[crossposted to uk.transport.london - originally posted on uk.railway]

Harry G wrote:

Sorry if this has already been raised before, but I noticed the
following in Newsrail Express 330:

"For the benefit of customers who have difficulty using London
Underground services, or who prefer not to, Train Companies are
negotiating with Transport for London (TfL) to introduce a cross-London
Bus transfer facility between National Rail London termini. This bus
transfer would only be issued, and used, in conjunction with tickets
which include 'cross-London validity'.

Ticketing and details of route validity on London Buses has still to be
agreed, but in anticipation of this, a new product - Discount London
Bus Pass - has already been created and appears in TIS and fares
information systems.

Please note however, that until otherwise advised, Discounted London
Bus Pass tickets MUST NOT be issued under any circumstances. Subject to
full agreement being reached with TfL, full details of this new
facility, and date of introduction, will be advised in due course."


I've taken the liberty of cross-posting this to utl as I'm sure it'll
be of interest to people there. Despite the subject line it would
appear that there is only one potential new ticketing product being
considered rather than two, though exactly what form that ticket will
take remains to be seen.

Nonetheless I'll speculate anyway! The use of the "Discounted London
Bus Pass" wording does suggest the ticket will be a quasi-bus pass, for
use on more than one bus to transfer between termini, which makes
perfect sense. If it does go ahead I wonder how well it's inter-termini
validity will be enforced, or whether people will be able to get away
with using it as if it's a normal bus pass.

It appears that the train companies through ATOC are responding to
passengers demand for such a ticketing product. I guess this can be
seen in part as a response to the events of two summers ago, but
regardless of any such terrorism fear factor there has always been
plenty of people who just don't like the idea of using a subterranean
railway (I guess as a result of claustrophobia), and others who find
using the Underground an ordeal because their mobility is impaired or
they have heavy/bulky luggage.

Nonetheless the Underground remains the best way to transfer between
many London termini, as buses will take longer for many such transfers,
may be similarly busy to the Tube and might prove a similar struggle
for those with cumbersome luggage. I predict more passengers will be
missing their connection once this cross-London bus ticket gets
introduced, perhaps helped along by some naive advice from a rustic
ticket office far far away from the realities of the big smoke!

Mizter T wrote:
[ allowing x-London Terminals transfer by bus]
It appears that the train companies through ATOC are responding to
passengers demand for such a ticketing product. I guess this can be
seen in part as a response to the events of two summers ago, but
regardless of any such terrorism fear factor there has always been
plenty of people who just don't like the idea of using a subterranean
railway (I guess as a result of claustrophobia), and others who find
using the Underground an ordeal because their mobility is impaired or
they have heavy/bulky luggage.

Agreed on the claustrophobia, mobility and luggage.

However, given the death toll relative to passenger density seen with
the Tube, sub-surface and bus bombs two summers ago, anyone aiming to
minimise potential personal terrorism damage would be unwise to do so
by taking a bus...

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

Mizter T wrote:

Nonetheless the Underground remains the best way to transfer between
many London termini, as buses will take longer for many such transfers,
may be similarly busy to the Tube and might prove a similar struggle
for those with cumbersome luggage. I predict more passengers will be
missing their connection once this cross-London bus ticket gets
introduced, perhaps helped along by some naive advice from a rustic
ticket office far far away from the realities of the big smoke!

A few years ago there was a circulat bus route linking all the main
London stations, using low-floor vehicles with loading ramps. It was
indeed slow. The idea was to serve travellers who needed ro-ro loading
for wheelchairs, prams, etc and so could not use the Underground at
all, although the service was open to all users. I think (someone here
may know better) that it disappeared for lack of customers. Perhaps few
wheelchair users make cross-London journeys or maybe most doing so
prefered a taxi transfer.

Jon

Jon wrote:

A few years ago there was a circulat bus route linking all the main
London stations, using low-floor vehicles with loading ramps. It was
indeed slow. The idea was to serve travellers who needed ro-ro loading
for wheelchairs, prams, etc and so could not use the Underground at
all, although the service was open to all users. I think (someone here
may know better) that it disappeared for lack of customers. Perhaps few
wheelchair users make cross-London journeys or maybe most doing so
prefered a taxi transfer.

That's correct: in the 1990s there was a pair of circular services,
Stationlink SL1/2 (clockwise/anti), although there had been something
prior to that as well which failed (and ISTR a night-time service in
the early 1980s). These were pretty infrequent and because they served
virtually all stations could be terribly slow - it might take a couple
of hours from arriving at one terminal before you reached your
cross-London terminal. I think they disappeared around 4-5 years ago.

Route 205 is a legacy of the Stationlink service, and there was also a
705 which seems to have withdrawn. Apart from the slow journey times,
taxi options and infrequency, the accessibility of all London buses to
the groups mentioned above probably put the final nail in the coffin of
dedicated Stationlink services or similar.

John B wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
[ allowing x-London Terminals transfer by bus]
It appears that the train companies through ATOC are responding to
passengers demand for such a ticketing product. I guess this can be
seen in part as a response to the events of two summers ago, but
regardless of any such terrorism fear factor there has always been
plenty of people who just don't like the idea of using a subterranean
railway (I guess as a result of claustrophobia), and others who find
using the Underground an ordeal because their mobility is impaired or
they have heavy/bulky luggage.

Agreed on the claustrophobia, mobility and luggage.

However, given the death toll relative to passenger density seen with
the Tube, sub-surface and bus bombs two summers ago, anyone aiming to
minimise potential personal terrorism damage would be unwise to do so
by taking a bus...


