Review: GWR Timetable booklet

Another new series, 'Review:' where I'll post reviews of timetables and things like that!

This one is a review of the GWR timetable booklet, available from the ticket office at Paddington for £5. My first impression is that it looks very smart, with the front and rear covers being mainly green, having uniform text and a very green photo to match!

When you turn to the first page, you are greeted by a 'Welcome to GWR' note on the thicker cover page and the contents on page 1. Turning to the next pages (2 and 3), there's  a very handy timetable index, showing which timetables are on which page and a section telling you about new trains and train upgrades. There are then many pages telling you about changes to train times, how to contact GWR, all the websites you can use (including national ones) to view timetables and a page about pocket timetables. Engineering works feature on the next page, before a few pages tell you about buying tickets and then there's comprehensive information over 10 pages about how to get to the station, including airports, ports and bus stops at every GWR station. Safety information is, obviously, compulsory and the station facilities pages are brilliant, telling you about the ticket buying facilities, staffing hours and if there are toilets, a car park or a bike rack! A very nice touch for enthusiasts especially is the many pages about their trains, including seating arrangements and naming (e.g. The Torbay Express, The Mayflower etc.) and the list of heritage railways in their area of operation. There are then many more contact details, including ones of other operators, before a great little section on how to read timetables (for the less experienced train traveler!) It then launches into the timetable abbreviations and what they mean, before bombarding you with the station index. This lot is good though, better than not having the information! There's then a lovely little map of the Eastern area times.

After this, on page 73, the timetables start. Now, I'm not going to talk much about these, I'll leave you to see for yourself, but they are very comprehensive and give you everything you need to know, including many connecting services and services not operated by GWR (which most companies don't usually do). There's a Central area map, which is the same style as the others, on page 191 and then the Central area timetables start coming, before there finally being a Western area map on page 315 and the shorter section of the Western area timetables are shoved into your brain! These continue all the way through to page 408. On the back cover, there's a tube map... But something I bet some people don't realise is that the tube map folds out and reveals a map of all GWR services, including their timetable numbers!

All in all, this booklet is great. It has barely any downfalls and is definitely worth the £5. They are individually numbered and the person selling them has to go through a very long process, giving the date and signature to show they've each been sold - so don't buy one if you're in a hurry! However, if you're in the West London area, I definitely recommend heading to the ticket office at London Paddington and asking for an all GWR £5 timetable booklet!

Tomorrow I'm going round London to all the working PERTIS machines, expect a post on Friday!

Hope you enjoyed,
Jezza

Buses, Trains and Timetable booklets!

Yesterday (14/02/17) I went out to London and met up with +James Finn to go round on some trains and buses. He had a very good plan (almost as precise as mine!) and we started the day on the c2c to Fenchurch Street. Just a normal ride into London, but afterwards it got veeeeeerrrrrryyyyyyyyy sssssssssssllllllllllllllooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Here's a tip: Don't get the 15 through London. It took about 40 minutes just to get from Tower Hill to Charing Cross.

With LT258 out of the way, time to get to the faster stuff. Namely, the Bakerloo line. The '72 stock are actually really nice, but clearly a bit neglected. The map was months out of date! Then it was on to the really good stuff. I picked up 2 timetable booklets (Explained in another post) and then it was time for Another trip on the 11:36 parliamentary out of Paddington!

I walked through both carriages and counted the number of people and saw how many exited/entered at each station, to create this list of people on the train, not including us:

Paddington Board: 5

Paddington - South Ruislip: 5

South Ruislip Board: 0
South Ruislip Leave: 0
South Ruislip - West Ruislip: 5
West Ruislip Leave: 5

Whole Journey (Paddington - West Ruislip): 5

So not all that busy, but not totally desolate! It was then time to get the Central Line (after picking up 3 night tube maps from West Ruislip!) to Greenford to check out the 'inclinator' and then on to Holborn. 'DING!' with a second hot chocolate and then we were off again, this time on SEe24 to London Bridge.

This was where we took our lives into our own hands... We caught a Southern, yes, Southern service to East Croydon. It was (amazingly) bang on time, but I bet it didn't stay like that all the way to Uckfield!

East Croydon was the first stop on the train and it was the place we were going to get off at for a while. The Tramlink is great, so we decided to go on a 4 to Church Street then a Variobahn on the 2 back round to East Croydon. That left us just enough time to run down to Platform 1, ready for the Thameslink service towards Bedford. That also left us just enough time to listen to a platform alteration announcement, then swerve in between the coffee shops to Platform 2, ready for the Thameslink service towards Bedford. Unfortunately, a 377 pulled in, but we were on a tight schedule, so we hopped on for one long stop to London Blackfriars. It did me some good to get back in London and back under ground on the tube, after a few weeks without it, especially a speedy Victoria Line ride to Vauxhall after the Circle took us round to Victoria! 'Lovely WVL' 107 took us round to Clapham Junction on the 87 towards Wandsworth, where there was the chance of another timetable booklet...

