The 13:40 Brighton to London run produced several of the issues I’ve included
in the blog recently – selling tickets on the bus, luggage policy and the alcohol
policy. All at the same stop! Waiting to board were a group of 14 German
students with their teacher. The teacher had used the website last night to
look up the time of the bus but for some reason I couldn’t understand couldn’t
buy the tickets. I had more than 14 unbooked seats and didn’t want to miss
this opportunity so explained that that whilst we didn’t sell seats on the bus I’d
try and get a group of this size excepted. To ‘test the water’ I said the tickets
were likely to be £10 each at this last minute “Ja, dat’s OK” “Do you have
cash?” “Ja”. Looked good to me :-) Rang control and told them the situation
and asked if I could take the £140 and pay it in at my depot. “No, no”! I
couldn’t believe it and became a little bit belligerent with megabus control. In
fact I told them that it was bloody stupid to be refusing money like this. They
asked me to hold while I suppose they went into a huddle and discussed it.
They did agree that the money could be paid to a Controller once the party
arrived in London, they said £6 per person ….. after they’d agreed to pay £10
per person :-( At least megabus got something.

Brian Souter, who owns Stagecoach/Megabus, is quoted in The Daily
Telegraph of 23 July this year as saying “I like to get every last passenger on
the bus; I like to collect every penny; I like the bus to run on time; I like the
driver not to throw the passengers off the seats going round corners; I like to
do the job right because that is the way I was brought up. You can’t help the
way you are”. It’s a shame that only he seems to think that way!

Next to board was the guy with a holdall and TWO guitars. I led the way to
hold “I’ll put the guitars on a spare seat” he said. “Oh no you wont” I
responded “that’s no different than turning up with a couple of friends and
saying they’ll sit on spare seats so need to pay for them!”. He pondered this
for a minute and then appeared to agree to them going into the hold, paused
again and then said “one’s got to come on with me”. “Oh, no it’s not”! He
then said he’d have to get something out of the guitar case which was fine by
me until I saw that it was a bottle of Scotch. Why is it always me who gets
them?

Left London at 17:00 and due to arrive Winchester at 18:45. At 18:45 I was
still on the M4 heading very, very slowly toward the M25. Took a traffic update
and then discovered that there were at least two accidents with hold ups on
the M3. Made the decision to continue on the M4 to Reading, then cross
country to Basingstoke where I’d pick up the M3. You never know whether
you actually made the best decision but I think I did. An hour and 5 minutes
late into Winchester in such circumstances is not bad going.

Today nine of us went route learning from Winchester to Birmingham. This new Megabus route starts on Monday 1 October. The first section from Winchester to the Water Eaton Park and Ride car park in Oxford, where the Megabus stop is located, was simple enough. The following stop is near to Warwick University in Coventry which is still not too difficult to remember, the route we took today doesn’t appear to be the most direct to me so I may experiment a bit when driving it. After that it’s Birmingham International Airport. I had wondered how many passengers a coach from the South Coast to Birmingham Airport would carry, but when we got there I realised why we’re stopping there – more to service the NEC (National Exhibition Centre) than the airport I think! The final stop is in the centre of Birmingham and there would appear to be an infinite number of routes from the airport to the centre of Birmingham. They all would appear to be straightforward but the big gamble will be guessing which is the least congested on any day at any time?

The trip up to Birmingham was run near enough at the timetabled time so we probably experienced typical traffic conditions, it wasn’t too bad. However, we returned almost immediately rather than waiting until the late afternoon timetable departure time. How the traffic conditions will vary in real life we’ll see later.

I’ve not been able to get to our local Farmers’ Market for months; it’s held on the second and last Sundays of each month and everytime it comes round I’m working. That is until yesterday. Since I was last there a new bakery stall has appeared and although we were there before the official opening time there were only 6 ‘lardies’ remaining. Essy, my missus, is Zimbabwean and she’d never heard of Lardy Cake but I told her she’d definately not like it and not to worry about not trying it ……. a line she didn’t fall for. She liked it …. damn her :-) Here’s an article from The Guardian from which I stole the subject line.

We also bought fresh cooked prawns from Selsey Bay. They are totally unlike the North Atlantic pink prawns which are the only ones you ever see in shops. The colour is a much deeper pink and they have thin red stripes on them, but it’s the taste which is an even greater difference. Just so much more flavoursome.

Other purchases were:- belly pork, dry cured bacon, sausages and organic vegetables.

I read somewhere that nearly all blogs which fail do so before there are 100 postings on them. That piece of information isn’t in this article but it does give many reasons why blogs fail. So why am I writing about this? This is posting number 100 to ‘another day on the buses’!

I really enjoy writing most of the time but sometimes I get worried that I may not have something to write about. Then the first thought which crosses my mind, also read about somewhere, “don’t write unless you’ve something to say”! That sounds good and I relax a bit until the next read about somewhere bit of advice gets remembered “readers only come back if new postings are regular and interesting”. Aaagh, so I must think of something to say! And it must be interesting!

OK, here’s what happened yesterday afternoon when I had to do a couple of town runs as part of an AD (as detailed) duty. As a I approached a bus stop with around a dozen people on the pavement waiting for the bus one woman jumped into the road and started waving her arms around as if she were the only person there and I didn’t look like I was going to stop. I pulled up at the stop as intended, once she’d got back onto the pavement. She was nearest the bus as it approached but I went past her and stopped so that the doors were by the bus stop, she ran round the back of the waiting passengars and pushed herself to the front before I’d even got the doors open. As the doors opened she barged forward “Hold on a minute, please. Let the others get off first” I said. Made no difference she kept coming. Then I pointed out the two pushchairs waiting to get off and asked her to get off and let them off. “They can get past me” she ranted. I could see the eyes of the other passengers behind her rolling. She then ranted on about how urgent it was for her to get home, how long did we expect her to wait for a bus etc. I checked my watch and apologised for being 45 seconds late at this stop. The other passengers found that quite funny, she didn’t. Of course loading took longer than needed because of her refusal to get off and let the pushchairs off quickly, they had to try and negotiate their way around her. At last she sat down and we were off. Later she came up to me and said I live down ‘X’ Road (it’s midway between two stops) “Can you drop me off there?”! This is not an uncommon request for that road and there is a nice safe place to stop so drivers normally oblige. Not me this time. How can someone be so rude and inconsiderate to the pushchair users who want to get off and then expect a favour? I enjoyed every yard of the half mile drive to the next stop. Only shame was that it wasn’t raining :-)

· Budget coach service takes delivery of 17 wheelchair-accessible vehicles

· New 79-passenger coaches raise quality of expanding low-cost network

· Online booking engine welcomes 500,000th United States customer

Stagecoach Group is investing $10 million in America’s first inter-city double-decker coaches.

The first of the fleet of 17 new closed-top double-deckers is being introduced tomorrow (7 September 2007) at the Group’s expanding budget inter-city coach operation megabus.com in the United States.

Double-decker coaches are in regular service in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, but these are the first on inter-city services in the United States.

Manufactured by the Belgium-based company Van Hool, the new wheelchair- accessible vehicles have been produced to meet US specifications.

The 79-passenger state-of-the-art coaches will run on megabus.com Midwest routes operated out of Chicago, with all vehicles in service by January 2008.

The full press release is here.

PS (7 Sept).

I’ve found a picture of one!