Friday 14 April 2017

In The News Again ...

Borders Buses Buys Buses (Again)
A few days back, fbb reported that Borders Buses (the former Perrymans business) was in the process of ordering new vehicles to replace those operated by First Borders now that Perrymans Borers have taken over the routes.
Now the company has released details of its order.
89 in a single deck? A bit of a squash?
A most interesting take on the subjective livery question? Plus all the usual goodies.
Oh dear! Not the dreaded news feeds. Can we ever escape he incessant bombardment of "news feeds". Does anyone really want them?

But full marks to Border Buses for striving to make an impact from (nearly!) the word "go"!

An Interesting Concept at Northampton Station
The poster has the following text:-

To enhance our customer service to you ...

... so what happens next? Answer later in today's blog.

Customer Service April 30th
Stocksbridge and Penistone
fbb was taken to task for his "Mystery Shopper" probe to establish what the various operators were doing to cope with road closures for the Tour de Yorkshire cycling event.
Stagecoach referred fbb to Travel South Yorkshire, reporting that they know nothing about anything.

T M Travel also know nothing but quoted an irrelevant bus service to fbb.

Some comment writers were quite abusive, telling fbb he should not have been so nasty as to reveal the poor customer service and definitely should not have named names. (He only named one, in the sense that this person had signed to email reply).

Anyway, you barely repentant author agreed to update his experience.

Travel South Yorkshire had upgraded its information to a more accessible place on their web site.
It is now one of five banners on the home page; banners which stay in view just long enough to not quite read them. A click on the banner takes you to the information as reviewed before. For obvious reasons, fbb cannot do his Mystery Traveller bit again, so a quick check on the Company web sites.

Stagecoach Yorkshire
Having changed the location, up pops some Customer Service News ...
... for Torquay.

T M Travel
Service arrangements for Easter plus ...
... a list of changes from 29th January (2017)! Nothing else.

Nothing else that fbb could find. Perhaps the news will break after Easter?

VivaRaul D Train in Passenger Service
Richard Clinnick, correspondent to Rail Magazine has tweeted the following.
Rail Live?
It is a trade show for the Rail Industry and probably not open to the likes of fbb and other "ordinary" mortals. More information in due course. 

Quintin Rail Technology Centre? fbb thinks this is the Quinton Rail Technology Centre.

An Interesting Concept at Northampton Station

And this is the Poster:-
An interesting concept? Enhancing customer service by closing a ticket office?
------------------------------------------------------------
THE WEEK THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
Eight days, for the purposes of this blog!

 FUNNY SORT OF GOOD? 

Pasqua - Italian

Pascua de Resurrección - Spanish

Pasen - Dutch

påsk - Norwegian

Pasg - Welsh


Whilst most countries use a name for "Easter" derived from Passover, we in the UK use the name of a Nordic or Germanic goddess that nobody in Norway or Germany has ever heard of. Weird!

Despite this, most communities use the title Good Friday.

Pitkäperjantai - Finnish

Well, most!

So what is Good about cruelly and illegally crucifying an innocent man?
Back to the prophet Isaiah, writing more than half a century earlier.

He was treated harshly, but endured it humbly;
he never said a word.
Like a lamb about to be slaughtered,
like a sheep about to be sheared,
he never said a word.
He was arrested and sentenced and led off to die,
and no one cared about his fate.
He was put to death for the sins of the people.
He was placed in a grave with those who are evil,
he was buried with the rich,
even though he had never committed a crime
or ever told a lie.

Once again, a bit more "heavy" than chocolate eggs and fluffy bunnies.

When the army officer and the soldiers with him who were watching Jesus saw the everything that happened, they were terrified and said, “He really was the Son of God!"
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 Next tram blog : Saturday 15th April 

6 comments:

  1. Fear not. First South Yorkshire are recruiting a Marketing Manager where one of the tasks is to..

    "Introduce new and innovative marketing methods to First South Yorkshire"

    I did chuckle at that

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  2. A little confusing - the bus pictured and (I assume) the one mentioned as being 13.2 metres long, is part of a batch belonging to East Coast Buses, which is an offshoot of Lothian Buses. Perrymans/Borders Buses are an entirely separate entity.

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  3. fbb has been paricularly incompetent here. Of course the order is for East Coast Buses and NOT Borders Buses. Please ignore all references to Perrymans etc. I hast to get the item on the blog, the old man completely misunderstood who was doing the ordering!
    It's ols age, you know!

    ReplyDelete
  4. "I hast" should read "in haste".

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  5. Andrew Kleissner14 April 2017 at 08:11

    Re. "Rail Live" - I was surprised to read about the Vivarail train and "Rail Live", however the event isn't until June. Presumably this is the unit that suffered a fire some months ago, rather than their battery-powered train which has just been put on test? Either way, I think it's good news.

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  6. Although fbb did make a error, there is a connection between East Coast Buses(Lothian Buses) and Borders / Perrymans. The latter is owned by Craig of Campbeltown Limited which, not surprisingly, is run by people with that surname. The boss of Lothian Buses from 2006 until 2015 was a gentleman called Ian Craig. Much earlier in his career he worked in his family's bus business and still retains a share in it.

    ReplyDelete