claim that their passengers have consistently shown preference for 12-hour, but to me that's a bit like saying our passengers would rather still pay their fares in pounds, shillings and pence.

See also the thread on operators that use the 12-hour clock at www.railforums.co.uk/threads/trivia-operators-that-use-the-12-hour-clock.178918/
 

cnjb8

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It's irritating Trent refuse to buy deckers, some routes badly need them, deckers operate fine with other companies even rival companies in Derby & Nottingham
I often witness passengers being left behind on the Rainbow One route, I think it really needs them. But the low bridge at Langley Mill station could be a problem.
 
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I often witness passengers being left behind on the Rainbow One route, I think it really needs them. But the low bridge at Langley Mill station could be a problem.

The old 231 was double decker operated prior to the introduction of Trents single deck policy so can't see Langley Mill being a problem! The withdrawal of the Rapid One next month should helpfully make the blue Rainbow One vehicles fuller - I love seeing a standard red Trent bus on the route as there are more seats!
 

cnjb8

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The old 231 was double decker operated prior to the introduction of Trents single deck policy so can't see Langley Mill being a problem! The withdrawal of the Rapid One next month should helpfully make the blue Rainbow One vehicles fuller - I love seeing a standard red Trent bus on the route as there are more seats!
Hopefully but their have been rumours about Rainbow One getting E200MMCs and being rebranded as the one
 

markymark2000

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I often witness passengers being left behind on the Rainbow One route, I think it really needs them. But the low bridge at Langley Mill station could be a problem.
In which case, could these 2 buses from the Rapid 1 then be put into the Rainbow 1 to increase frequency?
Would some sort of 7.5 frequency to Eastwood with extensions every 15 mins to Henor, every half hour to Alfreton and the other 2 buses per hour terminating at Eastwood?
 

ChrisC

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The old 231 was double decker operated prior to the introduction of Trents single deck policy so can't see Langley Mill being a problem! The withdrawal of the Rapid One next month should helpfully make the blue Rainbow One vehicles fuller - I love seeing a standard red Trent bus on the route as there are more seats!

Prior to Midland General being taken over by Trent, round about 1975, nearly all the buses going through Langley Mill were double deckers. The current Trent Barton garage and headquarters at Langley Mill is on the site of the old Midland General garage. Midland General double deckers were nearly all Bristol Lodekkers which could get under the bridge at Langley Mill. Midland General operated an extensive network of buses in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and most of their routes were operated using double deckers.
 

Robertj21a

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In which case, could these 2 buses from the Rapid 1 then be put into the Rainbow 1 to increase frequency?
Would some sort of 7.5 frequency to Eastwood with extensions every 15 mins to Henor, every half hour to Alfreton and the other 2 buses per hour terminating at Eastwood?

Possible. It may be, however, that they simply want to save 2 buses.
 

90sWereBetter

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Re double deckers on TB, its partly to do with passenger safety, if there's only a single deck, the driver can have an idea of what's happening, not just a view on a camera screen.

Which makes sense in my view.

Single deckers have lower dwell time as well as drivers aren't worrying about someone getting up stairs safely and into their seat. Less overall passengers on the bus means that drop offs are slightly quicker.
Another advantage is that there are more seats without steps to get to them. This pleases a lot of less able passengers who would struggle with the stairs.

It still seems strange given NCT have pretty much 90% of their fleet as deckers. Naturally I know there's differences, NCT mostly being city and suburban routes while Trent is more interurban, but surely routes like Rainbow justify more seats overall?

As an example from my area, if single deckers showed up on the X1s and X2s into Norwich passengers would be furious having to stand.
 

NBC Soap Oper

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Some are good I find, but a lot are plain like Prontos

I must admit to missing the Coaches on the Red Arrow - these Coaches was beautiful beasts indeed
 
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