Worst train/bus connections

[endecotp]

There are a couple of journeys that I do reasonably often that have terrible train to bus connection timing:

- The afternoon trains from Edinburgh to Penrith arrive at 1421 and 1621, and the buses to Keswick depart at xx21, meaning a 1 hour wait.

- The afternoon Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh train arrives at 1612, and the bus to Skye leaves at 1615. (Running between the railway station and the bus stop takes 3 minutes 30 seconds.). The next bus, for most of the year, is 3 hours later.

I have sometimes made these connections, but the buses have been on time so far this year and the trains slightly late

There's another connection on the Kyle line that I've never even tried to make: the one bus per day to Gairloch leaves Garve at 1335 and the train from Kyle arrives at 1346. Taking the previous train from Kyle means waiting in Garve for more than 5 hours.

Does anyone have any more extreme examples of poor connection timing?

(In the case of the Kyle connection, a local tried to tell me that the train used to arrive at 1600 but Abellio changed it to arrive at 1616 and miss the bus because it used to arrive late very often and they had to pay for taxis. This seemed wrong to me in many respects, but maybe there is some kernel of truth somewhere in the story.)

 

[bradford758]

The stopper from Manchester Victoria to Hebden Bridge, calling at Moston - arrives xx11, just after the 500 Brontë bus has departed at xx10 for Haworth and Keighley.

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[endecotp]

There's another connection on the Kyle line that I've never even tried to make: the one bus per day to Gairloch leaves Garve at 1335 and the train from Kyle arrives at 1346. Taking the previous train from Kyle means waiting in Garve for more than 5 hours.

Sorry, that wasn't quite right.

To travel from Kyle to Gairloch you'd change at Achnasheen, where the train arrives at 1320 and the bus departs at 1355 - hooray, it works!

The bad connection at Garve is go to Ullapool, where the bus departs at 1534, 12 mins before the train arrives.

 

[fgwrich]

The connections from South Western to Great Western at Salisbury have always been pretty bad, certainly when coming up from the Basingstoke direction.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Any Sunday connections in Shrewsbury.

 

[Tracked]

My daily commute home from Chesterfield to Bentley;

I get the 15:43 from CHD to SHF, which arrives into Sheffield a minute or so after the Adwick train leaves, then get the Cleethorpes train, which does the same thing with the same Adwick train at Doncaster

 

[route:oxford]

There are a couple of journeys that I do reasonably often that have terrible train to bus connection timing

Likewise with rail journeys.

15:01 arrival into Glasgow Central
15:07 departure from Glasgow Queen Street.

I only ever make it half the time, and I'm convinced I'm going to MI on boarding one of these days.

 

[causton]

A brilliant one used to be at Hatfield.

The trains arrived at 17/47 past, and the buses at 15/45, in the evenings from the station to where I lived. So the train would arrive at 47 past, just in time to see the bus leave, and so you wait for the 15 past which was inevitably late as it came from the bus garage, and all buses from the garage leave there late, so the next train pulls in and even more people wait for the same bus...

No wonder most people took the taxis or walked

Now I live in Leighton Buzzard, the train I can take home from work arrives at 36 past the hour or 09 past the hour. Of course the hourly bus leaves at 04 past the hour, and the last one is at 1812 which means I end up walking or getting a taxi most of the time!

 

[Llanigraham]

Everything at Caersws!!
There are NO connections.

 

[AndrewE]

Now I live in Leighton Buzzard, the train I can take home from work arrives at 36 past the hour or 09 past the hour. Of course the hourly bus leaves at 04 past the hour, and the last one is at 1812 which means I end up walking or getting a taxi most of the time!

Is it worth asking whether a pushbike might deal with the problem? I used to use mine when the Severn Beach train service didn't run at one or other end of a shift, taking the bike on the train with me the other way. The train-ride-with-bike was by definition not a peak flow journey!
Lots of seemingly difficult train/bus journeys become quite practicable if a bike leg is factored in...
A

 

[AY1975]

At Alfreton, if a Liverpool-Norwich (or vice versa) train in either direction is dead on time, it makes the connection with the 140/142 bus to Crich for the Tramway Museum, and this bus leaves from the station forecourt, which is good.

However, if the train is slightly late, the bus sometimes does and sometimes doesn't wait. If it does not, you have an hour's wait for the next bus. At least passengers from Nottingham, Chesterfield or Sheffield also have the option of Northern's Leeds-Nottingham trains which give a comfortable connection with the bus provided that you don't mind having half an hour's wait at Alfreton station.

Conversely, on Sundays the 140 bus leaves Alfreton station at xx.40 past each even hour and is only 2-hourly, so the Northern trains would give a fairly tight connection and the Liverpool-Norwich EMT trains would give a wait of about 30 minutes.

 

[Norther Monkey]

Dyce - Now has no bus link to Aberdeen Airport despite being the advertised railway stop. Only a £12 taxi or a 45 minute walk to the terminal!

 

[MotCO]

Whilst buses may leave before the train arrives in some of the examples above, at least the bus pssengers who wanted to catch a train were at the station in time for the train. If the bus was timed to arrive after the train, then the bus passengers would miss the train.

The only solution would be for the bus and train to wait for each other, and allow, say, five minutes standing time for connections either way. Whether or not this is practical is another question.

