Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Bus News

[Trainman40083]

I got on 81 not that long ago today...it use to have WiFi, now it's come back it doesn't. It was peak time so bus was fairly full, the peak probably pays more for the more emptier trips

Interesting around 16.45, a passenger in Nottingham asked TB where the Red Arrows were. She was told there was "delays". Strange no vehicle tracked from Derby to Nottingham for over 30 minutes. Maybe "delays" is the new excuse that was previously "driver shortage". 7 vehicles then one going out of service. A Volvo SD seemingly went off earlier in the day .

 

[bringiton]

Interesting around 16.45, a passenger in Nottingham asked TB where the Red Arrows were. She was told there was "delays". Strange no vehicle tracked from Derby to Nottingham for over 30 minutes. Maybe "delays" is the new excuse that was previously "driver shortage". 7 vehicles then one going out of service. A Volvo SD seemingly went off earlier in the day .

To be fair, I did see at one point two coaches tracking right next to each other and when I was on it near QMC there was a bit of traffic but nowt major. 6/7 today compared to the 8/9 yesterday. As well x38 was mostly down to 1 vehicle today

 

[ChrisC]

A friend went to Nottingham today on Red Arrow. I had high hopes for him, given 6 coaches were out. But just one single decker. He caught coach 81, as the previous working was cancelled. One of six passengers, and he was on a Zig Zag. Wonder how much it costs to run that service, in order to make money?

I only very occasionally use the Red Arrow and that’s usually off peak during the week. When I do it’s usually around 10.30am from Nottingham to Derby and returning at around 2.30pm. They have always at that time of day been lightly loaded with often no more than a dozen passengers. I’ve often thought that a reliable service running every 15 or even every 20 minutes would be quite adequate on weekdays between 10.00am and 3.00pm.

 

[Trainman40083]

To be fair, I did see at one point two coaches tracking right next to each other and when I was on it near QMC there was a bit of traffic but nowt major. 6/7 today compared to the 8/9 yesterday. As well x38 was mostly down to 1 vehicle today

Ah well, most I know that catch the X38 catch the Arriva now, as they reckon it will turn up. Maybe the £2 fare influences choice. After all, if I was only catching four buses, but there was a choice of operators where some might not turn up, the 4 x £2 compared with a Zigzag is a no brainer... Plus of course, your first journey could be before 09.00.. What made me laugh the other day, was a passenger said they had been waiting 1 hour 20 minutes for the X38. I guess she let the Arriva ones go past. Those days are gone.

 

[43055]

Ah well, most I know that catch the X38 catch the Arriva now, as they reckon it will turn up. Maybe the £2 fare influences choice. After all, if I was only catching four buses, but there was a choice of operators where some might not turn up, the 4 x £2 compared with a Zigzag is a no brainer... Plus of course, your first journey could be before 09.00.. What made me laugh the other day, was a passenger said they had been waiting 1 hour 20 minutes for the X38. I guess she let the Arriva ones go past. Those days are gone.

Derby Road in Burton has roadworks on which means that the villager and X38 have been on diversion with some delays. The other day both of the arriva vehicles were running round together for much of the day.

 

[ChrisC]

Ah well, most I know that catch the X38 catch the Arriva now, as they reckon it will turn up. Maybe the £2 fare influences choice. After all, if I was only catching four buses, but there was a choice of operators where some might not turn up, the 4 x £2 compared with a Zigzag is a no brainer... Plus of course, your first journey could be before 09.00.. What made me laugh the other day, was a passenger said they had been waiting 1 hour 20 minutes for the X38. I guess she let the Arriva ones go past. Those days are gone.

The £2 fare has really helped those who need to make a journey before 0900. When you consider that day tickets from most other bus companies including Stagecoach, First and Arriva are mostly valid all day Trent Barton continue to charge an extra £3.50 for a ZigZag day ticket or on their daily cap if you include even just one short journey before 0900. £11.10 for a ZigZag Plus or £10.30 for the Mango cap, which allows you to travel before 0900, is quite high in comparison to other day tickets. Trent Barton doesn't even have a very comprehensive network of routes to use it on these days. Now that I have recently got my ENCTS pass the £2 fare is very useful when I want to travel before 0930.

