Although the nice weather has been nice, I hear that it might have been too nice in some parts of the south with some of our electric buses struggling in the heat. It’s not just been the buses though with trains also running to an emergency timetable and advising against all but essential travel.
So while it is now cooling down, ready for everyone to hit the nearest bar with a TV screen, this is what has been going on recently.
Updates to the X3 (and others)
A comment left on my short interlude about the new X3 service, supplementing the X4 and X5 between Fareham and Portsmouth, is going to be a permanent addition to the timetable. It has not been picked up by the service updates page but here is the new X3 timetable:
This service will start running on Monday 27th July which ties in with the end of the Lake Road roadworks on the Sunday and the 3 (and others) returning to their usual routes.
Service Updates
As for the service updates page that you can find at https://hantsbus.blog/service-changes/ I am still working on things. The fact that the Traffic Commissioner seems to be utterly slow to publish registration changes – I know, they are not designed for what I want to use them for – and the uploading of timetables to BODS is fiddly – running a Sunday service on a bank holiday? let’s register that as a timetable change! – and I am feeling I am doing more manual checks than ever before!:
Service 52, having been apparently mis-listed as a 26 September start rather than 26 July at some point confused the system!
News!
In the news recently, the people of some parts of Andover want to replace the on-demand services in their communities with a shuttle bus. The Andover Advertiser ran an article this week that it is appalling that a well used popular bus service can run every 20 minutes where as a little used bus service is on-demand.
Apologies, the heat must be getting to me.
They are right that Hampshire County Council should really be looking at funding for disconnected communities, but the funding is no longer there.
Marchood Rail – Round 3
Following the rejection of a new Open Access rail service to Marchwood, there has been a revisiting of the original and appealed decisions.
Unfortunately for the Marchwood residents, the initial and subsequent rejections have remained, it appears there are still some discussions underway as to whether there is a way forward.