Alex 2901
Member
(I really need a catchier title, but hey ho.)
I did have a thread on here that I used to update my trip reports, but given I haven't posted in it since 2019, it has understandably been locked... so here's a new one:
Anyway, in that five years (I can just feel myself aging to dust saying that...), a lot has changed. I'm now at university, studying Transport Management, and as such, that offers some interesting opportunities...
One such opportunity was a place at the Young Bus Professionals conference in Glasgow (actually in Paisley... ish) on the 21st/22nd March, and so, I took that opportunity with open arms. I'd been to the conference when it was still the Young Bus Managers and it was rather closer... in Liverpool.
Anyway, with a place confirmed, it was time to plan how I was going to get there. The obvious choice from Wolverhampton would be to just get an Avanti service direct to Glasgow Central... which would be fantastic, had Avanti not cut the Glasgow service to such a degree as to be unusable for a conference starting at 1430 - the first train north being at 0932, and Avanti wanting £139 for the return...
Okay, so that was out (the uni may have been paying for the conference, but not my travel.), so a new plan was quickly formulated.
Since my father now lives on the Fylde Coast, I decided to take a brief break to go see him, and I would stop overnight before heading to Preston the next morning, and picking up a service north from there...
20th March
So, fast forward to the 20th March, and I was out the house around 0815, for a 25 to Wolverhampton at 0825. Stumpy Enviro200 763 rocked up, and the journey to Wolverhampton was relatively painless, getting me into the city for around 0910, and in plenty of time for my 0949 Voyager up to Manchester.
Food was gotten, and after a short wait at Wolverhampton Station, 220023 pulled in on 1M25, and I took my seat for the journey to Manchester Piccadilly.
As usual, it was busy, but the journey was relatively short, getting me into Piccadilly by 11, where I'd have a short walk over to Chorlton Street for an X43 up to Burnley or an X41 up to Accrington. In actuality, I had two choices, as both the X41 and X43 were due around 1110, and I considered my options.
Dud B7RLE 1868 pulled around on the X41, whilst a winning Witchway E400MMC, 2011, pulled round on the X43, which made my choice quite easy...
The Witchway MMCs are quite probably the best specified vehicles in the UK in my opinion, with seats that rival my sofa for comfort and almost everything that could be offered on a bus; Wi-Fi, USB charging (which wasn't working on 2011), wireless charging, cupholders and small tables at some seats...
As such, I settled in for the ride up the M66 towards Rawtenstall, the weather finally started to look a little brighter, and 2011 made good progress up the M66 into Rawtenstall, then up the A682 into Burnley.
Once in Burnley, I realised I hadn't actually got a plan, and realising that time was getting on a little, I decided to jump on the next 152 that turned up.
I almost immediately found myself regretting that choice when a single deck, unbranded E200MMC 512, pulled in on the 152, instead of the more usual B9TL deckers branded for the route.
Despite some... choice words being had with an old lady who decided that queuing wasn't for her (turns out a great big duffel bag has a decent use in blocking people from queue jumping, who knew?), I got on 512 and settled in for the run to Blackburn, where I'd change for a 59 into Preston. The 152 does continue to Preston, but honestly, two hours on an E200MMC doesn't sound like my definition of fun, and at least the change would give me a chance to stretch my legs... which was needed after an hour on 512.
At Blackburn, I decided to get some pictures, knowing that Transdev's fleet of B10BLEs were not long for this world - at the time, I believed they had just over a week left, and had I had a bit longer, I wouldn't have minded a trip via Clitheroe to tick off one last B10BLE on the 22. I got a picture of a couple of Valleyline branded examples, and a single Blackburn Bus Company liveried one, but it had meant I'd let a 59 go.
No worry, it's every 20 minutes, and I'd just seen one go up to the hospital, so it should be back soon... right?
It wasn't, and so I jumped on the next 152, thankfully a Hotline branded B9TL, 2772, for the trip to Preston.
Just shy of an hour later (and a far more comfortable ride than on 512), I was in Preston Bus Station, waiting for a 68 to take me to St Annes. Much to my annoyance, the one Scania E400 that pulled in was 15912, one of the batch new for the 59/61 (Preston to Blackburn (59) or Blackpool (61)), and one that I must have had twenty odd times since it was new in 2013, especially given how often I used to get the 61 when I was younger...
The 68 is one of those routes I never really did when I was younger (and slightly regret that now, given the Tridents are long since gone off it), as it's an alright run... assuming you don't have to stop at every stop, because there are a lot between Preston and Blackpool.
As my luck can be described as "ha, no.", we had to stop at every stop between Preston and St Anne's, meaning that not only was 15912 nearly fifteen minutes late, despite leaving on time, it took almost 90 minutes to get from Preston to St Anne's.
Luckily, the seemingly infinite journey on the 68 ended, and I was able to meet up with my father to go check into the hotel I was stopping in, drop the bag down and go for dinner at the carvery on the sea front, before going for a wander along the sea front.
21st March
Having spent my evening doing coursework, before getting an early night, I woke up early for once, and managed to get out of the hotel in time for the 68 ahead of the one I'd planned to get at 0730, instead making the 0710, which was a winning Scania E400, 15577.
Despite this batch having spent their lives in the Preston area, being new for the 125 (Preston - Chorley - Bolton) in 2009, before being replaced by Gold spec Scania E400s in 2015, I've not really had chance to get many of them, so it made a nice change to have one up the Fylde Coast into Preston, especially when you don't have to stop at every single stop too.
