I always rather liked Preston Bus Station. Admittedly, it was mainly because getting there meant that we were well on our way to our holidays in Blackpool.
I always rather liked Preston Bus Station. Admittedly, it was mainly because getting there meant that we were well on our way to our holidays in Blackpool.
Which probably meant you weren't there late on a Friday evening in November.
A particular feature of Aberdeen Bus Station is the electronic timetable telling you when the next buses are due. If bus X is due at 4pm, it will appear on the board until 4pm, when it will disappear, regardless of whether of not the bus has appeared.
I think this is actually quite common, I've seen that happening at stops here in Cardiff and also in Cambridge. Usually there are two different time formats on these displays: for buses which are tracked in "real time" you will get an estimate of how long it will be till they arrive (eg 5 minutes); for buses which aren't tracked it simply gives the timetabled time - which duly disappears if the bus is late.
Indeed it does. From no aspect however does it resemble a railway station. In France most city stations look like grand hotels. Some actually are, and have excellent restaurants too, while country stations are often in the vernacular. The new station is placed right at the end of the station platforms, which is no improvement on the old station, which was at the other end. Why couldn't it have been built in the middle?
We have a new railway station, opened a few years ago, and closer than the old one (now abandoned) to the Norman castle and Cathedral, tourists for the convenience of.
That reminds me of one of the stations on the Settle & Carlisle line which is/was about 5 miles from the village it purported to serve. When people asked, "Why couldn't you build the station nearer the village?" they were told, "Because we thought it would be better nearer the railway!" (Of course the S&C was intended to be a main line rather than a local one, the stations were more important for operational reasons than anything else, I guess).
My friend in the South tells me that Chichester is proposing to do away with its Bus Station and have what the local council call "bus stands" scattered around the roads. So anyone arriving at the railway station will have a longer walk to find a bus and they'll be no waiting room or loos. Fantastic progress!
Ah, but at least there'll be nowhere for drug addicts, muggers, the homeless etc. to hang out.
BTW, I thought the Old Joke about building the station close to the railway, rather than the village, was of Irish origin! I suspect it is both timeless, and placeless...
My friend in the South tells me that Chichester is proposing to do away with its Bus Station and have what the local council call "bus stands" scattered around the roads. So anyone arriving at the railway station will have a longer walk to find a bus and they'll be no waiting room or loos. Fantastic progress!
That's the way buses run in London, and it seems to work well enough. All the depots are a good few miles out (I think Hammersmith is the nearest?) but the routes run into London, and either return or "out the other side". There are also routes that don't go into the centre, but it is possible to run services without an ugly, overcrowded, smelly bus station.
As far as an out of the way railway station is concerned, it wouldn't be difficult to run a "station to centre" service, that could drop people off at most of the central stops.
Without wishing to be pedantic, there is a difference between a bus station, where services start/terminate/pass through, and a bus depot (or garage), where the vehicles, and crews, are based. The two may be combined, of course, or be very close to each other.
Yes, London doesn't have that many bus stations, at least in the Central area (Victoria, and Aldgate - if it's still there - spring to mind).
We're lucky here, as most routes serve both the main bus station, and also the railway station about a quarter-of-a-mile away. Two other local stations are served by the routes that pass the door, as it were, but a third is remote from any of the bus services, and best avoided by those who don't have access to a car to get to it!
TICTH, though, those who vetoed the establishment some years ago of a local tram/light rail system, partly using existing railway tracks, a la Croydon, Manchester et al.
Also, TICTH those who did away with our former local tramways back in 1930. Before that, I could have caught a tram from the top of my road, right through the town, to within a few hundred yards of Our Place.
What seems to be particularly obtuse is that Councils are closing Bus Stations linked to Shopping Centres or Railway Stations. What people want is integrated transport: to be able to arrive at a Railway Station and easily continue their journey to wherever without a 10-minute trudge to an obscure Stand on a bleak bit of road half-a-mile away. (And, if they do have to make that trudge, at least have clear signage which tells them where to go!)
One only has to go to The Netherlands, for example, to see how this can be done. I once stayed in Apeldoorn, where, unusually, the bus station was a short distance from the railway station. It was not exactly easy to miss the bus station - even the pavements had specially-designed rubberised bits, so that blind people could find their way...
In our case, the Bus Station did indeed once occupy (under cover) the first floor of the monolithic Shopping Mall that evilly dominates the town centre. However, the owners of the Mall - who are NOT the local authority - wanted the buses out, so that they could increase the number of shops.
Result - an outdoor bus station (well-designed IMHO, but draughty, as it's on the river bank), and a completely disused former indoor bus station, along with no extra shops...and many of those already there are closed...