'DING!' A third hot chocolate was bought here, but what I was really after was a South West Trains timetable booklet. Unfortunately, it wasn't on display and there were no people to ask, but we made our train to Willesden! The tight, 3-minute connection there was easily made, so we were running on time when we got to Euston. Coming off the D/C line, we went underground again, but this time it wasn't such a pleasant experience. The Northern Line carriage easily got to a crowding level of 9 and I'm glad we opted to get the train direct to Bank instead of catching the Charing Cross branch and hopping on the Central Line! A quick trundle to Monument was in order, to go one final underground stop of the day, ending up at Tower Hill. This is where something really exciting happened. After a short walk to Fenchurch Street, we boarded the 17:46 to Leigh-on-Sea. All normal, just a 357. Then, a 357 pulled out of the station and revealed... 387306! I was ecstatic! The first c2c 387 I've ever seen! It was on the 17:43 to Shoeburyness and I ran and ran to grab over 20 photos of it standing there. I couldn't get on it, but I was so pleased with just seeing it.

So that was the day, all in all a rather good one I think!
Hope you enjoyed this post,
Jezza

What if? 1: Upminster to Essex

I have decided I will not post about every transport ride I do, simply once at the end of the day. I understand I have only done stuff about buses at the moment - don't worry, train things to come! Anyway, onto the post!

Another new series on this blog is the 'What if?' section. It is where I will write of some possible routes or route extensions I would like to happen. My first 'What if?' is a route from Upminster into Essex.

My home town of Upminster is fairly well connected, with 2 Monday - Sunday bus services and 2 Monday - Saturday services (ALL TFL), detailed below:

The 248 links Upminster with Cranham, Hornchurch and Romford every 8 minutes during the day (Every 15 minutes on Sundays).

The 346 links Upminster with Cranham and Upminster Park Estate every 15 minutes during the day.

The 347 links Upminster with Ockendon, Harold Wood and Romford every 2 hours.

The 370 links Upminster with the towns/villages of Lakeside, Ockendon, Hornchurch and Romford every 15 minutes during the day (every 30 minutes on Sundays).

However, connections to Upminster are distinctly lacking in one area: Essex. Now, the 347 and 370 both venture into Essex beyond Ockendon, but I'm specifically talking about connections with non-London buses for onward travel. No non-London buses go to Upminster Park Estate, Cranham, Hornchurch or Romford. However, Ockendon and Lakeside both have multiple non-London buses, so what am I complaining about?

Ockendon has 1 Monday - Friday and 1 Monday - Saturday non-London bus service, listed below:

The 12 links Ockendon with Aveley, Belhus and Lakeside 4 times in the morning peak (Aveley - Lakeside) and 4 times in the evening peak (Lakeside - Aveley).

The 269 links Ockendon with Grays, Great Warley and Brentwood every 2 hours.

So not great connectivity there, but the 370 links Upminster and Ockendon with LAKESIDE. That's more promising - 10 non-London bus services, mainly listed below:

Ensign operates 9 routes, linking Lakeside (on Mondays - Saturdays) with Aveley, Bluewater, Tilbury, Chadwell St Mary, Stifford Clays, Purfleet, Grays etc. and (on Sundays) with Purfleet, Grays, Tilbury and Chadwell St Mary.

First operates service 100, linking Lakeside with Grays, Stanford-le-Hope, Basildon, Billericay and Chelmsford every 15 minutes Monday - Saturday during the day and every hour on a Sunday.

So the connections into Essex don't seem too bad from Lakeside... right? Wrong! If you look at all the Ensign destinations, none of those destinations (apart from Grays - explained in the next sentence) have direct connection with a bus into 'propa' Essex (eg. Chelmsford, Colchester, 'Saafend'). The 100 would be a very handy bus service - if it didn't take 2 hours to get to Chelmsford. So that's ruled out for a day out. It only takes an hour to get to Basildon, so that is really the only useful 2-bus link into Essex. There used to be an 848 and (I believe) 847 that linked Upminster with Ongar, when Travel with Hunny were in operation, but they are no longer. There is one non-London bus from Romford, but that leaves for Harlow at 14:00, so that's of not much use either. Furthermore, one bus DOES link just outside Upminster (Cooper's Company and Coborn School) with Great Warley, Brentwood and Billericay, but that is a school service. All the most handy services are always schools only! We do have a direct train service (the c2c) but some people prefer to use the bus and it would almost certainly be cheaper - especially if you were buying a day ticket.