As a classmate and friend was also going to the conference (though he was coming from the Wirral rather than the West Midlands), we'd both booked on 1S42 up to Glasgow; him from Crewe, myself from Preston), which meant I had just over an hour between getting into Preston Bus Station, and my train being due, so I decided to do a bit of spotting before I got a bus over to the station.
With spotting done, I jumped on the next bus to the station, Enviro300 27290 on the 111, and got a bite to eat from McDonalds in the Fishergate Centre, before I headed off to the station to wait for 390153 to turn up.
With time to spare, 390153 turned up heading north, and I went and took my seat with him for the journey north. It'd been quite a long time since I'd actually been north of Lancaster on the West Coast Mainline, so I spent quite a lot of the two and a half hour journey watching out the window as we sped through the Lake District.
Given how badly I thought the journey might drag on, it didn't, and in what felt like far less than two and a half hours, we pulled into Glasgow Central on time... only to find it was cold, windy and pouring down with rain.
Nothing much had changed since I last went to Glasgow in 2018 then. Wet, cold and windy...
Arriving in Glasgow, we decided to get our bearings (admittedly only after a few minutes of gawping at Glasgow Central's architecture) and I was reminded of why I had suggested jumping on the 398 to reach Buchanan Bus Station - walking the 15 minutes to the Bus Station with a bag that felt like it was crushing my shoulder in that weather really wasn't much fun.
Still, we got to Buchanan Bus Station, and after being reminded that it is huge (I believe it's the largest Bus Station in the UK, but I could be wrong on that one), we began to set out a plan for how we would get to the hotel.
In theory, we could've gotten the 26 from outside Glasgow Central, but we had decided to walk up to the Bus Station instead, so we would have to intercept it at Braehead, or catch the 77 to the hotel.
As we had just missed a 77 to Glasgow Airport (only Airport bound 77s called at the hotel, and those were half-hourly), we settled on getting one of the Clyde Flyer routes to Braehead instead, and to our benefit, an X7 was due not long after we got to the stand.
Our bus to Braehead would be one of McGills Citaro Ks, 3323, and we'd seen the promotional material advertising a £3.80 return to Braehead, so we had assumed a single would be around £2.80.
We were wrong - £5.60 for a single. After a slight moment where I suspect I looked like a deer caught in headlights, I decided to just buy a return instead. Perhaps I've gotten too used to the £2 capped fares here in England, but even by the standards before that, a £5.60 single for that short a distance would've been extortionate!
As the conference was been headed by the management of McGills, we both made a note of this experience...
Despite the mild shock at the fare, we settled in aboard 3323 for the 15 minute journey down the M8 to Braehead. Citaro Ks are probably one of my favourite Euro 6 types, so I wasn't complaining about the ride at least, and it was a pretty comfortable 15 minutes at least.
Changing at Braehead, we had a decent number of options for the hotel - the 26 ran every 7 minutes from here (rather than quarter-hourly from the city centre), plus the 23P if that turned up whilst we were waiting, so we decided it would be easier to jump on the first bus that turned up.
Yutong 5000 turned up on a 26 to Nethercraigs, and so we jumped on that for the 15-20 minutes down through Renfrew, and found ourselves suitably impressed by the quality of the Yutongs as we headed down the Renfrew Road. The only minor nitpick was that the stopping bells really do sound like Ring doorbell cams, and can get a little annoying after a while.
Jumping off for the hotel, we were reminded that we were quite close to the River Clyde and all that entailed... namely being battered by the rain and wind as we walked down to the hotel.
Once we'd settled in, the first item on the agenda was a site visit to one of McGills' depots for a tour, and we'd reckoned it would likely be Johnstone, given the depot was the nearest to the hotel.
Parked outside were two vehicles - another Yutong, 5531, and a coach that I completely forgot to make a note of - and we decided to get the Yutong, to see how they performed when needing to get a move on, given the trip to Johnstone would involve a short dash down the M8.
Quite well, as it turned out, and the site visit proved fascinating too, having McGills journey towards electrification explained to us by the CEO, as Scotrail Class 380s passed behind the yard, before we took a tour around the depot itself and listened to a presentation by then-MD Alex Hornby on the growth of McGills to include Dundee, Midland Bluebird and Brightbus, and then headed back to the hotel in order to get ready for our evening dinner.
The dinner was good; a steak and ale pot pie for main and profiteroles for dessert, before got a speech from Ralph Roberts, the CEO of McGills about... to be quite honest, I struggled to keep up with what was being said - two nights of poor sleep and a cold had caught up with me. I think it was broadly about how deregulation was a good thing for some - one quote did stick in my head though:
"When we (McGills) started around here, there were 43 operators in Paisley. Now there's 3... and we only bought seven of them."
With the speech over, the two options were to stick around for drinks, and be sociable... or go back to our rooms and get some rest for tomorrow.
Without much thought, I headed back to my room to prepare my bag for leaving in the morning, and to get some rest...
22nd March
Thankfully, I didn't have to be up before 7 this time, and had a lie in till 8am, before getting ready for the conference itself.
Which took a little longer than I'd have liked, as it was 08:57 when I finally got to the conference hall.