This wasn't quite the direction I intended the thread to go in.
Nonetheless a brief response to that. I'm not sure how accurate your
thinking is, given that there were twice as many victims on the
Piccadilly line train (which was a in a tube as opposed to being a
sub-surface train), though I'm not particularly keen to get into making
grisly and speculative calculations as to which form of transport is
safest in the context of it having a bomb explode on board.

A slightly wider way of looking at it is this - there are a good number
of people who, as I said, have always been wary of Tube travel for a
number of reasons that aren't terrorism related - be it claustrophobia,
fear of crowds or fear of being in tunnels under the ground etc.
Previously some of them may have just bitten their lip and got on the
Tube, but the fear of terrorism is perhaps the final straw that means
they'll now avoid using it. Buses are something they are more familiar
with, and they don't bring with them claustrophobia etc so they seem
like a safer option.

You might say this is irrational - if so, I'd go back to the point I
made above, i.e. I'm not sure there's really enough evidence to suggest
one way or the other about which vehicle is 'preferable' for avoiding
damage, and of course no-one in their right mind wants there to be any
further evidence to study anyway.

In message .com
"Mizter T" wrote:

[crossposted to uk.transport.london - originally posted on uk.railway]

Harry G wrote:

Sorry if this has already been raised before, but I noticed the
following in Newsrail Express 330:

"For the benefit of customers who have difficulty using London
Underground services, or who prefer not to, Train Companies are
negotiating with Transport for London (TfL) to introduce a cross-London
Bus transfer facility between National Rail London termini. This bus
transfer would only be issued, and used, in conjunction with tickets
which include 'cross-London validity'.


Wasn't there a Red Arrow service that did just this in the 1970s?

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html

In message .com,
Harry G writes

Jon wrote:

A few years ago there was a circulat bus route linking all the main
London stations, using low-floor vehicles with loading ramps. It was
indeed slow. The idea was to serve travellers who needed ro-ro loading
for wheelchairs, prams, etc and so could not use the Underground at
all, although the service was open to all users. I think (someone here
may know better) that it disappeared for lack of customers. Perhaps few
wheelchair users make cross-London journeys or maybe most doing so
prefered a taxi transfer.

That's correct: in the 1990s there was a pair of circular services,
Stationlink SL1/2 (clockwise/anti), although there had been something
prior to that as well which failed (and ISTR a night-time service in
the early 1980s).
The night time Inter Station bus was much older than that; I think it
dated back to the 1960s or even earlier. (Someone will be along to
tell us all shortly.)

These were pretty infrequent and because they served
virtually all stations could be terribly slow - it might take a couple
of hours from arriving at one terminal before you reached your
cross-London terminal. I think they disappeared around 4-5 years ago.

Route 205 is a legacy of the Stationlink service, and there was also a
705 which seems to have withdrawn.
Yes, the 205 and 705 were direct replacements for the Stationlink buses.
I think the actual change was as part of the package of bus improvements
to accompany the introduction of the Congestion Charge. I never used
the 705 but have caught the 205 a few times, not linking rail journeys
but on the way to one, certainly. I remember thinking that this was an
ideal time for PA to be employed (it wasn't).

Apart from the slow journey times,
taxi options and infrequency, the accessibility of all London buses to
the groups mentioned above probably put the final nail in the coffin of
dedicated Stationlink services or similar.
Non-Londoners will often go to extreme lengths to avoid the Tube. In
my experience, most prefer taxis, even where a simple bus transfer (or
sometimes even a walk, depending on luggage, would suffice.
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

Ian Jelf wrote:

The night time Inter Station bus was much older than that; I think it
dated back to the 1960s or even earlier. (Someone will be along to
tell us all shortly.)

[Enter a someone]

Evening all!

I can date it as far back as 1949, and I suspect it goes back even
further, perhaps to the creation of the London Passenger Transport Board
in 1933. In 1949 it was the "London Termini Inter-Station Bus Service"
and ran "Daily (Christmas Day Excepted)" for a fare of one shilling (5p
in new money). But it was primarily an evening service, operating every
half hour from about 7 p.m. to midnight, then with an extra service
around 4 a.m. It operated from Kings Cross to Waterloo via Euston,
Paddington and Victoria, and vice versa.

By 1961 though it had shrunk to a few fitful workings around midnight,
but was still advertised in the railway timetable.
--
Joyce Whitchurch, Stalybridge, UK
=================================

On Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:27:06 +0000, Ian Jelf
wrote:

In message .com,
Harry G writes

That's correct: in the 1990s there was a pair of circular services,
Stationlink SL1/2 (clockwise/anti), although there had been something
prior to that as well which failed (and ISTR a night-time service in
the early 1980s).

The night time Inter Station bus was much older than that; I think it
dated back to the 1960s or even earlier. (Someone will be along to
tell us all shortly.)

There was a pre-war Inter-Station bus service which used half-deck
Leyland Cubs. It ran until 1950 using them.

See http://www.countrybus.org.uk/C/Cub.html
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org

In message .com,
Mizter T writes

A slightly wider way of looking at it is this - there are a good number
of people who, as I said, have always been wary of Tube travel for a
number of reasons that aren't terrorism related - be it claustrophobia,
fear of crowds or fear of being in tunnels under the ground etc.

The main reason is almost certainly the difficulty experienced with
those who find negotiating steps difficult. The bus network has been
able to serve that cohort much more quickly than the tube network will
be able to do.

--
Paul Terry