 

[Trainman40083]

Yes, you could use the £2 fare then have a normal ZigZag and save a bit.

The £2 fare has really helped those who need to make a journey before 0900. When you consider that day tickets from most other bus companies including Stagecoach, First and Arriva are mostly valid all day Trent Barton continue to charge an extra £3.50 for a ZigZag day ticket or on their daily cap if you include even just one short journey before 0900. £11.10 for a ZigZag Plus or £10.30 for the Mango cap, which allows you to travel before 0900, is quite high in comparison to other day tickets. Trent Barton doesn't even have a very comprehensive network of routes to use it on these days. Now that I have recently got my ENCTS pass the £2 fare is very useful when I want to travel before 0930.

Derby Road in Burton has roadworks on which means that the villager and X38 have been on diversion with some delays. The other day both of the arriva vehicles were running round together for much of the day.

Seemed to be running V1 somewhere odd the other day, between Rolleston and Burton, making many late.

One of my contacts had a little surprise yesterday, early afternoon. They came out of their house and an Allestree bus went past.. They live in a Cul de Sac, called The Ridings, just off West Bank Road, on the Woodlands Top route. I understand it was a driver route learning. Lucky really, this Cul de Sac is fairly wide, and turning it round was relatively easy.

 

[joieman]

Solar 669 appears to be running on the Kinchbus 9 today!

 

[LowLevel]

Solar 669 appears to be running on the Kinchbus 9 today!

It is, I overtook it about an hour ago in Ruddington.

 

[317 forever]

As most of the Labour Mayors are introducing franchising, I wonder whether Claire Ward will bring this to the East Midlands?

 

[Trainman40083]

As most of the Labour Mayors are introducing franchising, I wonder whether Claire Ward will bring this to the East Midlands?

Well she claims she will bring affordable, integrated and accessible public transport across the region on her Facebook page. I wonder how many years it will take, just using Greater Manchester as a guide?

 

[Teapot42]

Derbyshire

 

[joieman]

As most of the Labour Mayors are introducing franchising, I wonder whether Claire Ward will bring this to the East Midlands?

Only the Green Party candidate was planning on franchising. One issue raised was how would such an arrangement work with the municipally-owned Nottingham City Transport.

Most East Mids Mayor candidates reject buses under public control

Five of the six East Midlands Mayor candidates have taken part in a live hustings event

www.nottinghampost.com

The majority of East Midlands Mayor candidates have rejected the idea of immediately trying to bring the region's buses under public control during a live debate ahead of the election. Voters in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire will head to the polls on May 2 to decide who should lead the new East Midlands Combined County Authority - which is being given billions of pounds to make decisions currently made in Westminster.

One of the key areas that the new authority and mayor will have control over is public transport, a theme which dominated a major hustings event held on Friday (April 19). Organised by Notts TV, Nottingham Trent University (NTU), Nottinghamshire Live and Derbyshire Live - the hour-long East Midlands Decides debate featured five of the six candidates hoping to become the first ever East Midlands Mayor.

Helen Tamblyn-Saville, the Liberal Democrat candidate, was unable to make the event. The debate was hosted at the Confetti Institute in Nottingham and was attended by figures including Lord Vernon Coaker, Sir John Peace and Nottingham University Hospital boss Anthony May, as well as readers of both Nottinghamshire Live and Derbyshire Live and NTU students and staff.

Potential extensions to Nottingham's tram network, fixing potholes and promoting cycling and walking were among the issues discussed in the transport-dominated event. One of the debates centred around the idea of bringing all Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire bus services under the control of the new combined authority.

This idea is something that has come to fruition in many other combined authority areas, most recently in West Yorkshire. The scheme would see all routes, frequencies and fares set by the combined authority rather than private companies - who would instead be contracted to run services on the combined authority's behalf.

Yet at Friday's debate, only the Green Party candidate, Frank Adlington-Stringer, pledged that he would immediately work to bring all Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire buses under public control in a model known as franchising. Other candidates raised concerns about how long this idea could take to bring about improvements to bus services.