The weather had also improved, thankfully, so going outside for fresh air no longer felt like I was at risk of being blown all the way to Faslane by a strong gust.
Anyway, we took our seats for the first three speakers, and much to our surprise, whilst Roger French was giving his opening speech, we had the spotlight turned on us briefly, explaining who we were and why we were here, and this would set the tone going on a little bit.
Namely getting the whole "wink to the camera" thing when something was said, as if we were the fourth wall.
Still, the speakers were all really good, offering great insights into the industry (even if my mind's gone blank on who some of them represented. Oops.), and we found ourselves going into the group activity.
Now, this had been the bit of the day that I had properly enjoyed at Liverpool, even if the original Metro Mayor pledge challenge had somehow become rather more... Soviet in its presentation (don't ask - even I was confused and I was there at the time...), and whilst this one wasn't quite as fun - it was rather more of something we'd have done in uni, as it was compiling a list of challenges facing the industry in our specific areas that we picked - it was still an important thing to see the opinions on.
I chose marketing, because I spent two years doing graphic design before university, and the advertising side of things has always interested me anyway.
Considering this, there did seem to be a not so minor disconnect between industry and customer (as someone who uses services very regularly), especially when areas such as information provision and legibility of that information came up.
One of the areas I expected to be more contentious was that of A.I. timetabling, but it kind of wasn't. Most of the group agreed it was an acceptable trade off for reliability, that passengers wouldn't necessarily know what frequency the bus turned up at, and that we should be saying "X buses an hour" instead.
Personally, I strongly disagree with that, and the idea that AI does a better job than a trained human in this area. Especially as for many operators, there's a non-zero chance that it will be subject to the old adage of "Garbage in, garbage out".
This is also a slight issue with writing this months after the fact... I've completely forgotten what was actually chosen as the major issues - although I know image was definitely one of them...
Anyway, after that, lunch was had, and we had more seminars - this time from people I do remember, the MD of Stagecoach West Scotland, someone from Stagecoach East Scotland discussing their Autonomous Bus project, and someone from Portsmouth City Council, discussing their BSIP and how it was being implemented, all of which bought us to the end of the conference...
At 15:15.
A mild mistake had been made earlier, in booking the last coach of the day back to Birmingham, the 23:50 M17 bound for Southampton, meaning I now had almost eight hours to kill before my coach.
The mention of the Autonomous Bus had given me an idea though - Ferrytoll Park & Ride isn't that far from Glasgow, so surely I should be able to make it for the last AB1 at 18:00, right?
Thus, a plan formed. Once back in Glasgow, I'd get the X27 up to Dunfermline, and change for an X55 to Ferrytoll, arriving at... 17:57.
Okay, so that's closer than I'd like, but at least I'd have chance to rest my shoulders from carrying my bag whilst I was on the way.
Leaving the hotel, we got the 26 into Paisley, 5513, another Yutong, and changed for Paisley Gilmour Street, where we had 380110 into Glasgow Central.
Saying goodbye to my friend, who was going to explore the rail network around Glasgow until his train arrived at 20:08, I headed out of the station and jumped on the 398 to the Bus Station, one of the Scotrail liveried BYD Enviro200EVs - 64102.
Solid enough buses, if a bit boring, though I still massively prefer the Yutongs.
Arriving at Buchanan Bus Station in time for the 16:25 X27, I had B13RT/Elite 54311 for the hour and ten minute journey to Dunfermline, and so I settled in.
54311 might have been a dud for me, as it was new to Bedford for the now butchered up X5, and I hadn't least two of the X5's Elites... that I completely failed to note the fleet numbers of.
The route of the X27 itself is just a motorway run down the M8 as far as Cumbernauld, before crossing the Firth of Forth into Kincardine, and heading directly into Dunfermline, but it was nice to cross the Firth of Forth in broad daylight this time, and the view was pretty fantastic...
Making it into Dunfermline with about two minutes to spare for the X55, I was able to just about leg it to the stand, and tick off a type I've never had before, 54503, a B8RLE/Panther LE, for the 20 odd minutes down to Ferrytoll.
Nothing much to say here, the X55 isn't really anything special other than crossing the Forth Road Bridge, and we made it into Ferrytoll with four minutes to spare before the last AB1.
It was here that I probably should've tempered my interest in having an autonomous bus for the first time, and remembered that they were currently operating in manual mode.
In other words, the AB1 was pretty much just a B1, and I only clocked this as 62002 left Ferrytoll.
After a bit of disappointment, and a bit of laughing that I'd come all this way for a bog standard Stagecoach E200MMC essentially, I settled in for the trip across the Firth of Forth to Edinburgh Park, which was... fine. The view was spectacular, the bus was nothing special without the autopilot.
Arriving at Edinburgh Park, I realised an error - the bus stop is around the back of the station, meaning I would either have to walk back up the bridge I'd just crossed with a bag weighing me down... or get the train into Edinburgh.
I chose the latter, and narrowly missed a 334 as I frantically attempted to get a ticket on the self service machine. After about fifteen minutes though, a pair of 385s turned up - 385001/385035 - for the journey into Edinburgh.
Having never had a 385 till now, I was reasonably impressed with the pair I had, and the short journey passed by uneventfully.
Getting off at Edinburgh, I remembered why I liked the station, and the city as a whole - it has a kind of style to it, something I've never been fully able to articulate... though I could have done with less escalators whilst carrying my bag.
