The New 73 Bus Introduction
It seems to have gone well. I can’t also find any reports of passengers getting annoyed at the demise of seventy-free bendy bus.
I incidentally use the route a lot more, as it appears to be faster from places like Oxford Street. I wonder if any anorak has measured that!
I Don’t Have To Wait For Buses in the Cold or Rain Anymore
London is introducing a system called Countdown. It allows you to look at your local bus stop and see how long you’ll have to wait for the next bus. Tonight, a friend came for supper and I was able to turn up at the stop just as her bus arrived. We also timed it right, so that we walked to the stop to get there, just as her bus arrived for London Bridge.
The system has a few bugs in that for instance 21 buses aren’t shown for some reason, but it works very well. You can also get it on a smart phone, if you have one. I think it’s only problem is that it might encourage people to travel by bus too much and London will need to buy more buses.
As an example, my friend had come in to Euston on a train from Manchester. She’d then waited for a 30 bus, so that she didn’t get too wet. But with wi-fi on the trains or a good mobile signal, she could have checked where the bus was as she approached Euston.
I often take one bus and then swap to another route, when they are running together, as the 141 and 341 do going to IKEA. You could use your mobile device to find out how long you have to wait.
It all goes to show how technology can improve something supposedly low-tech like a humble bus.
This system will see a lot of development in the next few years.
Imagine someone is coming to meet you on a bus. THey would text you the bus serial number and you would then display its position on your computer, so you could meet the actual bus at the right time and place. Or you could get an automatic text message a minute before the bus arrives.
The possibilities are endless.
92 Clubs By Public Transport Alphabetically in a Calendar Month – Day 9
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This day is a real odd one with Colchester, Coventry and if possible Crawley Town.
All three are fairly difficult to get from the train station to the football ground and to make matters worse it would appear that the trains to Colchester are subject to maintenance that weekend.
I think it should be possible, except for the fact, that I don’t know the buses at the train station and as it is Sunday can they be relied upon to be working.
92 Clubs By Public Transport Alphabetically in a Calendar Month – Day 7
This is three long journeys in one day, assuming that I end up coming back from Manchester on Day 6. But you expect that with Cardiff and Carlisle being two of the farthest clubs from London.
92 Clubs By Public Transport Alphabetically in a Calendar Month – Day 6
This is not an easy day, with Burnley, Burton Albion and Bury well separated.
I suspect I’ll end up in Manchester about 19:00 and do a quick trip out to Bury on the tram, before taking a train back to London. Or I might get ahead of myself and if there’s a suitable train get down to Cardiff for Day 7.
92 Clubs By Public Transport Alphabetically in a Calendar Month – Day 4
I’ll spend a long time on a train on this day, as although there are only two clubs to visit; Bournemouth and Bradford. But they are some way apart.
92 Clubs By Public Transport Alphabetically in a Calendar Month – Day 3
This could be one of those days, where I visit four clubs; Birmingham, Blackburn, Blackpool and Bolton. It could just be five if all things go well and I can finish off at Bournemouth.
However after checking the train times. it would appear that to get to Bournemouth is impossible, so it’ll be a return to London and my bed.
I think, I’ll have to assume I’m starting from Barnsley or Birmingham city centre, as it doesn’t look like that on Day 2, I can get home easily.
Is It Time To Get Even? – 92 Clubs By Public Transport Alphabetically in a Calendar Month
There’s an old saying about not getting mad, but getting even.
I’ve had a basketful of bad luck over the last few years, what with losing my wife of forty years and son to cancer and then suffering a couple of strokes. So perhaps now is the time to do something to wipe the slate clean and see if I can buy off the Devil who is bugging me. I had thought about perhaps doing something like riding my bicycle to Moscow, like Carol Thatcher did, but she is a lot braver and fitter than I am.
I’d much prefer to do something to raise money that for most of the time had me sitting in a comfortable chair and that at night allowed me to sleep most nights in my own bed.
The task, if I will accept it, is to visit all the 92 Premier and Football League grounds in alphabetical order in one calendar month, using only trains, trams, buses and Shanks’s pony. I thought about adding allowing bicycles and hitch-hiking, but I’m probably not up to the former yet and nobody ever does the second these days. Taxis are definitely out, except in an emergency.
I have created a spreadsheet of all the teams and it looks like it will be possible to do it in a 31-day month.
October, this year would be a good choice as on the 1st, Aldershot, who are second alphabetically, play Accrington Stanley who are first. So hopefully, I could visit the match and then get a lift back to Aldershot on a supporters coach, just in time to get a train back to London and do Arsenal on the way home.