Ben Bradley, the Conservative Party candidate, described the idea as being like using a "sledgehammer to crack a nut", pointing to the fact that it took Andy Burnham as the Mayor of Greater Manchester eight years to bring buses under public ownership. Yet Mr Adlington-Stringer, speaking after the debate, said he could make it happen quicker.

The Green Party candidate said: "We've got to bring the buses back into public control, it's democratic accountability if nothing more than improving our services and so it's important we do that. If it takes a long time, it's taken Andy Burnham years and years, well let's get on with it today, let's set out our vision for an integrated system and not just mess around the edges."

Yet Claire Ward, Labour's candidate, raised concerns about what a full franchising model would do to Nottingham City Transport (NCT). NCT has been a private company since the 1980s, although Nottingham City Council remains the operator's majority shareholder.

Mrs Ward said: "If we get a Labour government, that future Labour government has already committed to making it easier to bring buses back under public control. Because we already have it in the city, it's not a simple solution across the rest of the region because we don't want to break what we've already got here."

Matt Relf, the independent candidate, said his main concern was about the time it would take to bring all buses under public control. Mr Relf said: "I just care about the end result, I care about making sure we're spending public money in an efficient way to give great service. If the bus companies want to come on that journey, which I believe they do, then great. If they don't, then we will have to go around that."

Giving his view on how buses would be run if he won the mayoral contest, the Conservative candidate Ben Bradley said: "There's a lot we can do on day one to get the bus companies in the room, to fill some of the gaps in services, to help them to integrate a bit more so they're not competing against each other and that will make services more commercially available."

Alan Graves, the Reform UK candidate, does not believe in the new East Midlands Mayor role and says if elected, he would immediately start work to abolish it within two years. In terms of his transport priorities before the mayor role disappeared, Mr Graves said in the hustings: "I believe in freedom of choice, I think people should have the choice of how they travel about our country... We need to actually talk to the users and find out how we can improve things."

 

[reuwar]

As I understood it, she seems to be planning on using it as a 'threat' in order to get the bus companies to play ball. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1wxgznv00go (4th section)

Ms Ward says buses are both "really good" and "really poor", depending on where they operate.

She says in the first instance, she wants to work with the operators to see if they can improve things in poorly-served areas.

But she adds if there "is no cooperation and agreement", she will "move swiftly" to look at a bus franchising model.

Ms Ward also wants to encourage and support both Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire county councils to carry out a "proper roads repair programme" in fixing potholes through devolved funding.

 

[zakky1.0]

Fire damaged indigo 207 has now been sent for scrap (looms, Spondon)

Trent Barton 207 & 654, Albert Looms, Derby, 2024

Trent Barton 207 & 654 were two of four buses awaiting breaking in this yard on Saturday 04th May 2024. The 2018 registered 207 was prematurely withdrawn after it suffered an engine compartment fire in September 2023. The bus in front of 654 is 673. I don't know the identity of the yellow...

flic.kr

Trent Barton 207 & 654 were two of four buses awaiting breaking in this yard on Saturday 04th May 2024. The 2018 registered 207 was prematurely withdrawn after it suffered an engine compartment fire in September 2023. The bus in front of 654 is 673. I don't know the identity of the yellow painted Scania parked behind these three?

 

[bringiton]

Fire damaged indigo 207 has now been sent for scrap (looms, Spondon)

Trent Barton 207 & 654, Albert Looms, Derby, 2024

Trent Barton 207 & 654 were two of four buses awaiting breaking in this yard on Saturday 04th May 2024. The 2018 registered 207 was prematurely withdrawn after it suffered an engine compartment fire in September 2023. The bus in front of 654 is 673. I don't know the identity of the yellow...

flic.kr

I would have thought it had been scrapped ages ago.

