Caught the X1 yesterday to Elland Morrisons which now has more than twice as many buses serving it. A shame that the stop timetables don't mention it at all. The stop towards Halifax does have it on the Real time screenIf anyone hasn’t seen the no expense spent Elland Lines branding for the new and improved X1/501 service, I’ve found a photo on Flickr
Both First and Metro have done poorly with this launch. First due to the only advertising being this very low key branding, Metro by not updating any bus stops so they all still refer to 503. Some bus stops on the new route through Old Ainleys even still say ‘School services only’
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First West Yorkshire & York discussion
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If anyone hasn’t seen the no expense spent Elland Lines branding for the new and improved X1/501 service, I’ve found a photo on Flickr
Both First and Metro have done poorly with this launch. First due to the only advertising being this very low key branding, Metro by not updating any bus stops so they all still refer to 503. Some bus stops on the new route through Old Ainleys even still say ‘School services only’
A bit odd that First have chosen to brand some of the oldest vehicles at Halifax rather than more newer versions.
Guessing it's emissions related
Are you surprised given First's indifference and stagnation to their whole operations? The launch has been nothing short of diabolical really, surprised anyone has actually bothered catching the services. I caught the X1 from Elland from the B&M stop yesterday afternoon, it turned up on time, very few passengers were on-board and it didn't pick up another passenger all the way to Huddersfield!! If you put this in with the changes to the 372 too, neither First nor Metro come out with any glory. The new 372 timetable is pretty shambolic, especially the Sunday one, which is an utter mess.If anyone hasn’t seen the no expense spent Elland Lines branding for the new and improved X1/501 service, I’ve found a photo on Flickr
Both First and Metro have done poorly with this launch. First due to the only advertising being this very low key branding, Metro by not updating any bus stops so they all still refer to 503. Some bus stops on the new route through Old Ainleys even still say ‘School services only’
Similarly, with the 542 Norton Tower-Siddal service now split so that the 542 is now Norton Tower-Halifax only, buses have been running all week with 'Part Route' on the electronic display below stating Halifax Bus Station as the destination. It can't be difficult to reprogramme the displays in advance to take off the 'Part Route' reference,If anyone hasn’t seen the no expense spent Elland Lines branding for the new and improved X1/501 service, I’ve found a photo on Flickr
Both First and Metro have done poorly with this launch. First due to the only advertising being this very low key branding, Metro by not updating any bus stops so they all still refer to 503. Some bus stops on the new route through Old Ainleys even still say ‘School services only’
dodecahedron67
Member
35933/4/5/6 are leaving York for Stoke on Thursday
69358/60/62/66 are leaving for other West Yorks depots at end of week
69275/6/7/8/9 are remaining in York, to be used on 10s and 200 only until a route change (via Holgate) happens for 10s which will allow for the change to electric as Versas have failed all durability tests on 10s
69358/60/62/66 are leaving for other West Yorks depots at end of week
69275/6/7/8/9 are remaining in York, to be used on 10s and 200 only until a route change (via Holgate) happens for 10s which will allow for the change to electric as Versas have failed all durability tests on 10s
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mattb7tl
Member
The timetable on the 372 is an improvement? It's almost clock face where it wasn't beforehand. It ended extremely early and now it runs later.
The last bus on a Sunday used to be 18:56, now 21: 10
A planning application has gone into Calderdale Council by First to demolish the vast majority of the Halifax Skircoat Road depot.
The garage buildings are old tram sheds which are both in a state of disrepair and also operationally difficult to use as a bus depot.
The perimeter walls will be kept with the depot site being used as open air parking.
Elmwood depot across the road is unaffected by this application.
The garage buildings are old tram sheds which are both in a state of disrepair and also operationally difficult to use as a bus depot.
The perimeter walls will be kept with the depot site being used as open air parking.
Elmwood depot across the road is unaffected by this application.
Is it an improvement? There is no service in the Almondbury direction from 17.34 and 18.05 with a further 30 minutes before the next service at a time when people need to get home from work. Still no late night service so I can get home after the match Monday to Saturday, in fact it finishes early than the previous timetable. The Saturday timetable has been reduced to every 20 minutes, the Sunday timetable has gone from being clockface to the current mess, if you look at the times it departs, it shifts on with each passing hour by odd amounts of minutes. How are you supposed to keep those times in your head? I would strenuously contest your assertion that it is 'improved?. The later Sunday bus is about the only improvement and to be fair, its still very early.
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The BSIP money was not to improve the 372 to Almondbury, unfortunately.
First have unfortunately chosen to make several routes worse at the same time as the BSIP improvements have come into being.
The only thing on those routes which I can see as being worse is that the late evening service through West Vale has been halved to hourly as half run as X1s, whereas during the day all the X1s are additional to the service through West Vale.
