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Category: Coaches

  • National Express : Norwich to Cambridge

    National Express : Norwich to Cambridge

    One of the very exciting things that Jamie Burles has done in his tenure of Greater Anglia is to oversee a near-doubling of the price of the rail rover ticket in just a few years. I’ve never understood this and the Greater Anglia press office admitted he had no answer or comment, because that rover ticket can helpfully fill trains up a bit during quieter periods of the day. As it stands now, Greater Anglia need people on the trains during the quieter periods of the day, but I’m sure Burles knows what he’s doing so I’ll stay positive. But, it has meant that the cost of an open return ticket to Cambridge has reached such levels as to make it much cheaper by coach.

    So, here’s the National Express coach from Norwich bus station, moved over to its new boarding location by the YMCA. The driver was jovial and welcoming, but it wasn’t a particularly packed service with only four of us boarding. The driver measured the temperature of each customer’s wrist, which I didn’t know was a thing. Anyway, he seemed happy with the results, so that made me happy.

    A packed service. The automated announcement went wrong and so the driver did his own version, still in his friendly style. All very welcoming.

    The coach was spotlessly clean and there were hand dispensers on board, all pointed out by the driver. The temperature on the coach was also just as I would want it, slightly chilled, although I note that the seat-back tables have all been removed. A customer was complaining on the coach before ours, which went to London, that he wanted to sit next to his wife but the seating didn’t allow. The driver was helpful, as apparently people can’t manage to sit on their own for more than three minutes.

    Megabus have taken out a lot of their seats, on the grounds of they can’t use a lot of them, so they might as well make customers feel more comfortable. National Express haven’t done this. The leg-room on these coaches really isn’t very good and it would be unbearable for many if sitting behind someone who reclined. Fortunately, this isn’t a problem on a service with four customers.

    And safely into Cambridge, all on time. It’s not the faster service as we went through Thetford, Mildenhall, Newmarket and some random stops along the way, but it all took less than two hours. The fare was £10, which seems reasonable to me, although I’d still preferred to have got the train as it’s infinitely more comfortable. The bus was the NX727 service which went to the airports and I was a little jealous of the customers going there….

  • Buses – How Hard is It?

    Buses – How Hard is It?

    Before it looks judgemental, I’ve edited the above photo as I’m not interested in social shaming. I can be judgemental, but that’s normally about chicken bakes and craft beer. To be honest, I must admit that I thought First’s solution to make it obvious where to sit was pretty clear and simple. They’ve put wraps around the seats they don’t want used and huge signs saying that. It seems that perhaps that they might need to do more when one younger member of the public came to sit on a wrapped off seat… To be fair, they’d probably had a long day and just wanted to sit down, I find the directional arrows in Tesco to be entirely confusing so I can’t complain about mistakes by others.

    Anyway, my post isn’t about that, it’s that I was more humoured by the reaction from two other passengers nearby, both who tutted relatively quietly (they were moderately annoyed, but not enough to say anything out loud) and stared at the person for a good number of seconds before moving to other seats themselves. That seemed a particularly British solution that satisfied everyone.

    As an aside, there’s something moderately nice about sitting down and knowing that I’ll have lots of space around me, it’s making public transport feel much more comfortable. Although financially unsustainable….

  • Flixbus Coming to UK

    Flixbus Coming to UK

    It’s fair to say that Flixbus (above photo is of their coach which took me from Torun to Warsaw a few months ago) for some time considerably annoyed me, managing to leave from the wrong coach stop at the wrong time with coaches that rarely worked properly. Much of this is because they partnered with coach companies across Europe who were of varying quality, but my more recent trips have been much better. I now like them and feel reassured by them.

    But, anyway, the company have now announced that they’re coming to the UK and this is likely bad news for National Express and Megabus. Although it’s probably more devastating for National Express, who have been charging ridiculous fares on some routes for years because they could and stinging passengers with little extra costs all over the place.

    Anyway, Flixbus are starting from routes to and from London, but will likely expand. They are also experienced in running open access rail networks in the European Union, and they will probably make public transport better integrated. All told, it’s all good news for passengers and might kick National Express into focusing a little more on customer service.