My friend in the South tells me that Chichester is proposing to do away with its Bus Station and have what the local council call "bus stands" scattered around the roads. So anyone arriving at the railway station will have a longer walk to find a bus and they'll be no waiting room or loos. Fantastic progress!
Blimey, I live in Chichester and hadn't realised that was on the cards!
I wonder what they will do with the site?
BTW, I see from YouTube that the bus station in Apeldoorn (Netherlands) is now right by the railway station. I suspect the buses might have taken over part of a former goods yard, or something. It's a few lustra since I was there!
In this country, of course, former railway goods yards are car parks, mostly.
There are normally 2 bus stations in our city, both in shopping centres at opposite ends of the city centre. These take coaches and the routes that serve other local villages and towns. The in-city bus routes are all on-street stops, but pretty much all of them stop within somewhere around the main shopping centre so changing routes isn't too hard. At the moment though one of the bus stations doesn't exist as it was in the basement of a carpark that is being replaced due to getting too expensive to keep repairing, and won't be back until the new car park has been built (probably late next year).
My friend in the South tells me that Chichester is proposing to do away with its Bus Station and have what the local council call "bus stands" scattered around the roads. So anyone arriving at the railway station will have a longer walk to find a bus and they'll be no waiting room or loos. Fantastic progress!
Blimey, I live in Chichester and hadn't realised that was on the cards!
I wonder what they will do with the site?
Apparently your local council is proposing to develop something called the "Southern Gateway"? Although as my mate tells me, the biggest problem is the level crossings all along the southern edge of the town which lead to congestion that spreads back to the already over-burdened so-called bypass (in reality one of the busiest trunk roads in the UK, the A27) and general mayhem inside the town.
Don't get me wrong, Chichester seems a nice enough place when I visit but it does have hellish traffic even without taking into account its proximity to beaches, sailing venues, and the races at Goodwood.
My friend in the South tells me that Chichester is proposing to do away with its Bus Station and have what the local council call "bus stands" scattered around the roads. So anyone arriving at the railway station will have a longer walk to find a bus and they'll be no waiting room or loos. Fantastic progress!
Blimey, I live in Chichester and hadn't realised that was on the cards!
I wonder what they will do with the site?
Apparently your local council is proposing to develop something called the "Southern Gateway"? Although as my mate tells me, the biggest problem is the level crossings all along the southern edge of the town which lead to congestion that spreads back to the already over-burdened so-called bypass (in reality one of the busiest trunk roads in the UK, the A27) and general mayhem inside the town.
Don't get me wrong, Chichester seems a nice enough place when I visit but it does have hellish traffic even without taking into account its proximity to beaches, sailing venues, and the races at Goodwood.
The traffic is the worst I have known it and we have been here 30 plus years. I walk everywhere and my husband cycles and we carefully plan our route through the city when we do have to use the car.
But for all that Chichester is lovely 😊
I agree - Chichester is one of my Happy Places! I loved living there and was sorry to leave. At least the traffic stays (mainly) outside the city walls.
What the heck is "Giving Tuesday" and who decreed that it should exist? I have been inundated with email and snail mail solicitations the past few weeks. (Luckily my telephone has been out of order. I'm not getting it repaired until "Giving Tuesday" is over.) Why should I shell out money based on a made-up holiday? I give when (and if) I choose to, not because of some make-believe holiday.
Just FYI: it's to balance the shopping days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It's a way to remind people not to spend *all* their money at online businesses--as is Small Business Saturday. Both charities and brick & mortar small businesses want to keep going, and they need money to do that.
House purchasers, who, three months after having an offer accepted and when contracts are out, FINALLY DECIDE THEY WANT A BUILDINGS SURVEY.
Sorry to shout, but that's exact;y how they make me feel - these aren't the nice people who are trying to buy The Dowager's house, but their purchasers, who don't even need a mortgage so it isn't the bank making them do it. I'd think it was a delaying tactic, or a way to get the price down, but there are easier ways like straight gazundering*
*waiting till the day contracts are to be exchanged, then suddenly reducing the price you're prepared to pay and hoping your vendors are desperate enough to take it
That's a pain Mrs S. Hope it gets sorted. I hope your purchasers' purchasers' aren't getting cold feet.
I'd very much like to meet the person who came into the charity bookshop in which I volunteer and nicked a whole set of pristine Persephone Books from under our noses.
The Hermes courier who left a parcel leaning on the door next door to the cupboard which said "Leave deliveries here and lock the door" and forged a signature on the gadget that checks things are signed for. Fortunately I picked up the email only a quarter of an hour after they didn't ring the doorbell. And Hermes who are impossible to contact sensibly.