Getting a bite to eat from the KFC on the way out, I went onto the main street to think what to do next.
In one corner, I figured I should probably make my way back towards Glasgow - it was now 7pm, and I didn't really want to make an ill planned trip somewhere that I could get stuck, because I missed the last bus...
In the other- ooh, Airlink XLB.
So I decided on a trip out to Edinburgh Airport, where I knew that I at least had Citylink as an option back to Glasgow if needs must, and jumped on one of the tri-axle E400XLBs on the 100, 1136.
I've had two of these before, though both were at Stagecoach East as part of their Busway fleet, so I was interested to see how comfortable the Airlink ones would be in comparison.
Very, as it turned out. Upstairs, there's 2 by 1 coach style seating throughout, and very comfortable it was too, for the short dash down the A9 to the Airport.
Arriving at the Airport, I jumped on 26168 on a 747 heading to Halbeath Park & Ride, which I had (incorrectly) assumed would go via Dunfermline, leaving me with a safety net for the last X24 of the night back to Glasgow.
A safety net I still had at Halbeath, given the 747 was due into Halbeath at 20:25, whilst the X24 was due in at 20:48. The only problem I saw with the plan was that Halbeath is a Park and ride, and so any facilities would no doubt have closed by about 6pm, let alone half 8...
Unlike England, that wasn't the case here, and I took a seat in the waiting room whilst I tracked the X24's progress from St Andrews, until it was about five minutes out, and went out to wait for it.
54358 turned up on time, and I settled in for the last trip of the night through total darkness now, with my X24 due into Glasgow at 22:25, about 90 minutes before my coach and leaving me with plenty of time to stock up on snacks and supplies for the six and a half hour journey back...
One thing that did baffle me was closing the concourse at Buchanan Bus Station at 11pm, when coaches were still arriving and departing far later than that, but I settled down for the now 50 minute wait until the M17 departed... or even arrived apparently.
Eventually, it arrived around 23:40, with Parks of Hamilton's KSK 979 doing the duty down to the south coast, and with the expectation that this was going to be busy, I braced myself for a very long six hours.
It actually wasn't that busy, and so, I had the double seat to myself the whole way back to Birmingham...
23rd March
The first stop south on the M17 was at Preston, which surprised me as to how busy the city was at half 3 in the morning, before we made our way to Manchester Shudehill at about half 4, where about half of the coach got off, with another group of passengers boarding.
The last stop on my journey south passed by, at Manchester Airport, and I found myself asleep leaving the Airport and waking up as we approached Spaghetti Junction.
Unsurprisingly, the traffic down the Aston Expressway was almost non-existent at 6am on a Saturday, and the M17 pulled into Birmingham on time, at 06:20, where I walked from Brunel Street, the Megabus stand, up to The Square Peg to get a bus back to Walsall.
At 06:30, most of the options back hadn't started yet, meaning I was left with the 51 at 06:39, which would mean a 30 odd minute wait in Walsall for the second 41 home, a 934 at 06:41 that had the same problem, or a 997 at 06:43 that would get me into Walsall with only 15 minutes to wait.
I took the latter option, jumping on 6736 for the journey to Walsall, and unsurprisingly, I was the only person onboard leaving City.
The 997 is one of the routes I actually associate my interest with buses on, despite having never lived particularly close to the route - 5 year old me being particularly impressed by the shiny, modern looking Geminis with high backed seats and special red, white and sky blue striped livery on the Premier 997 as it was called then and the timetable booklet produced for the route.
I remember actually pestering my dad and nan to take me to Walsall to get one, only to be disappointed when it was pointed out that, at this time, the 997 only ran to Walsall at rush hour, evenings and Sundays, all other trips terminating in Aldridge...
Things changed over the next 20 years - new buses would again follow in 2008, with more variants added: the 997A to Kingstanding, every hour and the 997B to Bloxwich, which was just the peak hours only 158 renumbered.
The route would also be swapped with the 355/355A/356 around 2010 to operate half hourly to Walsall all day, whilst the section via Barns Lane was replaced by the 35, whilst the 997A and 997B were ditched.
More new buses would again follow in 2015, with Walsall receiving 40 Platinum spec Enviro400MMCs for the fast Birmingham routes (at the time, this was the 934/935/935A/936, 997 and X51), and that roughly brings us up to the present day.
Regardless, the 997 is quite a circuitous route, going through Old Oscott, Pheasey, Streetly, Barr Beacon, Aldridge and Rushall to reach Walsall, and even at 6am, it's given nearly an hour to do the full route, getting me into Walsall around 07:30.
After a short stop off for a drink, B7RLE 2126 turned up on the 41 home, and despite the fun trip I'd had, I was definitely ready for my own bed again for the first time in what felt like an eternity, getting home almost exactly four days after I'd left...
A few people to thank for the whole trip -
The first is Roger French for making the whole conference possible, and just being generally nice to talk to from someone who's never been great at talking to new people, especially those senior to me.
The same goes to the Chief Operating Officer of First Bus, Andrew Jarvis, who came over to us and had a good chat with us, as well as giving us some words of wisdom about the industry.
The last was the Glynhill Hotel near Paisley, who were kind enough to save me a 650 mile round trip to rescue my spare pair of glasses when I left them in my room, by mailing them back to me...
Hopefully this has been an interesting read, and I'll be able to do a few more of these reports - even if I doubt many will come from industry conferences in future...
