The Bus Chronicles: Four of the fuckers at once

On Friday, I had the pleasure(?) of catching the 192 to Hazel Grove in order to collect the remainder of the cat's prescription from the vets after work.As such, I was party to the usual puzzling conundrum: Why is it, when you actually want to go to Hazel Grove, there is never a 192 coming down the road that is actually doing the full route?

In fairness, I think I'd just missed one, but when you're standing at a bus stop waiting for a bus for a good fifteen minutes or so and three 192's to Stepping Hill Hospital go past, it does get annoying. Especially as it reminded me of all of those times last November when I was waiting at the same bus stop, trying to get to the hospital at night. When all of the 192's that came along were going to Hazel Grove, not the hospital.

Eventually, the welcome sight of a big yellow double decker bearing the legend 'Hazel Grove P&R' homed into view. Followed by another one. And another one... and another one.

As the gentleman who had just arrived at the bus stop put it: "Four of the fuckers at once."

I don't feel he meant it as a compliment.

The actual journey was quick and uneventful, which is so remarkable on both counts that it really does deserve to be set down on record.

And then there was the 45 minute walk home, in blazing heat, from the vets. 

Both Hazel Grove and Offerton are ludicrously badly linked when it comes to buses. They are literally next to each other but there's no connecting bus. Similarly, there is no connecting bus between Hazel Grove and Bramhall to the other side of HG. On paper, HG seems well connected because the 192 (the Bee Network's busiest and most frequent bus route) runs through it. But it only runs through the centre, not the outskirts of what is not so much a village as a small town. 

To provide a bit of local history here: Back in the 1800's, Hazel Grove was three separate villages: Bullock Smithy, which is now the centre of Hazel Grove, Norbury, which is now the bit of Hazel Grove that sits next to Bramhall, and Torkington, the bit that sits next to Offerton. You can see echoes of the three old names throughout the area. At some point, they were brought together as one large village under the name Hazel Grove, a name I've never discovered a satisfying or plausible origin story for. The name Hazel Grove is, alas, almost certainly the justification for the metal sculpture outside Sainsbury's at the border of Great Moor and Hazel Grove. 

Because it was such a long walk, and I have a new mp3 player to break in, I had my headphones in for the duration. This served to remind me of how certain songs just really work when it comes to walking. In this case, weirdly, Nitan Sawhney's 'Days of Fire'. I found myself thinking about songs that really work in odd situations: Amy Winehouse's 'Rehab', for example, used to get played a lot in my old launderette in Heaton Moor, and is weirdly brilliant for shunting piles of washing around to. Similarly, on a very full on shift on a Saturday at the University Library, I discovered that Rachel Stevens' 'Some Girls' is fantastic for emptying a book sorter to. And then there is the oddly effective way that Carly Simons' 'Why?' works when you're pushing a supermarket trolley around the store. 

I don't think anyone can actually write, or playlist, a song deliberately according to whether you are walking, washing, book sorting, or supermarket shopping. But I know when I've come up against bad choices: Both The Ting Tings 'That's Not My Name' and Kate Nash's 'Foundations' really, really don't work in supermarkets, for example. That said, the time the Co-Op in Heaton Moor played the Wednesday version of 'Paint It Black' followed by the old Addams Family TV theme tune around Halloween a few years ago probably remains unbeaten. 

I arrived home sweaty and blistered, but with a strong sense of completion. 

Photo of Vernon Park in Offerton by Matthew Waring on Unsplash

Journalism revisited: Could tram-trains finally connect Stockport to Manchester's Metrolink network?

 In the light of this weeks announcement that Stockport was FINALLY going to get it's own Metrolink line, I wanted to look back on a piece I wrote for CityMetric in February 2020, when Covid was only just coming on the radar, and when Andy Burnham had proposed a slightly different way of getting trams to Stockport... 

Interestedly, or slightly ironically, tram-trains are now being floated as a possible solution in terms of bringing Bolton into the tram network.