 

[chessie]

First South Yorkshire appear to have picked up the 80 from Chesterfield - Killamarsh with Derbyshire Funding, no timetable yet available though

Forthcoming changes to bus services - Derbyshire County Council

www.derbyshire.gov.uk

From Saturday 11 May 2024​

Arriva:

• services 1A, 1C: to improve reliability will no longer serve Roundhouse Road (Railway Station East) but instead run straight along Pride Parkway. Passengers should use bus stops on Pride Parkway or at the front of the Station on Railway Terrace

Stagecoach Chesterfield:

• new Daily Blue Peak Sightseer service: Chatsworth to Mam Tor Caverns via Baslow, Calver, Hathersage, Grindleford, Bamford and Castleton with links to Low Edges and Chesterfield at the beginning and end of the service day
• new Daily Red Peak Sightseer circular service: Chatsworth back to Chatsworth via Bakewell, Ashford in the Water and Pilsley with links to Chesterfield at the beginning and end of the service day

From Sunday 12 May 2024​

Hulleys:

• service 272: revised timetable including withdrawal of 6.48pm journey from Castleton on Monday to Saturday. Timetable operated by First unchanged
• service 55: minor timetable change to improve reliability
• services 80, 80A, X80: withdrawn. The section between Holymoorside and the Royal Hospital, Calow replaced by new service 84 with similar level of service to the current service. The section between Royal Hospital, Calow and Crystal Peaks will be replaced by a new service 80 between Chesterfield and Killamarsh and new service 120K between Norwood, Killamarsh and Crystal Peaks both operated by First South Yorkshire with funding from the Derbyshire Bus Service Improvement Plan
• service 84: new service replacing services 80 and 80A between the Royal Hospital and Holymoorside
• service 170: the section via Old Brampton is reduced to every 2 hours. A new variant service 170C operates every 2 hours direct via Chatsworth Road
• service 257: earlier morning and later evening journeys on Monday to Saturday and route changed to serve Royal Hallamshire Hospital. Sunday service unchanged

First South Yorkshire:

• New service 80, funded by the Derbyshire Bus Service Improvement Plan, will provide an hourly service seven days a week between Chesterfield and Killamarsh via the Royal Hospital, Brimington, Staveley, Renishaw and Norwood, partly replacing Hulleys services 80 and 80A

Stagecoach Chesterfield:

• services 1, 1A: Terminus point on service 1 changed from Langwith Welfitt Grove to Whaley Thorns Turning Circle
• services 48, 48A: timetable revised to improve punctuality. Back Lane and Wood Lane near Calow Green are no longer served
• service 49: Timetable revised to improve punctuality
• services 54, 54A: All evening journeys will operate as service 54A via Alma Road in North Wingfield
• services 65, 65A, 66: Timetable revised to improve punctuality and route of 65 changed between Sheffield and Meadowhall and 65A changed between Brierlow Bar Bookstore and Harpur Hill. The bus will run along Heath View instead of the A515 and Heathfield Nook Road
• services 90, 90A, 90B: minor timetable changes
• service X17: Minor timetable changes and some journeys rerouted to serve Matlock Farm Park

High Peak:

• service 190: revised timetable to improve reliability. First and last journeys extended to/from the depot in Dove Holes
• services 441, 442: revised afternoon timetable to accommodate changes to service 190, including 2.10pm from Ashbourne no longer running via Harpur Hill but instead via the normal route from Burlow via the A515 to Buxton
• Transpeak: early/late Monday to Friday journeys from Derby that terminate in Matlock will continue in service from the Interchange to Bakewell Road at the request of customers on board. No change to buses that continue north to Buxton. No changes on Saturday and Sunday

Ashbourne Little Bus:

• New service A53: Leek to Buxton via Burbage and Winking Man on Sundays

From Monday 13 May 2024​

First South Yorkshire:

• New service 120K: extension of current service 120 between Crystal Peaks and Fulwood via Royal Hallamshire Hospital and Sheffield, to Killamarsh and Norwood hourly on Monday to Saturday, partly replacing Hulleys services 80 and 80A. This extension is funded by the Derbyshire Bus Service Improvement Plan

 

[Trainman40083]

I would have thought it had been scrapped ages ago.