I did have a thread on here that I used to update my trip reports, but given I haven't posted in it since 2019, it has understandably been locked... so here's a new one:
Anyway, in that five years (I can just feel myself aging to dust saying that...), a lot has changed. I'm now at university, studying Transport Management, and as such, that offers some interesting opportunities...
One such opportunity was a place at the Young Bus Professionals conference in Glasgow (actually in Paisley... ish) on the 21st/22nd March, and so, I took that opportunity with open arms. I'd been to the conference when it was still the Young Bus Managers and it was rather closer... in Liverpool.
Anyway, with a place confirmed, it was time to plan how I was going to get there. The obvious choice from Wolverhampton would be to just get an Avanti service direct to Glasgow Central... which would be fantastic, had Avanti not cut the Glasgow service to such a degree as to be unusable for a conference starting at 1430 - the first train north being at 0932, and Avanti wanting £139 for the return...
Okay, so that was out (the uni may have been paying for the conference, but not my travel.), so a new plan was quickly formulated.
Since my father now lives on the Fylde Coast, I decided to take a brief break to go see him, and I would stop overnight before heading to Preston the next morning, and picking up a service north from there...
20th March
So, fast forward to the 20th March, and I was out the house around 0815, for a 25 to Wolverhampton at 0825. Stumpy Enviro200 763 rocked up, and the journey to Wolverhampton was relatively painless, getting me into the city for around 0910, and in plenty of time for my 0949 Voyager up to Manchester.
Food was gotten, and after a short wait at Wolverhampton Station, 220023 pulled in on 1M25, and I took my seat for the journey to Manchester Piccadilly.
As usual, it was busy, but the journey was relatively short, getting me into Piccadilly by 11, where I'd have a short walk over to Chorlton Street for an X43 up to Burnley or an X41 up to Accrington. In actuality, I had two choices, as both the X41 and X43 were due around 1110, and I considered my options.
Dud B7RLE 1868 pulled around on the X41, whilst a winning Witchway E400MMC, 2011, pulled round on the X43, which made my choice quite easy...
The Witchway MMCs are quite probably the best specified vehicles in the UK in my opinion, with seats that rival my sofa for comfort and almost everything that could be offered on a bus; Wi-Fi, USB charging (which wasn't working on 2011), wireless charging, cupholders and small tables at some seats...
As such, I settled in for the ride up the M66 towards Rawtenstall, the weather finally started to look a little brighter, and 2011 made good progress up the M66 into Rawtenstall, then up the A682 into Burnley.
Once in Burnley, I realised I hadn't actually got a plan, and realising that time was getting on a little, I decided to jump on the next 152 that turned up.
I almost immediately found myself regretting that choice when a single deck, unbranded E200MMC 512, pulled in on the 152, instead of the more usual B9TL deckers branded for the route.
Despite some... choice words being had with an old lady who decided that queuing wasn't for her (turns out a great big duffel bag has a decent use in blocking people from queue jumping, who knew?), I got on 512 and settled in for the run to Blackburn, where I'd change for a 59 into Preston. The 152 does continue to Preston, but honestly, two hours on an E200MMC doesn't sound like my definition of fun, and at least the change would give me a chance to stretch my legs... which was needed after an hour on 512.
At Blackburn, I decided to get some pictures, knowing that Transdev's fleet of B10BLEs were not long for this world - at the time, I believed they had just over a week left, and had I had a bit longer, I wouldn't have minded a trip via Clitheroe to tick off one last B10BLE on the 22. I got a picture of a couple of Valleyline branded examples, and a single Blackburn Bus Company liveried one, but it had meant I'd let a 59 go.
No worry, it's every 20 minutes, and I'd just seen one go up to the hospital, so it should be back soon... right?
It wasn't, and so I jumped on the next 152, thankfully a Hotline branded B9TL, 2772, for the trip to Preston.
Just shy of an hour later (and a far more comfortable ride than on 512), I was in Preston Bus Station, waiting for a 68 to take me to St Annes. Much to my annoyance, the one Scania E400 that pulled in was 15912, one of the batch new for the 59/61 (Preston to Blackburn (59) or Blackpool (61)), and one that I must have had twenty odd times since it was new in 2013, especially given how often I used to get the 61 when I was younger...
The 68 is one of those routes I never really did when I was younger (and slightly regret that now, given the Tridents are long since gone off it), as it's an alright run... assuming you don't have to stop at every stop, because there are a lot between Preston and Blackpool.
As my luck can be described as "ha, no.", we had to stop at every stop between Preston and St Anne's, meaning that not only was 15912 nearly fifteen minutes late, despite leaving on time, it took almost 90 minutes to get from Preston to St Anne's.
Luckily, the seemingly infinite journey on the 68 ended, and I was able to meet up with my father to go check into the hotel I was stopping in, drop the bag down and go for dinner at the carvery on the sea front, before going for a wander along the sea front.
21st March
Having spent my evening doing coursework, before getting an early night, I woke up early for once, and managed to get out of the hotel in time for the 68 ahead of the one I'd planned to get at 0730, instead making the 0710, which was a winning Scania E400, 15577.
Despite this batch having spent their lives in the Preston area, being new for the 125 (Preston - Chorley - Bolton) in 2009, before being replaced by Gold spec Scania E400s in 2015, I've not really had chance to get many of them, so it made a nice change to have one up the Fylde Coast into Preston, especially when you don't have to stop at every single stop too.
