The Ian Walmsley Train Comfort Factor
Ian Walmsley is a respected rail industry professional and a regular contributor to Modern Railways. In the last edition, he did a scientific analysis of passenger comfort in various classes of British train. Some typical Standard Class ratings he got were Eurostar – 77.6%, HSDT – 76.2% And a lot were much worse!
So I decided to apply his rules to the hybrid buses that take me to Wood Green and the City.
A 141 Bus to Wood Green
These are my rather crude results.
Noise Standstill – Estimated – 8 – 0.32
Noise Service Speed – Estimated – 8 – 8
Ride – Estimated – 6 – 6
Seat Comfort – 9 – 9
Seat Legroom – 8 – 0.64
Seat Window Alignment – 10 – 6
Seat Visibility Airline – 9 – 4.5
Seat Airline to Bay Ratio – 10 – 5
Seat Armrests – 0 – 0
Air Management – 9 – 7.2
Luggage Capacity – 7 – 3.5
Toilets – 0 – 0
Catering – 0 – 0
Vibration and Rattles – 8 – 4
Litter Bins – 0 – 0
Ambience – 9 – 6.3
So this gives a weighted score of 60.46. Not bad considering it scored zero for armrests, toilets, catering and litter bins. You could make a case for scoring somewhere about 7 for each of the last three, as they are generally available close to most bus stops.
It would also be interesting to borrow a noise meter and get correct values for that.
The Lost 243 Bus
Today as I travelled to Liverpool Street Station to go to the football at Ipswich, I got to sit at the front on the top deck of the 141 bus. The bus today was one of the Wright hybrid ones, which certainly to me seem to be the future for bus travel.
I had my camera with me and decided to take a Mitchell and Kenyon-style video as the bus travelled through de Beauvoir Town and along the Regent’s Canal towards Old Street.
But things don’t quite work out as you think they do, because for some reason a lost 243 bus got in front of the 141 and tried to steal the video.
I suppose there was probably some road works on the Kingsland Road, which meant that the bus had been diverted.
A 92% Day!
One doesn’t want to score it higher than that, as I might shilt myself.
But I’ve gone to football a lot in the last three years since C died and I’ve not had such a good day for some time.
I had decided that I would travel First Class as a treat and I’d already bought the tickets for £36.60 on Wednesday, so after I’d made my sandwiches, I took the 141 bus to Moorgate and walked through Finsbury Circus to Liverpool Street to catch the 12:58 to Ipswich. It meant, if I’d driven, which I can’t, it would probably have spent more and taken longer. I also wouldn’t have had a large table on which to lay my paper and eat my lunch.
The train was a couple of minutes late into Ipswich, but this didn’t matter, as I’d have preferred to sit in the soft seat in the train, rather than the hard seat in the Britannia Stand. But despite the delay, I was well in time for the start of the match.
The match itself was spoilt by the strong wind and is best summed up by the comments of the Ipswich manager; Paul Jewell.
Delighted with win. Wind was awful, so would have taken ugly 1-0 win. But played some good football second half. Connor great goal. Pleased for Luca.
I would add that Town could easily have scored five instead of three, especially as Tamas Priskin hit the post and Grant Leadbitter missed a penalty and also hit a spectacular effort, that was deflected wide.
We also had a double sending off when Sheffield United decided to try the self-destruction route.
So all-in-all it was first class entertainment.
I’ve just watched the match on The Football League Show on the BBC’s iPlayer. It’s about thirty minutes in. It’s worth searching for, just to see Connor Wickham’s goal, where he takes the ball in his own half , beats everybody and then draws the goalkeeper and puts the ball in the empty net. It will be a clip that will be shown and shown.
After the match I took the 17:09 train back to London and another 141 bus got me home by seven. I even had time to pick-up a chicken korma for supper in Marks at Liverpool Street Station.
It would be nice if watching football was always so stress free. But then most sides aren’t as co-operative as Sheffield United!
One slight blot on the day was that the rice with the chicken korma was rather crunchy.
Bus Roulette
I said yesterday, that on my way to Kings Cross, I would be playing bus roulette.
I drew 476 and as I was a bit early, I got off at the last stop on Pentonville Road and crossed a couple of roads and walked into the front of King’s Cross Station. It was probably easier on a dry day, than going to the official stop opposite the station and using the underpass.
Coming back from York, I played roulette again and got another 476 to the Balls Pond Road from directly outside King’s Cross Station.
In some ways it is a bit of a forgotten route, as perhaps only one in four of the buses that go down the Essex Road to the Angel and on to Kings Cross are 476s.
The Monster Loony Party’s Thoughts on the Cambridge Busway
This story is priceless and puts one of Britain’s worst transport projects in perspective.
Loony politician Lord Toby Jug has launched a campaign to have Cambridgeshire’s guided bus route rebuilt in rubber and stretched to the Channel Isles so St Ives can become a tax haven.
Lord Toby, leader of the Cambridge and Huntingdon branch of the Official Monster Loony Party, is also campaigning to have a witch-ducking stool built on the Quay at St Ives.
This would be used so that council officials who came up with the “crackpot” guided bus scheme can be dunked in the River Great Ouse every hour.
Lord Toby Jug is also raising money for Alzheimer’s Disease research.
Stoic Londoners
Last night, I had to go to the bus stop to pick up a friend, who was coming to dinner.
At the moment, the Balls Pond Road, is more like the Balls Pond Roadworks and as buses through Dalston appeared to be being diverted, buses were stacked up to get to the stop, where my friend was to alight.
But was it all fraught, with shouting and waving?
No! Everybody just got on with their travel, perhaps walked a bit if necessary and got off buses in the middle of the road, if that was all they could do.
Hopefully, it’ll all be better in a week or two, when the works finish.
You do sometimes think that stupidity makes it worse. Yesterday, as I walked back from Dalston Junction, the road was narrowed by the road works, so what did some idiot decorators do? Block the pavement with ladders, so they could paint a building. This meant mothers with buggies had to use the road and weave between buses, trucks and other vehicles. Hopefully, there wasn’t an accident.
Too Much Choice
One of the problems I have here is too many different ways of doing the same journey by public transport. This morning, I went to IKEA at Edmonton, which is either the 341 bus from one end of my road or one of several at the other end to Seven Sisters and then a tube and a shuttle bus.
I obeyed the old superstition of a Pakistani friend and went the first way and came back the second. But it would probably have been quicker to use the 341 both ways. But hey, I popped into the picture framers in Stoke Newington to pick up some pictures they had worked on.
No More Jump Leads
As I walked back from the de Beauvoir Deli this morning after getting my paper and lunch and having a coffee, a guy was putting his jump leads back in the boot of his BMW X5. To be fair, it didn’t look like the BMW that had failed, but someone had had a problem!
I laughed, as that is something that won’t bother me again. So buses break-down, but it’s not my problem to give them a push!
7/7 Inquest Reporting
This article entitled “Doctors truggled after 7/7 bomb” is almost unfair. It criticises the fact that no medical equipment was available outside the BMA, where the bomb was detonated on the number 30 bus.
Doctors at the British Medical Association struggled to treat victims of the 7/7 bus bombing because there was no medical equipment at their headquarters, the inquests have heard.
Instead they used table cloths, jackets and ties as bandages for the wounded.
The hearings were told the doctors utilised “bits of bus” including windows as makeshift stretchers.
So should we ask suicide bombers to explode their devices in approved places, where doctors, paramedics and equipment are all readily available?
I don’t know how I’d react in such a situation, but I suspect all those doctors who struggled, are now much better doctors!
The Anonymous Widower 