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What is normally a fairly straight forward process turned in to a possible nightmare. No not possible, a certain nightmare for some people. It started some time in, I would imagine, February or March or when ever head office in Exeter started to look at the summer timetables. In the past this has meant slight changes to timetables, more time on the 12 route and increased running of other services and the reintroduction of the open top service. Not this year. The MD decided now was the time to go for whole scale changes.
The most noticeable being the curtailing of the 32 service at the Harbour. In living memory the 32 has run between Shiphay and Marychurch via the Harbour and is one of the few services to make a profit. From now on the Babbacombe Rd would have 12A/12Cs running along it. This was at once seen as an attempt to extract more money from the concessionary pass holders who would now have to change buses at the Harbour and would therefore mean the council would have to pay for two free rides. There was no other logical explanation for it, certainly not the one I heard from the MD which was he was now providing a service from Paignton to Marychurch. He had been doing that in the form of the 12B which ran mostly empty. The second big change was the dropping of the 12A from Newton Abbot. The MD said that it was because the buses were held up on the road through Kingskerswell but he only reduced the number of buses along that road from eight to six only now they would all be 12s. Along with this he also cut the 12A service between Brixham and South Devon College. There used to be 4 an hour, last winter he reduced this to two an hour. Now there is only the 66 every hour running along this route. This is not what the college, the council and he agreed 3 years ago when the college moved to Paignton. A five year contract to provide direct services to college in return for £300 000 a year. But the number of students travelling to the college could never have paid. There just weren't enough of them using the buses.
The third big change was the removal of the 85 service which ran between Exeter and Torquay via Dawlish. The Dawlish connection is the important bit. There are several big holiday caravan parks in Dawlish and a day or two out in Torquay was an important part of the holidaymakers plans. The money they spend in Torquay is important too. In the past they got an 85 direct to and from Torquay. Now they must get a number 2 which runs between Exeter via Teignmouth to Newton Abbot. To get to Torquay, I'm sorry but holidaymakers don't normally got to Newton Abbot, they must change to a 12A/12C in Teignmouth. This makes it a bit more of a bother on what should be an easy day out so I expect less people will make it to Toquay this summer. The buses that used to run along the coast road on the 85 were single deck low floor, now double deck low floor buses are doing the trip along a narrow, bendy, tree lined road. Already, and we have only been running a week there are marks on buses where they have come into contact with the side of the road while negotiating tight left hand bends.
The red mud is from the banks of earth at the side of the road. And where did the MD get all these double deck buses from? He took them of the 12A route which he cut because, he said, congestion in Kingskerswell. He lives in Kenton so he must be aware of the congestion in Teignmouth and over Sheldon Bridge every summer.
A noticeable omission this summer is the open top service. People on holiday expect to have a ride on an open top bus. It all part of a sea side holiday. But we aren't running an open top. Not enough drivers. Too many drivers required to run the 12A/12C to Marychurch and Teignmouth when the 32 and 85 did the job well enough in the past.
A footnote about the first photo on this page. It was put up on the staff notice board on March 27, two days after the route changes had been registered with the local Traffic Commissioners (a Legal Requirement, 8 weeks notice). I published it a couple of days later and got dragged in to the office to be asked why I had published confidential information. As if Firstbus were going to read my blog to find out what Stagecoach were doing for the summer when they could go on The Traffic Commission's web site and find out in much greater detail. I thing someone doesn't like me blogging. (Note; if you are reading this then I have left the company, due hopefully to retirement. I wrote it in May but just didn't publish it). Oh yes I didn't hit the side of the road with the bus in the other photo.