As a classmate and friend was also going to the conference (though he was coming from the Wirral rather than the West Midlands), we'd both booked on 1S42 up to Glasgow; him from Crewe, myself from Preston), which meant I had just over an hour between getting into Preston Bus Station, and my train being due, so I decided to do a bit of spotting before I got a bus over to the station.
With spotting done, I jumped on the next bus to the station, Enviro300 27290 on the 111, and got a bite to eat from McDonalds in the Fishergate Centre, before I headed off to the station to wait for 390153 to turn up.
With time to spare, 390153 turned up heading north, and I went and took my seat with him for the journey north. It'd been quite a long time since I'd actually been north of Lancaster on the West Coast Mainline, so I spent quite a lot of the two and a half hour journey watching out the window as we sped through the Lake District.
Given how badly I thought the journey might drag on, it didn't, and in what felt like far less than two and a half hours, we pulled into Glasgow Central on time... only to find it was cold, windy and pouring down with rain.
Nothing much had changed since I last went to Glasgow in 2018 then. Wet, cold and windy...
Arriving in Glasgow, we decided to get our bearings (admittedly only after a few minutes of gawping at Glasgow Central's architecture) and I was reminded of why I had suggested jumping on the 398 to reach Buchanan Bus Station - walking the 15 minutes to the Bus Station with a bag that felt like it was crushing my shoulder in that weather really wasn't much fun.
Still, we got to Buchanan Bus Station, and after being reminded that it is huge (I believe it's the largest Bus Station in the UK, but I could be wrong on that one), we began to set out a plan for how we would get to the hotel.
In theory, we could've gotten the 26 from outside Glasgow Central, but we had decided to walk up to the Bus Station instead, so we would have to intercept it at Braehead, or catch the 77 to the hotel.
As we had just missed a 77 to Glasgow Airport (only Airport bound 77s called at the hotel, and those were half-hourly), we settled on getting one of the Clyde Flyer routes to Braehead instead, and to our benefit, an X7 was due not long after we got to the stand.
Our bus to Braehead would be one of McGills Citaro Ks, 3323, and we'd seen the promotional material advertising a £3.80 return to Braehead, so we had assumed a single would be around £2.80.
We were wrong - £5.60 for a single. After a slight moment where I suspect I looked like a deer caught in headlights, I decided to just buy a return instead. Perhaps I've gotten too used to the £2 capped fares here in England, but even by the standards before that, a £5.60 single for that short a distance would've been extortionate!
As the conference was been headed by the management of McGills, we both made a note of this experience...
Despite the mild shock at the fare, we settled in aboard 3323 for the 15 minute journey down the M8 to Braehead. Citaro Ks are probably one of my favourite Euro 6 types, so I wasn't complaining about the ride at least, and it was a pretty comfortable 15 minutes at least.
Changing at Braehead, we had a decent number of options for the hotel - the 26 ran every 7 minutes from here (rather than quarter-hourly from the city centre), plus the 23P if that turned up whilst we were waiting, so we decided it would be easier to jump on the first bus that turned up.
Yutong 5000 turned up on a 26 to Nethercraigs, and so we jumped on that for the 15-20 minutes down through Renfrew, and found ourselves suitably impressed by the quality of the Yutongs as we headed down the Renfrew Road. The only minor nitpick was that the stopping bells really do sound like Ring doorbell cams, and can get a little annoying after a while.
Jumping off for the hotel, we were reminded that we were quite close to the River Clyde and all that entailed... namely being battered by the rain and wind as we walked down to the hotel.
Once we'd settled in, the first item on the agenda was a site visit to one of McGills' depots for a tour, and we'd reckoned it would likely be Johnstone, given the depot was the nearest to the hotel.
Parked outside were two vehicles - another Yutong, 5531, and a coach that I completely forgot to make a note of - and we decided to get the Yutong, to see how they performed when needing to get a move on, given the trip to Johnstone would involve a short dash down the M8.
Quite well, as it turned out, and the site visit proved fascinating too, having McGills journey towards electrification explained to us by the CEO, as Scotrail Class 380s passed behind the yard, before we took a tour around the depot itself and listened to a presentation by then-MD Alex Hornby on the growth of McGills to include Dundee, Midland Bluebird and Brightbus, and then headed back to the hotel in order to get ready for our evening dinner.
The dinner was good; a steak and ale pot pie for main and profiteroles for dessert, before got a speech from Ralph Roberts, the CEO of McGills about... to be quite honest, I struggled to keep up with what was being said - two nights of poor sleep and a cold had caught up with me. I think it was broadly about how deregulation was a good thing for some - one quote did stick in my head though:
"When we (McGills) started around here, there were 43 operators in Paisley. Now there's 3... and we only bought seven of them."
With the speech over, the two options were to stick around for drinks, and be sociable... or go back to our rooms and get some rest for tomorrow.
Without much thought, I headed back to my room to prepare my bag for leaving in the morning, and to get some rest...
22nd March
Thankfully, I didn't have to be up before 7 this time, and had a lie in till 8am, before getting ready for the conference itself.
Which took a little longer than I'd have liked, as it was 08:57 when I finally got to the conference hall.
The weather had also improved, thankfully, so going outside for fresh air no longer felt like I was at risk of being blown all the way to Faslane by a strong gust.