On the other hand there are some interesting days, where several clubs are close to each other both in alphabetic order and geographically or easier to get between. There are.
- 3rd – Birmingham, Blackburn, Blackpool and Bolton
- 15th – Liverpool, Macclesfield, Manchester City, Manchester United and then on to Middlesbrough
- 17th – Newcastle, Northampton, Norwich, Notts County, Nottingham Forest and then on to Oldham
- 21st – Rotherham, Scunthorpe, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday and then on to Shrewbury
- 23rd – Swansea, Swindon, Torquay and then back to Tottenham.
Other than the Accrington-Aldershot match, there would appear to be games on the 15th at Macclesfield, the 22nd at Stevenage and perhaps it will all end on the 29th at Yeovil.
Obviously any money I raise will go to Liverpool University to help with research into pancreatic cancer. I will be setting up a page on Just Giving soon. Hopefully there are people who might like to sponsor the odd day.
At a first glance there are a few difficult teams.
- Bournemouth
- Bradford
- Colchester
- Coventry
- Crawley Town
- Doncaster
- Oxford United
- Plymouth
- Port Vale
- Shrewsbury
- Stoke
- Swindon
- Torquay
- Yeovil
Any help on buses or walking routes for these would be appreciated. Lifts, although I’m grateful for the thought, are not allowed.
The irony is that I don’t think this would have been possible for me, until this year, as now Marks and Spencer’s now have stagetically placed pit-stops in many stations, where I can get wholesome gluten-free sandwiches to speed me on my way.
Here is a provisional schedule.
- 1st – Accrington, Aldershot and Arsenal
- 2nd – Aston Villa, Barnet and Barnsley
- 3rd – Birmingham, Blackburn, Blackpool and Bolton
- 4th – Bournemouth and Bradford
- 5th – Brentford, Brighton, Bristol City and Bristol Rovers
- 6th – Burnley, Burton Albion and Bury
- 7th – Cardiff and Carlisle
- 8th – Charlton, Chelsea, Cheltenham and Chesterfield
- 9th – Colchester, Coventry and Crawley Town
- 10th – Crewe, Crystal Palace and Dagenham and Redbridge
- 11th – Derby, Doncaster, Everton and Exeter
- 12th – Fulham, Gillingham, and Hartlepool
- 13th – Hereford, Huddersfield and Hull
- 14th – Ipswich, Leeds, Leicester and Leyton Orient
- 15th – Liverpool, Macclesfield, Manchester City, Manchester United
- 16th – Middlesbrough, Millwall and Milton Keynes
- 17th – Morecambe and Newcastle
- 18th – Northampton, Norwich, Nottingham Forest and Notts County
- 19th – Oldham, Oxford United and Peterborough
- 20th – Plymouth and Port Vale
- 21st – Portsmouth and Preston
- 22nd – QPR, Reading, Rochdale and Rotherham
- 23rd – Scunthorpe, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday and Shrewsbury
- 24th – Southampton, Southend, Stevenage and Stoke
- 25th – Sunderland and Swansea
- 26th – Swindon, Torquay and Tottenham
- 27th – Tranmere, Walsall, Watford, West Brom and West Ham
- 28th – Wigan, AFC Wimbledon, Wolverhampton and Wycombe
- 29th – Yeovil
The Seventy-Free Goes Seventy-Pay
Transport for London will see an increase in revenue today, as the seventy-three bus goes non-bendy. I have sat in the back of these buses and seen that so many of the passengers don’t touch in.
A New 73 Bus
However, now the bus is a proper double-decker, they’ll have to pay.
I travelled on one to the Angel today and it was a bit crowded. But then last week on a bendy, it wouldn’t have been exactly empty. It’s just a very busy bus route.
When I rode the 73, I was able to take this picture of a bendy bus causing a traffic jam.
A Bendy Bus Causing a Jam
Try takimg a picture like this from a bendy!
Up and Down the Stairs at Hackney Downs
I went for supper to Walthamstow tonight.
The easiest way is to get a bus to Hackney Downs station and then take a Chingford train. It works well if you just catch a train.
But I just got to the top at Platform 2 to see the train disappearing out of the station. It looks like I’d have to wait for twenty minutes, but a stationman said there was another train in ten minutes on Platform 4. So it was down the dreaded staircase again and then up another one.
Surely for passenger convenience, all Chingford trains should leave Hackney Downs from the same platform. Or if for operational reasons they can’t then perhaps there should be a display at the bottom of the stairs, that lists all departures in order together with the platform. The Overground has such a display at both Highbury and Islington and Dalston Junction stations. Even the bus stop outside Hackney Downs has a display showing the details of the next few buses.
The Anonymous Widower 