TICTH my Dad's GP who are inconsiderate lazy blighters. They are difficult to get through to. They refused Dad an X-ray note so I had to take the day off work and go to A&E last month. That meant overstretched A&E had to do extra work and I had to take the day off work whereas a timely X-ray would have meant me taking him in on the day I was not working. Now they are refusing to sign the death certificate because the GP who last saw Dad is on holiday for two weeks, which means there would have to be a post-mortem. The chances are that he died of a heart attack and I can make that guess from my knowledge of his medical history and the way he died and IANAD. They also said when he died that they had not seen him since June. Well, they saw him every single week when the doctor came around the home and technically a GP saw him the previous Thursday to prescribe antibiotics for a chest infection.
I know they are busy but they are making more work for everyone else and their business does not compare with A&E, not one fraction. Any sensible GP would be making sure elderly patients did not go to A&E if at all possible. The local one is not a safe place for them to be due to understaffing.
Oh Jengie, I thought our lot were bad with the week delay, and not having seen D for over a fortnight because they do things over the phone and via a paramedic.
May things work out promptly for you.
If we are cursing couriers, can I add Parcelforce? Why text me to say delivery arriving 'by or on 4 December' when the tracking info says it's barely reached the depot in Gloucester? (Which is the more likely, since I only ordered the stuff on Monday evening).
Might be more common than you think, Piglet. I once watched someone help themselves to something I had just left on the pavement outside a charity shop (as a prelude to carting it inside, I wasn't dumping stuff).
Thanks for fixing the link @Piglet. Yep we've had quite a few books stolen, and also thieves breaking in and stealing the safe. We were just all digesting that when the charity shop across the road told us they'd had the same thing happen to them.
Amazon.
After several days in the dark about the non-delivery of part of an order, and not a word from Amazon, I finally got an email informing me that a refund has been made to my credit card. No explanation as to why the item in question was not delivered, and if I
re-order I will have to pay postage, when the original was part of a larger order that qualified for free delivery.
If we are cursing couriers, can I add Parcelforce? Why text me to say delivery arriving 'by or on 4 December' when the tracking info says it's barely reached the depot in Gloucester? (Which is the more likely, since I only ordered the stuff on Monday evening).
This. Also Hermes who emailed to say that they had just dropped off a parcel in the porch and it wasn't there and I spent ages trying to find how to tell them this - it is impossible, by the way - and then remembered that said parcel arrived 12 hours previously!! In fact TICH all the plethora of emails that ordering online seems to spawn these days. Having just ordered many small things for the Giraffe's 18th next week and then for Christmas, I have an inbox chocked with emails, some of which I should keep, but not all of which are necessary, nor, as @Firenze says accurate.
Couriers have become better at figuring out that just because they've handed off a parcel to a depot in Oban doesn't mean I've received it (which when we first moved out here was a problem. DPD I'm looking at you) but the vagaries of planes and ferries mean that delivery dates are something of a crapshoot. At least the local couriers know to just open the doors and leave things inside. Locks are for the paranoid.
If we are cursing couriers, can I add Parcelforce? Why text me to say delivery arriving 'by or on 4 December' when the tracking info says it's barely reached the depot in Gloucester? (Which is the more likely, since I only ordered the stuff on Monday evening).
This. Also Hermes who emailed to say that they had just dropped off a parcel in the porch and it wasn't there and I spent ages trying to find how to tell them this - it is impossible, by the way - and then remembered that said parcel arrived 12 hours previously!! In fact TICH all the plethora of emails that ordering online seems to spawn these days. Having just ordered many small things for the Giraffe's 18th next week and then for Christmas, I have an inbox chocked with emails, some of which I should keep, but not all of which are necessary, nor, as @Firenze says accurate.
I can add the Royal Mail to that list who delivered to the building I was in on that day a parcel that has never turned up!
At least the local couriers know to just open the doors and leave things inside. Locks are for the paranoid.
Locks are also for those of us who have been in the shower, heard someone at the door, thought "I'll just nip out onto the landing, catch a glimpse of who it is through the window and phone them later", only to find that it it was the postperson who had walked in to leave a parcel inside and was at the foot of the stairs looking at me in horror.
(I had a towel, but not one that went all the way round. And slippers. I'd put on my slippers.)
At least the local couriers know to just open the doors and leave things inside. Locks are for the paranoid.
Locks are also for those of us who have been in the shower, heard someone at the door, thought "I'll just nip out onto the landing, catch a glimpse of who it is through the window and phone them later", only to find that it it was the postperson who had walked in to leave a parcel inside and was at the foot of the stairs looking at me in horror.