This piece was originally published on the 11th February, 2020 in City Metric. City Metric shuttered at some point during the pandemic, and this piece can no longer be found online. It is being re-published thanks to Authory, who back up my articles for me, ensuring that I never lose my work. 

Could tram-trains finally connect Stockport to Manchester’s Metrolink network?

On the January 22, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, announced plans to extend Manchester’s Metrolink to Stockport. The extension relies on the success of the trials of tram-trains, which local Tories have previously signalled support for.

According to Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), tram-train refers to “a light-rail public transport system where tram services like Metrolink can share lines with conventional trains”. The idea is that tram-train routes would “help to improve access to the city centre at the busiest times, while also offering more capacity on the heavy rail network”. Using existing or re-opened railway lines would also be cheaper than building new tram lines. 

It’s probably worth noting at this point that Stockport has two Tory MPs and that the Johnson government currently has a strong desire to please voters in the north.

While the prospect of Metrolink coming to Stockport is good news for the town, residents can be forgiven for shrugging and saying, “Believe it when I see it mate”. 

Aside from being glass half empty people a lot of the time, we have been here before.

Stockport should have had the Metrolink 15 years ago: It was promised to the town under the ‘Big Bang’ plan of the early 2000’s, which included a new line to Manchester Airport which would have continued on to Stockport. That line was scrapped, along with new lines to Oldham and Rochdale, by then transport minister Alistair Darling in 2004. Having been burnt once, Stopfordians won’t believe we’re getting Metrolink until we see the first tram pull into the town centre. 

Why should we be more hopeful this time? For one thing, Metrolink and Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) seem to have learned a series of very hard lessons since 2004. Chief among these is that, rather than going for large, expensive projects, any extensions to the Metrolink would have to be achieved by smaller projects, such as the lines to Manchester Airport (but not to Stockport), Rochdale and Oldham (which were all eventually built as separate projects) in a slower, more piecemeal fashion. 

Another reason why the Metrolink is more likely to come to Stockport this time is that work starts this year on the Stockport Interchange building project, intended to improve the existing bus station. The project was first mooted as one of the projects that would have been funded by a proposed congestion charge in 2008. Having spent £120m on Stockport Interchange, keeping it solely for the use of our far from perfect buses while providing a better linking route to our atrocious trains would be a missed opportunity: space for a tram route and tram stop are apparently included in the plans.

A tram-train network would also be cheaper than building a series of tram lines to Stockport. It’s been proposed before, alongside suggestions that closed railway lines could be re-opened to run the tram-trains. Three of the four potential routes TFGM has identified for possible tram-train development are in Stockport, or would pass through Stockport. 

A map of possible new routes and stations. Image: TfGM.

It’s this compromise of tram-trains rather than “proper” trams that makes me feel like a poor country cousin though. Not only have I spent the past 15 years feeling like an urchin peering in through the windows of the big house at the rich children with their luxurious toys, but I’m now not even going to get the same toys as those children. Personally, I’d take second hand toys, but there is still a suggestion of the Stockport Metrolink being an afterthought. 

Still, better second hand toys than no toys at all. The population of Bolton aren’t even mentioned in TfGM’s future plans for the Metrolink, despite having a better designed transport interchange than Stockport currently has. God only knows when Bolton will be getting any trams.

The Bus Chronicles: The Bee Network, six months in

The 3rd of June marks the sixth month anniversary of the Bee Network. Or, to put it another way, it will have been six months since franchising was rolled out across all 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester.

With this in mind, now seems like a good opportunity to look back and reflect on what have been the good bits and the bad bits of this form of franchising so far. Unfortunately, as a regular bus user, it's actually easier to spot the things that haven't gone so well than the things that have gone well.

One area that has seen an improvement is contracts for drivers, with the 'Licence for Greater Manchester' now meaning that drivers can leave one of the bus companies operating on the Bee Network in order to work for another one also operating on the Bee Network, without having to start at the new company on a basic salary. Ie, they can keep their previous grade and salary when they move companies and will no longer have to take a pay cut every time they change operators. This is really good news because it removes barriers to moving jobs, which is always a good thing, and in practical terms would mean that if you're working for a shit bus operator you can now move to a slightly better one without having to take a pay cut for the privilege of doing so. 

