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Destinations On Blinds Never Used (Mind Games!)

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tbtc

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Back in the good old days of roller blinds being common place I used to enjoy watching the driver scroll through them at termini and spotting "odd" destinations.

There were a few that companies speculatively put on blinds - either in the hope of winning tendered work or as "mind games" against rival/ local operators.

For example, LRT (Lothian Buses, as now) used to have places like Peebles on their blinds - I don't know whether this was in the hope of winning Borders area tenders or to "scare" Lowland Scottish.

Are there any other examples? (other than Dunstable on Thameslink 319s?)

(thread inspired by the mention on another thread that FifeFirst put various Fife destinations on their blinds during the "bus war" with Stagecoach's Fife Scottish operations)
 
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MCR247

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Edit: Never mind - didn't see which section of the forum this was in!
 

mbonwick

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When Stagecoach Lancaster had roller fitter displays, I do remember reading Arnside a few times and chuckling.
The only road into Arnside they'd have fitted down has a rather low bridge that would have decapitated them!
 

trentside

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Until a recent update, the electronic blinds at Stagecoach Lincolnshire contained some redundant destinations and, more interestingly, some workings that had never existed. A real one was 'Lincoln Direct 15X', which has never existed (the only 15Xs work to Fiskerton , not back to Lincoln) and a strange one that was 'Blah via Somewhere X30'. The blinds have recently changed formate, so I presume these are no more.

When MASS Transit operated in Lincoln, the new manager ordered some destination blinds that included the destination 'Scrampton' instead of Scampton. I think these blinds stayed in use until Veolia days - though no services were operated there by that stage.
 

northernrail

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My local route (First Manchesters 415) still has roller blinds, and the 2125 M-SA service from Middleton is the only service of the day to terminate at Lees St John Street, but thats not on the blind, so being my strange usual self every night il walk down there, and get the bus back just to see the new drivers scroll through the blind twice before sticking anything up...recently ive had "Special" a blind halfway between Moston and Holts, "Oldham Mumps" "Oldham Bus Station"....and my faviourte, as the driver pulled into Middleton, he went through the blind 3 times, and in the end left with it saying..........."Middleton"
 

WestCoast

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Blackpool Transport took delivery of new buses with roller blinds up until five or so years ago. When scrolling, I seem to remember seeing unserved destinations such as Lancaster, Preston, Garstang and possibly even Southport and Liverpool. Believe it or not, all of those destinations have been served at some point in time by the venerable BT in the last 20 years - mainly through Lancashire County Council contracts.
 

bb21

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Arriva Fox County have some odd destinations on the powered roller blinds on DAF/East Lancashire Lowlanders, including "Inner Circle" and "Outer Circle" (both currently operated by Centrebus), which they have never operated AFAIK.

Barton did not use to have Castle Donington on the roller blinds, so the last journey back from Loughborough at night on Route 10/Rainbow 5 used to say anything from "Special" to "Trent" / "Barton" (depending on the vehicle) to "East Midlands Airport" to blank.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Arriva Fox County have some odd destinations on the powered roller blinds on DAF/East Lancashire Lowlanders, including "Inner Circle" and "Outer Circle" (both currently operated by Centrebus), which they have never operated AFAIK.

Barton did not use to have Castle Donington on the roller blinds, so the last journey back from Loughborough at night on Route 10/Rainbow 5 used to say anything from "Special" to "Trent" / "Barton" (depending on the vehicle) to "East Midlands Airport" to blank.
 

VTPreston_Tez

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Preston Bus have a few left on their buses and come up with right corkers - the 30 to Lea, 24 to Ribbleton, so on and so forth which makes me grin.
The best displays though are the ones on Voyagers, where you can type them in though - I've heard people have seen 'Bethlehem' as an example, anyone got any photos?
 

Lrd

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I saw a First bus in Southampton that was turning around in between services displaying 'Happy Birthday'. Made me giggle anyway!
 