That is evident in regards to not improving the 372. Everything about First just seems a 'race to the bottom'.
Steve440
Member
That is why we need franchising now.
NorthernSpirit
Established Member
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So Skircoat Road will become an enlarged version of Millwood (Todmorden).A planning application has gone into Calderdale Council by First to demolish the vast majority of the Halifax Skircoat Road depot.
The garage buildings are old tram sheds which are both in a state of disrepair and also operationally difficult to use as a bus depot.
The perimeter walls will be kept with the depot site being used as open air parking.
Elmwood depot across the road is unaffected by this application.
Looks akin to a tenners worth of branding.If anyone hasn’t seen the no expense spent Elland Lines branding for the new and improved X1/501 service, I’ve found a photo on Flickr
Both First and Metro have done poorly with this launch. First due to the only advertising being this very low key branding, Metro by not updating any bus stops so they all still refer to 503. Some bus stops on the new route through Old Ainleys even still say ‘School services only’
The frequency on the 372 is materially the same is it not? Just that they’ve chosen to implement their AI scheduling onto the route, so rather than every 15 minutes, it’s a frequency that is a bit like that but not quite, with timings at random intervals - looks to be every 15-20 minutes from about 0630 to 1735 with a lower frequency earlier and later than those times.
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NorthernSpirit
Established Member
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There's always room for improvement, especially on Friday and Saturday nights.
Not complaining about the overbusing in Elland, its just an observation.
I say I wished West Yorkshire was a non-PTE area as it'd stop vanity schemes such as cycleways being built at taxpayers expense which are then never used or the Leeds Supertram which had some works done before the project later morphed into the Leeds Trolleybus before being binned. With a lower budget only the main priorities are put first and that would be to retain as much of a bus network as possible with some services getting subsidy with others getting central Govenment funding through BSIP. One thing I did notice was on the side at the rear of these new Leeds Kites is a lable which states Funded by UK Govenment.
The idea of having Local Passenger Transport Units in West Yorkshire (in place of Metro) is to have a more hyperlocal focus in each of the five areas which I think would be a lot better as it would improve on what we'd got already, as I've said there's always room for improvement e.g. The 579 to Sowerby could get renumbered to a 585 and interwork with the 586 to Commons thus giving Sowerby Bridge a First Halifax combined service of every 15 minutes.
Man of Kent
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- 601
Though a cash-strapped local council has no statutory need to provide any bus services at all - Nottingham has come very close to scrapping all public transport subsidy in the last few weeks, and there are others, such as Southend and Luton, which gave up subsidising routes many moons ago. At least the primary purpose of the PTE is passenger transport services, with some of its funding obtained as a precept on council tax that cannot be diverted to say, education or to adult social care. Oh, and localisation in the manner suggested could well bring an end to cross boundary routes.
Both the Supertram and the Trolleybus network were plans that the governments of the time encouraged and then refused to fund. That's hardly Metro's fault.
I really don't see why a non-PTE area would not fund the things you don't like and would fund things you do. Did you have an example of such an area?
It's not that long ago Sowerby Bridge had a combined bus service of every 5 minutes with 5 buses an hour to Ripponden, including an every 20 minute service along the main road.
I live in a non-PTE area and we have had segregated cycle lanes out in, often where a bus lane was needed.
dodecahedron67
Member
Just not great buses and there’s only 12 to begin with.
Allox is:
4x 59
2x 9
1x C1
Only 7 out on an average day
Originally the other 5 were to be for 10s + 1 spare, but as I said before they failed quite drastically on them
49908 is off road with accident damage which doesn’t help either
Murray J
Member
Were they funded by York City Council? Considering the fate of other (relatively) early hybrids and EVs like the first few batches of B5LHs it's not surprising they're doing poorly.
YorkRailFan
On Moderation
End of a true era. They will be missed.
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dodecahedron67
Member
11103 is still running. Out today on 3s
edit: broke down on 0924 trip. That probably is that for bendys in York
edit: broke down on 0924 trip. That probably is that for bendys in York
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I caught an advert on Greatest Hits Radio yesterday for the X1/501 service so First must be running a radio campaign to promote it.
stevieinselby
Member
They are quite often on the 11 as well.
Yesterday there were ten of the twelve on the road at some point – although one of those was just on the 200, and some of them are shown as allocated for a full day's service but not completed it (which may be a bustimes error).
What's the issue with the 10 – is it the higher speed running on the A166 that they don't like?
dodecahedron67
Member
Higher speeds of the route and high mileage of each 10 board.
10s run 5am to midnight and it’s the longest route FY operates, so they’re the highest mileage boards out of York depot
dodecahedron67
Member
69275-9 are being kept for now to run 10s (4 boards +1 spare)
Will share when I find out what’s happening long term