Metropol

I was disappointed when Stagecoach took over the Yorkshire Terrier buses in Sheffield, purely because Yorkshire Terrier is the best name ever given to a bus company.

Round near where I live, there's this big bus war going on at the moment, with Stagecoach practically muscling in on the local bus company and running routes that are identical to theirs. The two companies have always run very well together, covering different parts of the city, but it just seems that Stagecoach have become greedy and want a monopoly on the whole city now. It's bizarre, they'll send out 3 buses and have them sat blocking the bus stops. God knows how much it's costing them, they have loads of these brand new buses, there is no way they can be making a profit at the moment.

I believe that's called "the stagecoach way" as they try it in every one of their franchises. they have a complete monopoly up here aside from Travel Dundee and they've even tried to run routes at the same time as them.

On their Oxford to Cambridge buses, which incidentally provide a rather fab tour of various stagecoach sites across the South of England (including the Milton Keynes Coachway which truly is beyond fab), they use retired National Express coaches with the old logo. And as long as you book in advance the 3+ hour journey costs a quid. /fascfact

In Warrington our Buses are dominated by the Council backed Network Warrington, which in the last couple of years seemed to have replaced their entire lot of buses and we got our old 1970's deathtrap of a Bus Station demolished and replaced with the "Warrington Transport Interchange" or the posh name for the Bus Station.

Luckily no sign of Stagecoach round here, although they serve most of Manchester and they've been slammed on several occassions by the customers and the local media.

What is it with this "transport interchange" malarkey? I've seen a few of these - they're frigging bus stations, for fuck's sake.

all new Phil wrote:What is it with this "transport interchange" malarkey? I've seen a few of these - they're frigging bus stations, for fuck's sake.

All the bus stops in Edinburgh (the fancy-ass new ones with solar panels on the roof and LED downlighters) are now called "interchanges".

The Evening News had a field day because one marked "Princes Street Interchange" was erected on the Mound (which intersects Princes Street). Some hysterical headline lambasted the workers who put it there for not knowing the difference.

They seemed to miss the fact that they were erected by teams of Polish workers who can't read the language and don't know what street is what.

Here in Basingstoke a few months back, they moved the bus stop for Overton (where I live) from one end of the station to the other, meaning a rather long walk from the pub on a drunken Saturday night.

Haven't used a bus in ages mind, prefer to use the train.

Why do I suddenly get the feeling that now is a fairly appropriate moment for...................

Nick Harvey wrote:Why do I suddenly get the feeling that now is a fairly appropriate moment for...................

[saluting emoticon] I salute you sir.

Nick posted a train, Hyma gets to ban another troll!

That's how it works, right?

cdd wrote:Nick posted a train, Hyma gets to ban another troll!

That's how it works, right?

you're banned, cdd.