So, to fix this lack of link, I propose 2 new bus services.
Service 1:

Upminster Station - West Horndon Station - Laindon, Southfields Business Park - Laindon Shopping Centre - Basildon Bus Station every 30 or 60 minutes.

The bus would run: Station Road (Upminster) - St Mary's Lane - Station Road (West Horndon) - Tilbury Road - Southend Arterial Road - W Mayne - Buxton Link - Bramston Way - Hornsby Way - Fenton Way - W Mayne - High Road - Laindon Link - Roundacre - Southernhay.

Unfortunately, due to St Mary's Lane being very tight in places, this would have to be run with a short bus eg. Optare Solo or 8.9m Enviro 200.

Service 2:

Upminster Station - Great Warley - Brentwood Station - Brentwood High Street every 60 minutes.

This bus would run: Hall Lane - Warley Road - Warley Hill - Kings Road - High Street

The route is quite short, so end-to-end and back again would take under 60 minutes, hence the frequency (it would only require one bus). The bus used could be a double decker if needed, but I have a feeling that - due to cost cutting measures - it would be a long single-decker (eg. 10.8m Enviro 200).

These routes would be very handy overall, but TFL probably wouldn't contract them, as they are nearly all outside the M25. For that reason, I reckon they would be operated on a commercial basis - probably by First Essex. If that was the case, they would probably use Solos and E200s already in the fleet.

I hope you enjoy this new series,
Jezza

Route focus: 346

Welcome to a new series on this blog, 'Route focus'

The first route in this series is the 346. It runs from Upminster Station to Upminster Park Estate. The route started on 24th September 1988 and was marketed as 'Hornchurch Hoppa'. The route was pretty much the same as it is today and it only ran Monday - Saturday, but occasionally on Mondays - Fridays between the peak times and shopping hours on a Saturday, it was extended to Corbets Tey, Huntsman and Hounds.

2 Bus stop flags I received fairly recently, one for the 346 'Hornchurch Hoppa'.

In 1990, the 346 transferred to County Bus from their Grays garage, then passing to Thameside (who I believe took over County Bus) soon after. An experimental Sunday service introduced in September 1996, but this was axed not that long after (exactly one year later). A loop working was then introduced at Upminster Park Estate, with the contract being renewed multiple times up until 31st September 2016, by which time Arriva had, in turn, taken over Thameside for many years. The allocation was usually the two 9.3m Darts (PDL95 and 96 -  now moved to the 410 in Croydon), but Cadets could occasionally work the route. The odd Enviro 200 was not uncommon in the early stages of 2016 either.

PDL95, the last ever Arriva 346 in the very early hours of 1st October.

Then, on 1st October 2016, there was a contract change. It had been with Arriva or its predecessors at Grays garage for pretty much all of its existence and then it went to Go-Ahead. For the first few months, ex-MetroBus Esteems ran the short route (230, 231 and 232), but the contract was awarded on the basis that 15-reg ex-W19 Enviro 200s would be introduced.

First day bunching, tut tut tut! 230 follows 232 at Upminster Park Estate

On the first day, there were some problems (as shown above). These short, single-door Esteems continued to shuttle back and forth between Upminster and Upminster Park Estate, until a remarkable day when one of the SOEs off school routes 646 and 648 (recently transferred from AL, Merton) appeared on the route!

Ex-AL dual-door SOE24 works the route for the first time, during the peak.

That working and the single-door Esteems still show their faces occasionally, but the main buses to work it are the 3 (up from 2 at the last contract change) allocated SEs - 232, 233 and 234, which first appeared on the route on the 14th January this year.

On the first day the SEs worked the route, here is SE234 after a trip from Upminster Park Estate.

And that's how it is now. The 3 SEs and the occasional Esteem going round and round in circles at a frequency of every 15 minutes. Still no Sunday service though...

Hope you enjoy this series :-)

Jezza

Welcome!

Hey there,

Welcome to my new blog, Travels of a Transport Nerd! This blog will be updated very regularly, with each bus/train/tram I go on in a different post, then a review of the day afterwards. Anyway, expect the first post to be fairly soon. For now, here are some of my favourite photos of 2017 so far!

An ex-First Enviro 200 on the new (at the time) route 61

An ex-W19 Enviro on the first day these buses transferred onto the 346

An MHV on route 40 in The City, with building works going on opposite

A 'Frogface' Gemini 3 on route 13, halfway down the rammed Oxford Street

A heritage 15 RM at Charing Cross in the evening light

During the Winter Lights festival, an Omnicity leaves Canary Wharf

The light on the front of this bus is amazing. 22:30 and an EH terminates at Liverpool Street

Wow. Just wow. I leave you with a Golden Tours EvoSeti with the Houses of Parliament overshadowing it.

Hope you enjoy the blog!
Jezza