Anyway, we took our seats for the first three speakers, and much to our surprise, whilst Roger French was giving his opening speech, we had the spotlight turned on us briefly, explaining who we were and why we were here, and this would set the tone going on a little bit.
Namely getting the whole "wink to the camera" thing when something was said, as if we were the fourth wall.
Still, the speakers were all really good, offering great insights into the industry (even if my mind's gone blank on who some of them represented. Oops.), and we found ourselves going into the group activity.
Now, this had been the bit of the day that I had properly enjoyed at Liverpool, even if the original Metro Mayor pledge challenge had somehow become rather more... Soviet in its presentation (don't ask - even I was confused and I was there at the time...), and whilst this one wasn't quite as fun - it was rather more of something we'd have done in uni, as it was compiling a list of challenges facing the industry in our specific areas that we picked - it was still an important thing to see the opinions on.
I chose marketing, because I spent two years doing graphic design before university, and the advertising side of things has always interested me anyway.
Considering this, there did seem to be a not so minor disconnect between industry and customer (as someone who uses services very regularly), especially when areas such as information provision and legibility of that information came up.
One of the areas I expected to be more contentious was that of A.I. timetabling, but it kind of wasn't. Most of the group agreed it was an acceptable trade off for reliability, that passengers wouldn't necessarily know what frequency the bus turned up at, and that we should be saying "X buses an hour" instead.
Personally, I strongly disagree with that, and the idea that AI does a better job than a trained human in this area. Especially as for many operators, there's a non-zero chance that it will be subject to the old adage of "Garbage in, garbage out".
This is also a slight issue with writing this months after the fact... I've completely forgotten what was actually chosen as the major issues - although I know image was definitely one of them...
Anyway, after that, lunch was had, and we had more seminars - this time from people I do remember, the MD of Stagecoach West Scotland, someone from Stagecoach East Scotland discussing their Autonomous Bus project, and someone from Portsmouth City Council, discussing their BSIP and how it was being implemented, all of which bought us to the end of the conference...
At 15:15.
A mild mistake had been made earlier, in booking the last coach of the day back to Birmingham, the 23:50 M17 bound for Southampton, meaning I now had almost eight hours to kill before my coach.
The mention of the Autonomous Bus had given me an idea though - Ferrytoll Park & Ride isn't that far from Glasgow, so surely I should be able to make it for the last AB1 at 18:00, right?
Thus, a plan formed. Once back in Glasgow, I'd get the X27 up to Dunfermline, and change for an X55 to Ferrytoll, arriving at... 17:57.
Okay, so that's closer than I'd like, but at least I'd have chance to rest my shoulders from carrying my bag whilst I was on the way.
Leaving the hotel, we got the 26 into Paisley, 5513, another Yutong, and changed for Paisley Gilmour Street, where we had 380110 into Glasgow Central.
Saying goodbye to my friend, who was going to explore the rail network around Glasgow until his train arrived at 20:08, I headed out of the station and jumped on the 398 to the Bus Station, one of the Scotrail liveried BYD Enviro200EVs - 64102.
Solid enough buses, if a bit boring, though I still massively prefer the Yutongs.
Arriving at Buchanan Bus Station in time for the 16:25 X27, I had B13RT/Elite 54311 for the hour and ten minute journey to Dunfermline, and so I settled in.
54311 might have been a dud for me, as it was new to Bedford for the now butchered up X5, and I hadn't least two of the X5's Elites... that I completely failed to note the fleet numbers of.
The route of the X27 itself is just a motorway run down the M8 as far as Cumbernauld, before crossing the Firth of Forth into Kincardine, and heading directly into Dunfermline, but it was nice to cross the Firth of Forth in broad daylight this time, and the view was pretty fantastic...
Making it into Dunfermline with about two minutes to spare for the X55, I was able to just about leg it to the stand, and tick off a type I've never had before, 54503, a B8RLE/Panther LE, for the 20 odd minutes down to Ferrytoll.
Nothing much to say here, the X55 isn't really anything special other than crossing the Forth Road Bridge, and we made it into Ferrytoll with four minutes to spare before the last AB1.
It was here that I probably should've tempered my interest in having an autonomous bus for the first time, and remembered that they were currently operating in manual mode.
In other words, the AB1 was pretty much just a B1, and I only clocked this as 62002 left Ferrytoll.
After a bit of disappointment, and a bit of laughing that I'd come all this way for a bog standard Stagecoach E200MMC essentially, I settled in for the trip across the Firth of Forth to Edinburgh Park, which was... fine. The view was spectacular, the bus was nothing special without the autopilot.
Arriving at Edinburgh Park, I realised an error - the bus stop is around the back of the station, meaning I would either have to walk back up the bridge I'd just crossed with a bag weighing me down... or get the train into Edinburgh.
I chose the latter, and narrowly missed a 334 as I frantically attempted to get a ticket on the self service machine. After about fifteen minutes though, a pair of 385s turned up - 385001/385035 - for the journey into Edinburgh.
Having never had a 385 till now, I was reasonably impressed with the pair I had, and the short journey passed by uneventfully.
Getting off at Edinburgh, I remembered why I liked the station, and the city as a whole - it has a kind of style to it, something I've never been fully able to articulate... though I could have done with less escalators whilst carrying my bag.