207 was parked in a corner at Langley Mill since the fire on Indigo. Maybe the insurance has paid up

 

[cnjb8]

207 was parked in a corner at Langley Mill since the fire on Indigo. Maybe the insurance has paid up

Most operators self-insure

 

[Trainman40083]

Most operators self-insure

Ah, like the railway does. The cost of the premiums would have been more than the cost of any claims.

 

[Teapot42]

Most operators self-insure

Out of interest, how does that work? I've read that you can (for want of the correct term) post a bond to cover any claims, but I'd imagine only the largest operators could stump up that much money. I'd only heard of it for Royal Mail.

Or do they have third party insurance but self-insure to cover their own damage?

 

[edwin_m]

Out of interest, how does that work? I've read that you can (for want of the correct term) post a bond to cover any claims, but I'd imagine only the largest operators could stump up that much money. I'd only heard of it for Royal Mail.

Or do they have third party insurance but self-insure to cover their own damage?

British Rail used to do that.

I wonder if they basically set their excess to what they think they can afford and claim for anything above that.

 

[JD2168]

First South Yorkshire appear to have picked up the 80 from Chesterfield - Killamarsh with Derbyshire Funding, no timetable yet available though

Forthcoming changes to bus services - Derbyshire County Council

www.derbyshire.gov.uk

Will be interesting to see what First run on the 80, the Yellow B7RLE’s from Rochdale are a possibility & will it interwork with 120k to enable driver changes at Sheffield.

 

[chessie]

Will be interesting to see what First run on the 80, the Yellow B7RLE’s from Rochdale are a possibility & will it interwork with 120k to enable driver changes at Sheffield.

Its obvious this has all been done very short notice but well done to all concerned for sorting it. Hopefully, the 120k will revert back to the 80, at least to Crystal Peaks at the next timetable change as Derbyshire are funding both.

The 120k seems to have a really long wait time in Killamarsh as things stand

 

[cnjb8]

Out of interest, how does that work? I've read that you can (for want of the correct term) post a bond to cover any claims, but I'd imagine only the largest operators could stump up that much money. I'd only heard of it for Royal Mail.

Or do they have third party insurance but self-insure to cover their own damage?

Honestly I'm not 100% certain, I'm sure it's something to do with money though

 

[ALEMASTER]

Its obvious this has all been done very short notice but well done to all concerned for sorting it. Hopefully, the 120k will revert back to the 80, at least to Crystal Peaks at the next timetable change as Derbyshire are funding both.

The 120k seems to have a really long wait time in Killamarsh as things stand

I wonder if the 80 and 120k will interwork?

 

[Teapot42]

I wonder if the 80 and 120k will interwork?

Derbyshire CC have worked remarkably quickly and got a timetable up already.
The 80 and the 120K.

Connections will likely depend how viable the timings are. From Chesterfield there is around 7-9 minutes (the 120K isn't very consistent) and I hope no-one from Renishaw etc needs to get in the Sheffield direction for work as the first connection gets to Crystal Peaks at 9am and Sheffield at 9:43. The other way there is about 20-25 minutes cross-over. It looks like the 80 is stand-alone as it loops around Killamarsh then comes back towards Chesterfield.

 

[ALEMASTER]

Commuters travelling from Renishaw to Sheffield I assume use the 53 rather than the 80, there's one that gets into Sheffield at 0826 and the route is much more direct!

 

[Trainman40083]

Fire damaged indigo 207 has now been sent for scrap (looms, Spondon)

Trent Barton 207 & 654, Albert Looms, Derby, 2024

Trent Barton 207 & 654 were two of four buses awaiting breaking in this yard on Saturday 04th May 2024. The 2018 registered 207 was prematurely withdrawn after it suffered an engine compartment fire in September 2023. The bus in front of 654 is 673. I don't know the identity of the yellow...

flic.kr

Looks like Trentbarton will have to find somewhere else to break up their fleet, very soon. Albert Looms have announced that they are closing down

 

[JD2168]

Looks like Trentbarton will have to find somewhere else to break up their fleet, very soon. Albert Looms have announced that they are closing down

Probably end up at Carlton near Barnsley as most other operators do at the moment.