(I had a towel, but not one that went all the way round. And slippers. I'd put on my slippers.)
I have found a site called Resolver which was able to communicate with Hermes - I am still waiting for a proper response fom the latter, but it looks promising. I at least got an acknowledgement of the problem.
That such a site is needed and successful is .... interesting.
our local Facebook page is full of posts of "has anyone in XYZ street received the Parcel Hermes said they delivered at 3:15 when I was in the house and had a perfect view of NOBODY at my front door ?" or "does anyone else recognise the recycling in the blue bin photo that Hermes sent me to confirm the 'safe place' where they left my parcel today - it's not mine or my immediate neighbours'"
Please remember that couriers are often under a lot of pressure to deliver, which results in them cutting corners. As ever it's the managers/owners who put these cheapjack operations in place which often pay nothing unless the parcels are "delivered".
ParcelFarce and Royal Mail on the other hand have no such excuse. Knockdownginger is a lousy delivery model.
I found out recently that packages for my building periodically wind up at a certain building down the street. Someone brought me a package that I hadn't even worried about yet. (I'd been given a delivery window several days wide.)
This is my regular, annual whinge about blue Christmas lights. Please, a warm white, or multi colours, but plain blue looks like a rozzer's holiday. The modern bright white isn't a lot better.
I'm sure it makes the baby Jesus cry and if we all listen I am sure we might hear Him.
TICTH flashing Christmas lights, for the many migraine sufferers and those with photo-sensitive epilepsy. And particularly the simulated flashes of lightning on the otherwise tasteful Christmas tree in front of Cardiff Castle. I’m not extremely sensitive to flashing lights, if it’s only for a few minutes, but those are so distracting I have to pull the sun visor down if driving past at night.
TICTH the branch of Service Canada that deals with SINs (Social Insurance Numbers - the equivalent of National Insurance numbers).
I had a phone call this morning from the Canada Pensions department, who said they couldn't trace D. from his SIN, and could I try and find out what it was?
I spent half an hour on the phone with the SIN registry, being thanked at regular intervals for my patience (which was by then wearing very thin), so I gave up and tried his former employer, and the one before that, and the accountant who's sorting out his taxes, but they had the same number I'd quoted.
Is their request anything that could turn out beneficial to YOU, or are they just attempting to have you assist them with their own responsibilities? In which case I'd say you've done more than enough, and can tell them you've had no luck, so very sorry, hope you can get it fixed on your own, and so forth.
Comments
Which probably meant you weren't there late on a Friday evening in November.
Indeed it does. From no aspect however does it resemble a railway station. In France most city stations look like grand hotels. Some actually are, and have excellent restaurants too, while country stations are often in the vernacular. The new station is placed right at the end of the station platforms, which is no improvement on the old station, which was at the other end. Why couldn't it have been built in the middle?
The architecture blends in perfectly, as you can see, with the older buildings of the adjacent High Street...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/December_2015_Rochester_railway_station_9499.JPG
(Actually, it's quite user-friendly, and has a handy car park, a neat little café, and lifts to/from the platforms. An honest-to-goodness glass box!)
Newport Station, OTOH, looks like something to which a passing UFO has given birth, and then forgotten about...
Some of the best stations in Britain from the "grand hotel" aspect are Huddersfield (https://tinyurl.com/rghewdv) and Stoke (https://tinyurl.com/u6ekoox).
(Crossed with BF).
BTW, I thought the Old Joke about building the station close to the railway, rather than the village, was of Irish origin! I suspect it is both timeless, and placeless...
That's the way buses run in London, and it seems to work well enough. All the depots are a good few miles out (I think Hammersmith is the nearest?) but the routes run into London, and either return or "out the other side". There are also routes that don't go into the centre, but it is possible to run services without an ugly, overcrowded, smelly bus station.
As far as an out of the way railway station is concerned, it wouldn't be difficult to run a "station to centre" service, that could drop people off at most of the central stops.
Yes, London doesn't have that many bus stations, at least in the Central area (Victoria, and Aldgate - if it's still there - spring to mind).
We're lucky here, as most routes serve both the main bus station, and also the railway station about a quarter-of-a-mile away. Two other local stations are served by the routes that pass the door, as it were, but a third is remote from any of the bus services, and best avoided by those who don't have access to a car to get to it!
TICTH, though, those who vetoed the establishment some years ago of a local tram/light rail system, partly using existing railway tracks, a la Croydon, Manchester et al.
