This from @Al_S...
This sign is at Kings Hedges Road, Cambridge (at the junction for Cambridge Regional College).
This from the Upper House on the 29th March...
Lord Berkeley (Labour)
To ask Her Majesty's Government what financial contribution they have committed to the Cambridge guided busway project; what is its expected opening date; what is the estimated outturn cost; and whether they intend to contribute further funding to the project.
Lord Adonis (Secretary of State, Department for Transport; Labour)
The Department for Transport's contribution has been capped at a maximum of £92.5 million. There is no intention to contribute further to this scheme. When approved in 2006 the scheme had an expected outturn cost of £116.3 million. I understand that Cambridgeshire County Council has recently indicated that the total may now fall between £140 million and £145 million.
I also understand that the council is in regular contact with the guided busway contractors regarding establishing an opening date.
And Pilate washed his hands...
This just in from a Leading Railway Periodical...
Eye salutes NXEA for managing to end Berney Arms millennia of isolation from the Queen's highway.
This from the Daily Mail with a bowler tip to a Mr Terris...
?!?
More splendid news from the deeply flawed St Ives Guided Bust-way!
This courtesy of Cambs24:
CAMBRIDGESHIRE County Council has confirmed a further delay in opening the St Ives-Cambridge guided bus link, which should have opened last April.
The likelihood of the troubled scheme's opening, even partially, this side of 2010 is practically zero.
Regular Eye readers will recall that the misguided busway, built on the route of the mothballed line from Cambridge to St Ives, has already exceeded its £116.7m budget.
Bus mad Cambridgeshire County Council has, of course, only itself to blame.
The county council decided to ignore local campaigners who had suggested that the mothballed railway could have been reopened for a mere £50m, and in far less time than it has taken contractor, BAM Nuttall, not to deliver the guided busway.
One piece of good news though.
Cambridgeshire County Council was recently named Transport Authority of the Year... at the UK Bus Awards.
Trebles all round and no shit Sherlock.
Splendid news from Cambridgeshire, home of the St Ives guided busway!
This from the The Hunts Post...
The busway, on the route of the disused railway line, was originally due to open in April but was delayed when disputes arose between Cambridgeshire County Council and contractor BAM Nuttall over cost overruns on the £116.7million project.
Eye readers will not be surprised to know that Cast.Iron, which lobbied for restoration of the railway, costed the line reopening at £50m.
Even if you doubled that figure to allow for puffer-nutter optimism it would still have come in cheaper than this much delayed bustitution white elephant.
Telegrammed by the Velopodist
Readers may appreciate this proof from Leipzig today that bustitution is not a purely British phenomenon.
Mind you, in Germany they're special buses...
The Parry People Mover goes from strength to shambles.
Regular Eye readers may recollect that the class 153 linking Stourbridge Jct and Town ceased operating last December to allow the introduction of the Pans People Mover.
Owing to technical difficulties (Dee-dee feeling unwell) the rail service had to be bustituted.
Alas!
Despite further Peter Pan Mover trials last week it appears that class 153s are to return to the branch!
The following words of wisdom have been issued jointly by London Midland and subcontractor PPM operator Pre Metro Operations Ltd.
London Midland is re-introducing a train service to the Stourbridge Junction to Stourbridge Town branch from Sunday (March 15) in response to our passengers’ wishes. We have responded by bringing back the Class 153 diesel service whilst assisting the phasing-in of a new type of lightweight railcar in the coming weeks.
Lightweight sounds generous, try flyweight.
Undeterred the Purple People Eaters continue, at some length:
The Class 139 lightweight railcar type is highly innovative and as such its introduction is the first of its kind on the UK railway network, and innovations can take time to develop and implement. The first of the two new vehicles is at the depot at StourbridgeTown branch and is awaiting approval for passenger operation. However, London Midland is keen to offer an improved level of service to passengers as soon as possible and the bus replacements were only ever designed to be a short term measure.
We believe it is time to stop them and bring train operations back because of strong public feedback in favour of the rail service. In full agreement with all concerned, we have decided to run the diesel Class 153s as previously, and to phase in the lightweight Class 139s as soon as possible.
In short it looks like Network Rail is still unwilling to grant the Parry People Mover permission to operate.
Can it be long before Pinky and Perky Machines paraphrase the great Groucho and admit they "would not join any club that would accept them as a member"?
Hurrah for Parliamentary Privilege.
This from yesterday's House of Commons railway debate:
Graham Stringer (Manchester, Blackley) (Lab):
When Network Rail closes a line for improvements or because something has gone wrong, it puts on buses, and calls that — it is a dreadful word — “bustitution”.
Twelve of the 13 major rail franchises that bus companies run effectively use themselves as agents.
Arriva uses Arriva; National Express uses National Express; FirstGroup uses FirstGroup; Stagecoach uses Stagecoach and so on.
That means that anyone bidding does not get the bus service operator grant because it goes to the agent of the main company. There is very little control over the costs.
I have talked to representatives of bus operating companies that have been put out of business because they do not believe that they can compete with bodies that effectively award the contracts to themselves.
They are told that it is a matter of quality as well as price, but when one talks to the bus drivers, one finds that the agents pay two and three times what the competitors would pay.
There is a cost to Network Rail and there is, therefore, a cost to the public purse.
I have talked to several bus operators. One — Fraser Eagle — was recently put into administration. It believes that that has happened because of those unfair, if not corrupt practices by train operating companies that also run the buses
Here endeth Parliamentary Privilege...
This from a Mr Murray...
So farewell Fraser Eagle.
Off into administration you go.
Serves them right, I guess, for sponsoring Accrington Stanley (famous as the second football club ever to resign from the league in mid season)!
Not seen today...
Branson, Bowker, Coucher, Lockhead, Ludeman, Shooter, Souter, et al; fancy putting a couple of quid in the pot to make this real?
Yet again a bus from a TOC owner group has pranged a bridge, this time in the West Midlands.
This from the BBC...
Isn't it about time the bus bandits copied railway best practice and made their drivers sign routes?
Goods news for fans of Guided bus routes.
This from Portsmouth Today...
A high-speed bus route on a disused railway track is set to get county approval tomorrow.
If only DafT and Cambridge County Council had listened to Cast Iron - the lobby group seeking to return a railway line to St Ives.
This from Transport Briefing...
"Fears that the Cambridge to St Ives guided busway project could cost more than planned have prompted promoter Cambridgeshire County Council to delay the construction of passenger facilities."
How splendid. The UK's first freight busway.
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