Getting a bite to eat from the KFC on the way out, I went onto the main street to think what to do next.
In one corner, I figured I should probably make my way back towards Glasgow - it was now 7pm, and I didn't really want to make an ill planned trip somewhere that I could get stuck, because I missed the last bus...
In the other- ooh, Airlink XLB.
So I decided on a trip out to Edinburgh Airport, where I knew that I at least had Citylink as an option back to Glasgow if needs must, and jumped on one of the tri-axle E400XLBs on the 100, 1136.
I've had two of these before, though both were at Stagecoach East as part of their Busway fleet, so I was interested to see how comfortable the Airlink ones would be in comparison.
Very, as it turned out. Upstairs, there's 2 by 1 coach style seating throughout, and very comfortable it was too, for the short dash down the A9 to the Airport.
Arriving at the Airport, I jumped on 26168 on a 747 heading to Halbeath Park & Ride, which I had (incorrectly) assumed would go via Dunfermline, leaving me with a safety net for the last X24 of the night back to Glasgow.
A safety net I still had at Halbeath, given the 747 was due into Halbeath at 20:25, whilst the X24 was due in at 20:48. The only problem I saw with the plan was that Halbeath is a Park and ride, and so any facilities would no doubt have closed by about 6pm, let alone half 8...
Unlike England, that wasn't the case here, and I took a seat in the waiting room whilst I tracked the X24's progress from St Andrews, until it was about five minutes out, and went out to wait for it.
54358 turned up on time, and I settled in for the last trip of the night through total darkness now, with my X24 due into Glasgow at 22:25, about 90 minutes before my coach and leaving me with plenty of time to stock up on snacks and supplies for the six and a half hour journey back...
One thing that did baffle me was closing the concourse at Buchanan Bus Station at 11pm, when coaches were still arriving and departing far later than that, but I settled down for the now 50 minute wait until the M17 departed... or even arrived apparently.
Eventually, it arrived around 23:40, with Parks of Hamilton's KSK 979 doing the duty down to the south coast, and with the expectation that this was going to be busy, I braced myself for a very long six hours.
It actually wasn't that busy, and so, I had the double seat to myself the whole way back to Birmingham...
23rd March
The first stop south on the M17 was at Preston, which surprised me as to how busy the city was at half 3 in the morning, before we made our way to Manchester Shudehill at about half 4, where about half of the coach got off, with another group of passengers boarding.
The last stop on my journey south passed by, at Manchester Airport, and I found myself asleep leaving the Airport and waking up as we approached Spaghetti Junction.
Unsurprisingly, the traffic down the Aston Expressway was almost non-existent at 6am on a Saturday, and the M17 pulled into Birmingham on time, at 06:20, where I walked from Brunel Street, the Megabus stand, up to The Square Peg to get a bus back to Walsall.
At 06:30, most of the options back hadn't started yet, meaning I was left with the 51 at 06:39, which would mean a 30 odd minute wait in Walsall for the second 41 home, a 934 at 06:41 that had the same problem, or a 997 at 06:43 that would get me into Walsall with only 15 minutes to wait.
I took the latter option, jumping on 6736 for the journey to Walsall, and unsurprisingly, I was the only person onboard leaving City.
The 997 is one of the routes I actually associate my interest with buses on, despite having never lived particularly close to the route - 5 year old me being particularly impressed by the shiny, modern looking Geminis with high backed seats and special red, white and sky blue striped livery on the Premier 997 as it was called then and the timetable booklet produced for the route.
I remember actually pestering my dad and nan to take me to Walsall to get one, only to be disappointed when it was pointed out that, at this time, the 997 only ran to Walsall at rush hour, evenings and Sundays, all other trips terminating in Aldridge...
Things changed over the next 20 years - new buses would again follow in 2008, with more variants added: the 997A to Kingstanding, every hour and the 997B to Bloxwich, which was just the peak hours only 158 renumbered.
The route would also be swapped with the 355/355A/356 around 2010 to operate half hourly to Walsall all day, whilst the section via Barns Lane was replaced by the 35, whilst the 997A and 997B were ditched.
More new buses would again follow in 2015, with Walsall receiving 40 Platinum spec Enviro400MMCs for the fast Birmingham routes (at the time, this was the 934/935/935A/936, 997 and X51), and that roughly brings us up to the present day.
Regardless, the 997 is quite a circuitous route, going through Old Oscott, Pheasey, Streetly, Barr Beacon, Aldridge and Rushall to reach Walsall, and even at 6am, it's given nearly an hour to do the full route, getting me into Walsall around 07:30.
After a short stop off for a drink, B7RLE 2126 turned up on the 41 home, and despite the fun trip I'd had, I was definitely ready for my own bed again for the first time in what felt like an eternity, getting home almost exactly four days after I'd left...
A few people to thank for the whole trip -
The first is Roger French for making the whole conference possible, and just being generally nice to talk to from someone who's never been great at talking to new people, especially those senior to me.
The same goes to the Chief Operating Officer of First Bus, Andrew Jarvis, who came over to us and had a good chat with us, as well as giving us some words of wisdom about the industry.
The last was the Glynhill Hotel near Paisley, who were kind enough to save me a 650 mile round trip to rescue my spare pair of glasses when I left them in my room, by mailing them back to me...
Hopefully this has been an interesting read, and I'll be able to do a few more of these reports - even if I doubt many will come from industry conferences in future...