Also, TICTH those who did away with our former local tramways back in 1930. Before that, I could have caught a tram from the top of my road, right through the town, to within a few hundred yards of Our Place.
One only has to go to The Netherlands, for example, to see how this can be done. I once stayed in Apeldoorn, where, unusually, the bus station was a short distance from the railway station. It was not exactly easy to miss the bus station - even the pavements had specially-designed rubberised bits, so that blind people could find their way...
In our case, the Bus Station did indeed once occupy (under cover) the first floor of the monolithic Shopping Mall that evilly dominates the town centre. However, the owners of the Mall - who are NOT the local authority - wanted the buses out, so that they could increase the number of shops.
Result - an outdoor bus station (well-designed IMHO, but draughty, as it's on the river bank), and a completely disused former indoor bus station, along with no extra shops...and many of those already there are closed...
Numpties Rule OK...
Blimey, I live in Chichester and hadn't realised that was on the cards!
I wonder what they will do with the site?
BTW, I see from YouTube that the bus station in Apeldoorn (Netherlands) is now right by the railway station. I suspect the buses might have taken over part of a former goods yard, or something. It's a few lustra since I was there!
In this country, of course, former railway goods yards are car parks, mostly.
Apparently your local council is proposing to develop something called the "Southern Gateway"? Although as my mate tells me, the biggest problem is the level crossings all along the southern edge of the town which lead to congestion that spreads back to the already over-burdened so-called bypass (in reality one of the busiest trunk roads in the UK, the A27) and general mayhem inside the town.
Don't get me wrong, Chichester seems a nice enough place when I visit but it does have hellish traffic even without taking into account its proximity to beaches, sailing venues, and the races at Goodwood.
The traffic is the worst I have known it and we have been here 30 plus years. I walk everywhere and my husband cycles and we carefully plan our route through the city when we do have to use the car.
But for all that Chichester is lovely 😊
FWIW.
Sorry to shout, but that's exact;y how they make me feel - these aren't the nice people who are trying to buy The Dowager's house, but their purchasers, who don't even need a mortgage so it isn't the bank making them do it. I'd think it was a delaying tactic, or a way to get the price down, but there are easier ways like straight gazundering*
*waiting till the day contracts are to be exchanged, then suddenly reducing the price you're prepared to pay and hoping your vendors are desperate enough to take it
I'd very much like to meet the person who came into the charity bookshop in which I volunteer and nicked a whole set of pristine Persephone Books from under our noses.
I know they are busy but they are making more work for everyone else and their business does not compare with A&E, not one fraction. Any sensible GP would be making sure elderly patients did not go to A&E if at all possible. The local one is not a safe place for them to be due to understaffing.
May things work out promptly for you.
For some reason, your link gave a 404 error - the link below seems to actually go somewhere.
persephonebooks.co.uk/
After several days in the dark about the non-delivery of part of an order, and not a word from Amazon, I finally got an email informing me that a refund has been made to my credit card. No explanation as to why the item in question was not delivered, and if I
re-order I will have to pay postage, when the original was part of a larger order that qualified for free delivery.
This. Also Hermes who emailed to say that they had just dropped off a parcel in the porch and it wasn't there and I spent ages trying to find how to tell them this - it is impossible, by the way - and then remembered that said parcel arrived 12 hours previously!! In fact TICH all the plethora of emails that ordering online seems to spawn these days. Having just ordered many small things for the Giraffe's 18th next week and then for Christmas, I have an inbox chocked with emails, some of which I should keep, but not all of which are necessary, nor, as @Firenze says accurate.
I can add the Royal Mail to that list who delivered to the building I was in on that day a parcel that has never turned up!
Locks are also for those of us who have been in the shower, heard someone at the door, thought "I'll just nip out onto the landing, catch a glimpse of who it is through the window and phone them later", only to find that it it was the postperson who had walked in to leave a parcel inside and was at the foot of the stairs looking at me in horror.
(I had a towel, but not one that went all the way round. And slippers. I'd put on my slippers.)
I concede the point.
That such a site is needed and successful is .... interesting.
ParcelFarce and Royal Mail on the other hand have no such excuse. Knockdownginger is a lousy delivery model.
I'm sure it makes the baby Jesus cry and if we all listen I am sure we might hear Him.
I had a phone call this morning from the Canada Pensions department, who said they couldn't trace D. from his SIN, and could I try and find out what it was?
I spent half an hour on the phone with the SIN registry, being thanked at regular intervals for my patience (which was by then wearing very thin), so I gave up and tried his former employer, and the one before that, and the accountant who's sorting out his taxes, but they had the same number I'd quoted.
Stuff that for a lark.