Good evening
@Teapot42 ,
A friend brought my attention to your contribution to this forum where I am referenced on several occasions by yourself and those references are, to put it politely, misleading. I don’t know where you are getting some of this twaddle from but I’m happy to set the record straight.
Throughout my career in transport I’ve always tried to support enthusiasts and recognise that canteen gossip, bus stop and platform end rumours can get out of hand and that is perhaps where some of this comes from.
Don't forget that Stagecoach also had one big advantage that Hulleys didn't, in that they got a significant sum of BSIP money to run the service, so were able to better resource it. They pretty much doomed the Breezer from the outset by wanting to go their own way rather than running the joint service that was originally the idea. I'm sure people will say that was a good idea in hindsight, but if Hulleys had been sharing the BSIP funding they could well have been in a better position themselves to attract drivers and possibly have a spare bus available.
The Peak Sightseer received BSIP funding to extend the season. The route runs on a commercial basis during the peak season, similar to the Breezer.
All operators in Derbyshire had the opportunity to bid for the BSIP funding. We submitted a bid that was accepted.
There was never a proposal for a joint service.
I had a bit of a heated argument with the Stagecoach MD about this. His take was that to have accepted Wayfarers and passes would have meant a larger subsidy would have been needed. To me, that just means the service as conceived wasn't viable, at least not with an operator who seemingly wasn't prepared to take any commercial risk themselves.
It wasn’t a heated argument from my perspective
@Teapot42 , you simply stated something that was factually wrong and I corrected you. You appeared to accept that correction.
The maths is simple, if we accepted Wayfarer tickets we would be carrying people for free on a route that has cost a lot of money to establish and a big amount of commercial risk to set up. Instead we offer a one third discount to Wayfarer users which costs the user £4 instead of £6 for unlimited travel on the route on the day.
For every customer we carry for free that’s £4 less that contributes to the viability of the route.
The MD claimed he'd wanted to do this for years. Hard to dispute that either way, he's new to the area so it might well be the case. Personally, I think they didn't do it earlier because it would mean commitment to an area outside their normal operating scope.
That's not entirely true, I've summarised elsewhere on social media (twitter and linkedin I think) how the idea came about. No doubt when the time is right there'll be the opportunity to share more of the behind the scenes story of how we developed the route. We've been operating the 65 to Buxton for a number of years and the X17 to Matlock (and its predecessors) for longer than I care to remember.
They've never been interested in the Peak District in the past despite their being good opportunities to link up with their operations in Manchester for tourist services.
That's not true, before my time but we picked up the 65 and Matlock local routes several years ago pre pandemic and continue to operate them to this day.
I've come from our Manchester operations, with franchising happening there is zero opportunity to run routes from that direction.
I'm not sure if they are locked in to this run next year, in some ways I hope not as it doesn't really do the Peak District justice.
You really are determined to see us fail aren't you? Thankfully many thousands of customers disagree with you.
Yes, but most open toppers in this country either crawl along a promenade or around a city.
Not true again, I spent four years running open toppers very successfully on the Isle of Wight including the Needles Breezer and Downs Breezer, both of which are a similar concept of linking tourist attractions in a largely rural area. Before that I ran the First operation in Weymouth including the open topper to Portland Bill.
My colleagues in Cumbria have decades of experience running the 599 in Cumbria and my former colleagues in First and Go-Ahead have successfully run the New Forest tour, Exmoor Coaster and many other hugely successful rural open top bus routes.
The original plan was to work together, Stagecoach were being picky so Hulleys in effect said let me run this bit and let Stagecoach have the BSIP money.
This is utter cobblers
Considering Stagecoach also got a nice package of paid-for advertising I think this was a bad move by Hulleys, but whether Stagecoach would ever have worked together is open to question.
The only paid advertising the Peak Sightseer has benefited from is what we have spent ourselves, we have invested a lot of our own money into making this a success as we see a potential market. We spent a huge amount of time and used our experience in leisure services (including open toppers - including those above), destination marketing, and a huge amount of research into who visits the Peak District plus talking extensively with tourism partners to understand the potential market.
Partners, including Visit Peak District whos video I suspect you are referring to, have chosen to promote the route because they see benefit in doing so and want to see it succeed. That particular video was created before we knew what they were planning and I understand went on to be their best performing video of all time - just goes to show people really love an open top bus ride in beautiful countryside.
I thought the local authority was the only body that could prevent a service registration? Certainly the Traffic Commissioner can't.
Wrong. The Traffic Commissioner has the ultimate decision on whether to approve a service registration or not.
There isn't really that much of a link between the Breezer and any Stagecoach service. I am actually quite surprised Stagecoach mentioned the 170 however as apparently the whole open top debacle has really pushed relations between the two companies - which were quite good in the recent past. Under the previous Stagecoach MD they had a 'non-aggression pact' to not step on each other's toes. That's obviously long gone.
This is where your posts really push the boundaries. Aggression in business is illegal, a pact that you suggest is illegal. If it was true, and for the avoidance of doubt it definitely isn't, it is the kind of stuff that people go to prison for.
The 170 was featured, alongside other operator routes to show how people can connect into the Peak Sightseer - it is after all the main bus route to Chesterfield. We take an altruistic view of promoting other bus services as our main competitor is the car, not other bus routes or operators.
Hopefully this post puts to bed some of silly nonsense I have read. I've always been happy to support and assist enthusiasts including sharing insider information (within reason), fleet changes and plans and arranging the occasional depot visit for those interested. I've even been known to present to respected societies such as the Provincial Society, regional bus user groups and the Southdown group plus appearing at the occasional bus rally as a judge.
I do understand that sometimes the rumour mill and peoples enthusiasm can get carried away and everyone has their favourites and that sometimes colours judgement but constant twaddle gives enthusiasts a bad name and does nothing to encourage myself and my peers to support and nurture the wider enthusiast movement.
I'm happy to answer any reasonable questions and will dip into the bus threads from time to time to answer reasonable queries now I've discovered the forum. You never know from time to time I might be able to answer the odd rail query given the relationships we have with others in that sector.
Matt