 

[Kite159]

Whitland, with the 2-hourly service towards Milford Haven (most of the time) departing around 5 minutes before the 2-hourly service from Pembroke Dock arrives!

 

[endecotp]

Whilst buses may leave before the train arrives in some of the examples above, at least the bus pssengers who wanted to catch a train were at the station in time for the train.

While that's true in general, it doesn't apply in the case of a terminus (like Kyle). Penrith Railway Station is also almost a terminus for the bus.

 

[PHILIPE]

Any Sunday connections in Shrewsbury.

I don't think there is even a bus service at all in Shrewsbury on a Sunday. Funding

 

[PHILIPE]

Everything at Caersws!!
There are NO connections.

Powys CC have no interest in rail or any joined up connectivity with bus services. There isn't even a bus stop at Welshpool station. This is more so disappointing as Mid Wales is a tourist area and one would think that the Council would be doing their utmost to support it.

 

[30907]

The stopper from Manchester Victoria to Hebden Bridge, calling at Moston - arrives xx11, just after the 500 Brontë bus has departed at xx10 for Haworth and Keighley.

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Is Moston-Keighley a particularly important passenger flow?

Or Kyle-Ullapool, as the OP mentions?

 

[Llanigraham]

Powys CC have no interest in rail or any joined up connectivity with bus services. There isn't even a bus stop at Welshpool station. This is more so disappointing as Mid Wales is a tourist area and one would think that the Council would be doing their utmost to support it.

No bus stop at Caersws either.

 

[Dr Hoo]

There is a handy Stagecoach Route 203 bus that passes Reddish South station at about 0931 on a Friday morning. Unfortunately, if you were hoping to get the fast train to Denton it leaves at 0927 and the next one isn't for 6 days, 23 hours and 56 minutes.

(Mind you, there is another 203 around ten minutes earlier so I suppose that you could catch that instead.)

 

[Blindtraveler]

Bus connections at Dumfries generally. Plenty services serve the station but theres no real intigration between the train and bus, particularly galling for people wishing the long distance service to Stranrar.

 

[Envoy]

Powys CC have no interest in rail or any joined up connectivity with bus services. There isn't even a bus stop at Welshpool station. This is more so disappointing as Mid Wales is a tourist area and one would think that the Council would be doing their utmost to support it.

Yes, and it is quite a walk out to Powis Castle and I don’t think the route is signposted (for pedestrians) from the station. (Not sure if the narrow gauge railway is signposted).

 

[Mag_seven]

The problem with buses in the UK is that they are seen by the powers that be as having to compete with rail and not integrate with rail.

 

[mirodo]

Reminds me of the chapter in Bill Bryson's Notes From A Small Island, where he arrives by bus at Blaenau Ffestiniog minutes after the train has departed, with the next one being some four hours away. He has the following exchange with a railway employee:

'If Gwynned Transport want people to catch the midday train from Blaenau, then they should have the buses set off earlier.'

'But equally,' I persisted, 'you could have the train leave a few minutes later.'

He looked at me as if I were being outrageously presumptuous, and said: 'But why should we?'

 

[endecotp]

Is Moston-Keighley a particularly important passenger flow?

Or Kyle-Ullapool, as the OP mentions?

Kyle - Gairloch - Ullapool is a spectacular journey and has large nunbers of tourists doing it by car, campervan, motorbike, bicycle, tour bus... just none by public transport.

 

[Parham Wood]

Are there any actual rail bus "connections"? A connection in my book is where the bus waits for the train and vice versa. Obviously there has to be a cut off limit and it should not apply to places with frequent bus services or trains to the same place where getting a 10 minute earlier service or just missing a 10 minute frequency service is not a big deal. It is also impracticable for trains to wait for every bus all along their route. However this country should do more to have more joined up bus/train operation particularly in areas not served frequently by bus or train. In practice you have to take an earlier bus than needed to have a better chance of catching a train and to allow for a late bus or one not turning up at all. In my view there should be integrated bus /train tickets for any journey (other than for urban journeys) so if the bus fails to make a connection and you have bought an advance ticket you can get the next train without penalty. I think we are a fair way off achieving this. It would certainly speed up any journey I make from my home town when I have to build in allowances for busses not running to time.

 

[causton]

Are there any actual rail bus "connections"? A connection in my book is where the bus waits for the train and vice versa.

There is a route which I remember... that's it, the 202 from Ashwell and Morden station. The timetable says the buses wait for the trains if they are late!

https://www.intalink.org.uk/download/21485.1/

Is it worth asking whether a pushbike might deal with the problem?
A

I had a pushbike but the hill was too steep for me and the bike got nicked even though I had the lock through the frame and wheels - the lock was left intact and still locked on the floor and I took it as a sign to give up

 

[bradford758]

Is Moston-Keighley a particularly important passenger flow?

Or Kyle-Ullapool, as the OP mentions?

There are a few FC United of Manchester fans who return home from Moston this way.

 

[bradford758]

On a positive note, Leeds - Menston - Otley is a recognised connection and was included in the WY METRO timetable when they published rail timetables.
Rail/bus connection at Bingley seems not too bad.

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[RichmondCommu]

Without checking I'm pretty certain that a bus only runs from Dent station to Dent on a Sunday. Given that its such an attractive little village you'd think that there would be a better bus service between the station and the village, at least in the summer.