Shrimper

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I recall a Stagecoach NW MAN (new at the time!) with the flipdot display displaying Merry Christmas with a little Christmas Tree where the number would be.

In July.
 

steamybrian

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I have a destination plate from a London Transport 1938 tube stock which reads "Bushey Heath" on one side and "Elstree" on the other station. Both are never built stations on the aborted Northern Line extension.
 

MCW

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Arriva Fox County have some odd destinations on the powered roller blinds on DAF/East Lancashire Lowlanders, including "Inner Circle" and "Outer Circle" (both currently operated by Centrebus), which they have never operated AFAIK.

that is true. they have never operated it. on the same vehicles I have also seen Glen Parva and I think Gilmorton? as destinations, both of which Arriva had stopped operating to by the time the DAF's were starting to come into the fleet!
 

flymo

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Geordie back from exile.
Yonks ago when I worked for Busways in Newcastle we had some Bright Tech destination screens. (the ones with the green/black rotating flags on the grid thingy). Anyway, couldn't fix one of them as the strings were all knackered so got a replacement from Bright Tech, fitted it and then noticed it had all Cumbrian destinations in (hadn't changed the chips yet), so off I went for a road test with Workington 30 (or something like that) on the destination going down Shields Road in Byker.
Still had a couple of people put their hand out for the bus and got some funny looks from other bus drivers thinking Busways were expanding west.:D

Marvellous
 

Shrimper

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People will put their hands out for anything though - even the Stagecoach Manchester driver training vehicles which don't have destination blinds and have the former blind area painted blue!

Stagecoach Manchester are exclusively LED now, and are updated regularly - every bus in the fleet has all the destinations programmed in - so there are very few unneeded destinations. One of the few I recall was on the 143, where Northenden was retained as a destination despite the 143s only ever going as far as West Didsbury. The 84 also retained Arrowfield Road as a destination, which was only ever used for tendered services which Stagecoach extended to Southern Cemetery (though Arriva still use Arrowfield Road).
 

dvboy

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The Midland Metro seems to have every stop as a potential destination. Even those without turn - arounds

Yes for those terminating at Wednesbury Great Western St for the end of service, the platform indicators unhelpfully read "Depot".

They will terminate at Priestfield if there are problems on the on-street section at the Wolverhampton end.

One day recently they were terminating at St Pauls, with one lonely tram running a shuttle from St Pauls to Snow Hill, but I've no idea why.
 

causton

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People will put their hands out for anything though - even the Stagecoach Manchester driver training vehicles which don't have destination blinds and have the former blind area painted blue!

Because of the Olympics every police officer and his dog are in Hatfield at the moment - I believe they are using the university's accommodation... there is a shuttle bus that runs, with a bus from an operator that doesn't operate anywhere near Hatfield, with a giant "PRIVATE HIRE" blind on the front, and full of police officers in hi-viz... and yet every night I get the train home I see people try to board it outside the station! The driver's probably very annoyed at it by now, although he did seem almost sorry when it was about half 1 in the morning and there were no public buses left!
 

whhistle

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Five Characters.
 

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ainsworth74

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I've been looking for that for soooo long!! I thought it was lost forever as it used to be on fotopic. May I ask where you found it?
 

34D

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Leeds trams back in the 1950s had Seacroft on their blinds, but it was never built.

Cruelly, the supertram planned in the 90s was also to serve Seacroft but the scheme was also dropped.
 

dvboy

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I was wondering the other day if NX West Midlands and NX Dundee have each others blinds programmed?
 

jkkne

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Sometime in 2010 Arriva North East had some second hand Midland Red deckers brought up in plain red livery.

They were parked in open sight at the Jesmond Depot with 221 Chester Le Street and 21 Durham on sparking huge rumours that they were about to take on Go Ahead (at the time the two were having the odd ruffle)

It was obviously a mischevious depot trick but it certainly got tongues wagging
 
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