Service 36 from Ripon via Harrogate to Leeds was one of the great successes of privatisation. In the hands of West Yorkshire and United, fbb seems to remember buses ran every hour from Ripon to Harrogate and every half hour from Harrogate to Leeds.
The latest development comes at the end of this month. Here is what the company's web site says about it.
Wowsers. From a historical every 30 to every 10 in 2017. Some growth. Some super service.
But read the small print.
READY. GO. EVERY 10 MINS.
From 29 October, there'll be a bus every 10 minutes between Harrogate and Leeds. You'll be able to turn up and go with 6 buses an hour right through the daytime.
This will mean an overall timetable change to further aid timekeeping. There will be more buses to and from Ripon at morning and evening rush hour, where we see some overcrowding, with double the amount of buses to Ripon during the afternoon rush hour.
During the quieter time in the middle of the day, buses between Ripon and Harrogate will run every 20 mins.
Strangely the company's headlines do not mention the REDUCTION in the service north of Harrogate, although the detailed text does "come clean".
Could be a bit more honest, perhaps?
But Here's Something Really New
Remember CityZap?
Get ready to zap between Leeds and Manchester
Remember, remember 5 November - it's the start date of our new Cityzap route between Leeds and Manchester running every hour, every day.
We'll be zapping as we do now - with top spec buses fitted with zap-nav so your driver can pick the quickest route and dodge any congestion. We'll be stopping in Leeds City Bus Station, right next to John Lewis and Victoria Gate and opposite the BBC and Playhouse Theatre. In Manchester, we'll serve Chorlton Street and Piccadilly Gardens in the heart of things. Additionally, we'll make a quick stop for Halifax and Huddersfield zappers with a call at Ainley Top at J23/24 on the M62.
York Zap fares are as below ...
Rail fares are higher ...
National Express?
It will be interesting to see how good the Zap loadings are on the bus. Comment writers please oblige; fbb is unlikely to wish to travel "oop noorth" to try it out!
Next North Devon blog : Wednesday 25th October
The fares are posted on the Transdev York site http://www.yorkbus.co.uk/news.jsp?newsID=2138 - not certain why they are there (aside from the other cityzap being there) or how FBB missed the announcement as he'd gone there to check the York service....?
ReplyDeleteA little bit of tidying up with the 36 history. It was a joint United/WY service and had declined in the late 1970s/early 80s losing its half hourly service to Ripon. It was at dereg as FBB suggests though the United Olympian was a misnomer - they only used one for a short while until they discovered it had a small fuel tank and so couldn't work a full day from Ripon so VRs were deployed instead!
In 1988, some redundant ex WY drivers set up a company called Challenger (aka Harrogate Independent Travel) who then began running an hourly Harrogate to Ripon service (6) 30 mins away from the established hourly 36 as well as various local Harrogate services. As WY were busy fighting on the streets of Harrogate, it was left to United to then register a fast X36 service to Harrogate though, as services at that depot required complex interworking, anything could run the service including VRs, Tigers and plenty of LHs!! HIT was bought by Blazefield and the 6 disappeared. The X36/36 carried on until late 1996 when North East Bus sold Ripon depot's operations to Blazefield (United having stopped using VRs and employing Tigers and late model Olympians on the 36) and this then allowed the consolidation and growth to really begin.
It really is a success story and I believe the latest changes increase the PVR again so I'm prepared to cut Alex Hornby some slack on not emphasising the reduction to Ripon end. If you'd have asked me on 1st Nov 1986 (when I travelled on the first Saturday of a deregulated 36) if 30 years later, you'd see the service pattern and vehicle quality we see now, I'd have had you sectioned!
FBB may wish to look at the Northern trains (Arriva) franchise agreement to discover why resources are being focused on improvements to the Harrogate to Leeds section of the route.
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