London Banter - View Single Post

Colin Rosenstiel · September 26th 06, 11:18 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article . com,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

Colin Rosenstiel wrote:

Except that it was slower. And no use for the journey I was
looking up as coaches don't accept unaccompanied under-16s.

It's more of an express bus service, so it probably does. I'm
fairly sure I've seen unaccompanied children who look well under 16
travelling on it, indeed.

It's got some local bus service attributes (it provides the main
Cambridge-St Neots bus service these days) but is treated as a coach
service at our end.

Are you sure there were not engineering works at the time you
checked?

Pretty sure, yes. Clearly now it just tries to send you via London, even
though it is quicker and almost as frequent to use Central.

Thetrainline.com is still doing it now. Try a return from Birmingham to
Cambridge on 2 October around 16:30:

Return journey: Monday 2 October 2006
Station Arr Dep Travel by Service Provider
BIRMINGHAM NEW STREET 16:30 Train VIRGIN TRAINS
MILTON KEYNES CENTRAL 17:22 17:40 Bus VIRGIN TRAINS
CAMBRIDGE BUS STATION 20:00

Note the claimed provider of the X5 service.

Another 1630 option via London gets you back to Cambridge at 19:39 and
the 16:24 direct service gets to Cambridge at 16:29.

They are evil, trying to pass buses off as trains.

--
Colin Rosenstiel