I still don't get the need for the HD and HX Connect sub brands. They are only seen on the external livery, everything else uses the First brand. Is First so toxic a brand that they prefer to use something else?
I'd prefer it if First used both the HALIFAX and HUDDERSFIELD as brands, rather than the current HD/HX Connect. All they'd need to do is remove the First logo and simply use the Olympia? style font - the same font that was used for the Red Arrow branded 521/522/523 (Halifax to Ilingworth). In fact what First should have done was keep the Holme Valley Connection, Calder Connect, Zest503 and Red Arrow brands and introduced (possibly) Zest576, MixLinx, TownLinx, Colne Valley Connect, LimeLinx328 and UniLink.
- MixLinx could have been appiled to what is now the 509/510/511/512/513 serving Mixenden
- TownLinx could have been appiled to the 541/542 Norton Tower to Siddal, which could have been split in Halifax with the Halifax to Siddal section being jettisoned off to being a 543 and extended to Elland, thus allowing a new route into Elland thus taking some pressure off the 503.
- Colne Valley Connect would include services 181/184/185/301/302 to Wilberlee/Oldham/Marsden/Golcar via Milnsbridge.
- UniLink (a brand previouly used in Leeds) could have been used for the now axed 398/399 to Storthes Hall.
Any routes not branded could simply have a generic HALIFAX / HUDDERSFIELD branded bus used instead.
Looking at the new timetables on the Metro website and it looks like Huddersfield is now having the new ‘computer generated’ timetables inflicted on them
For example the 306 is currently a nice clean 20 minute frequency, from September it seems to run every 21-23 minutes
Also it looks like the computer has been asked to remove 1 bus from the PVR on the main X63 Huddersfield to Bradford route, the result it reduces from every 15 minutes to every 18 minutes.
That is also possibly the lowest number of buses between these two locations in living memory
At least with the 363/X63 the last bus now leaves Huddersfield at 2300 Monday to Friday, 2301 Saturday and oddly 2312 on a Sunday rather than the previous 2257 M-F, 2258 Sat and 2304 Sun.