An area where the Bee Network sought to make positive change was in the design and accessibility of the new yellow buses, which were meant to be more accessible for those with disabilities and with visual and hearing impairments. On paper at least, this has been achieved in that the new buses do have floors that can be lowered, there is greater space for wheelchairs, and there are stop display screens and recorded audio stop announcements in place. In reality though, it just isn't working as it should be.

Let's take the changes one at a time.

In terms of having a bus that can lower the floor to the same height as the kerb, this is something that was in place on most of the old buses anyway (certainly on Stagecoach buses) and, as previously, while it's good to have it and it should be standard, the implementation of it's use depends very much on the individual driver as well as on the individual driver's access to the bus stop. For example, the 385 is cursed by having a large number of bus stops without road markings where local residents are forever parking their cars with impunity. This makes it hard for intrepid 385 drivers to pull into the stop and get close enough to the pavement to ensure a smooth exit from the bus. A drop down floor doesn't solve this particular problem. Proper road markings for bus stops and enforcement action against motorists parking at bus stops would. 

The greater space for wheelchairs is really good and does ensure that there is more room on the buses for those using a wheelchair. I'm really glad that it was built into the design, but... It does mean that there are now less seats on the buses. Especially the single decker buses and the smaller single decker buses that basically resemble a minibus. This unfortunately leads to more people standing in the aisles, hindering access for everyone, including those using a wheelchair.

The visual display screens and audio announcements were being trialled on Stagecoach pre Bee Network and, as with the ones on the Stagecoach buses, the problems have remained the same: They are rarely switched on and, when the drivers do remember to switch them on, they often have the wrong end of the route displayed. There is literally no point in looking at a list of real time stop information for the Hawk Green and Mellor end of the 385 route if you're actually travelling in the opposite direction towards Stockport. It tends to be even rarer for the audio stop announcements to be switched on and, again, they sometimes are wrong as well. I'm assuming that the three main reasons why the visual and audio stop info isn't switched on are as follows:

1) Lack of training on how to switch them on and ensure they are working properly.

2) Tech failures

3) Drivers find the audio announcements annoying and know that some passengers do as well.

This all leads me onto a number of other areas in which the first six months of the Bee Network can be seen to have not been that great.

Firstly, there have been problems with vehicles. Not just the new vehicles - which have definitely had problems, both as described above, but also with payment scanners not working properly for days or weeks at a time - but also with old vehicles. Specifically, there have been a number of occasions when I've flagged down a bus that I know is my bus (because no other buses stop at that stop) but it has either not had a destination or number displayed on the front of the vehicle or, on one memorable occasion, has had the 'Sorry, not in service' display up while still carrying passengers. 

There's also driving styles, which leads onto a personal bugbear of mine, ie drivers who don't know how to drive over speed bumps without treating passengers like a sack of spuds in a delivery van. 

The big problem is, of course, reliability. According to the data that the Bee Network has collected over the past six months, reliability on bus routes in Tranches 1, 2 and 3 of the Bee Network is constantly improving. But it doesn't feel like that to passengers. As regular readers will know, the reliability of the 385 has - in my experience of using it - decreased since the contract was taken away from D&G and given to Diamond in January. Similarly, while it felt as though reliability on the 383 had improved since January, it now seems to be sliding backwards again (more on this in my previous post). With reliability in particular, perception of passengers is as important as cold hard statistics. If people don't feel that they are getting an improved service, they won't feel good about using the Bee Network. And they may even stop using it. 

The Bus Chronicles: The 199, a cross boundary bus adventure

The 199

I've always liked the 199. 

This dates back to the decades before re-regulation when I still lived in Hazel Grove and was working evening shifts in Manchester. In theory, I should have been able to catch a 192 from Manchester Piccadilly that would take me all the way to what is now the Park and Ride in Hazel Grove, but what was then just known as Carpet World. In reality, it wasn't uncommon - particularly on Friday's when I finished at 7pm, not 9:30pm - to be stood at the bus stop, watching a long run of part route 192's appear and drive off. If I'd been waiting a while, I would give up and get on a part route one, then get off and Stockport town centre and hope to catch any of the following:

1) A 192 that was doing the full route

2) A 199 going to Buxton via Hazel Grove

3) A 392 or 393 going to Macclesfield via Hazel Grove

4) A 391 going to Middlewood via Hazel Grove

The 392 and 393 seem to have fallen by the wayside since January, meaning that there is no longer a bus that can take you to Macclesfield from Stockport, and commuters are now entirely at the mercy of Northern trains, which is not a happy state of affairs. I'm guessing that the reason it's gone is because for it to continue TfGM, Stockport Council and Cheshire East Council would have had to have cooperated with each other and subsidised it together, and presumably no one could be bothered. Cheshire East Council has no money so that probably didn't help. 

The now extinct 392

Anyway, the 199, which travels between Buxton and Manchester Airport (via Hazel Grove and Stockport town centre) is a cross boundary route which was always going to survive. It's really popular, runs regularly (every 30 minutes most of the time), is covering areas other routes don't cover, and it's being run in conjunction with Derbyshire County Council, not Cheshire East. 

Because there is no bus service linking our end of Offerton to Hazel Grove anymore (the one that did previously was the 375, which was so infrequent as to be practically non existent anyway) it was a 30 minute walk to the A6 to pick up the 199 from Bird In Hand Yard. This turned out not to be the best choice of stop in the world because, as with most stops on the A6, it's pretty much impossible to have a clear vantage point on whether the bus is coming without standing in the way of the constant flow of human traffic heading along the pavement. At least there's a nice wall to sit on though.

We were going for the 12:21 bus only it never arrived and we instead ended up on the 12:51, which arrived around 1pm ish. Apparently there had been an accident somewhere along the route, possibly at the Airport end, and there was definitely a serious crash in Buxton so that probably had an impact as well. I'm not sure if Skyline simply pulled the 12:21 bus and didn't tell anyone (a'la Stagecoach) or if their timetable had just got so badly out of sync thanks to at least one serious RTA that the one that turned up at 1pm was the one that should have turned up at 12:21. We will never know.

I've never gone beyond the TfGM/Derbyshire border* on the bus before, so I've always been able to use my TfGM pass previously. Because we were going to Chapel-en-le-frith, which is across the Derbyshire border, I had to pay £6 for a Peak Network 1 Day pass, which I think is the one that covers you for all buses run by Skyline. They sell a number of different day passes by zone and, while I was expecting Chapel to be covered by the Buxton zone ticket, I was willing to be guided by the driver on this. Again, because it's Derbyshire, not Greater Manchester, the single fare cap is £3, not £2 anyway, and £3 each way would have been value for money for a 35-45 minute bus journey. 

One of the reasons why I've always enjoyed using the 199 is that the buses are always clean and comfortable, the drivers are friendly, and it just feels pleasant travelling on them. Friday was no exception to this and I was very pleased to notice, after a while, that Skyline have visual and audio stop announcements (which were turned on and displaying/broadcasting the correct information on both buses) which came in very useful when it came to getting off at the right stop in Chapel. 

On the way back, I discovered that I could still use the Bee Network app (even in Derbyshire) to see when the next 199 was due. I think it was late but, given that we only had to wait for 10 minutes for it, I was happy with that. It did take several attempts to figure out how to scan in with the QR code on my paper ticket but, once I'd mastered it, it was fine and a smooth return journey unfolded, followed by a long walk home. 

*Lyme Park, which technically comes under Cheshire East, but which is right on the Cheshire East/Derbyshire border and, anyway, marks one of the geographical points where you have to start buying a separate ticket and can't use your TfGM/Bee Network tickets.