Great Western Coffee Shop

Hello :)

I'm Scott, and a fair few of you know me already. For those of you who don't, I come from Southend but am studying in Bath. I've joined because Mr Boss Man -type person with the long hair asked me to!

I'm very "big" on bus stuff, as Mr Boss Man -type person already knows, to the point that this is the primary reason I've joined - to help and give input into bus stuff in the Avon area. But I am into the rail side of things as well, and have visited (or at least passed through) every major town or city in the United Kingdom by train except for Hull.

Not much else to say at the minute, so I'll stop and say Hello :) again.

N.B.: I will try to keep you all well ahead of the game with bus service changes in the Avon area where I can, especially where First are concerned. I am sure that Mr Boss Man -type person is well aware of this by now...! I will also be travelling on the new A4 service on its first day at some point, if anyone is interested in saying hi.

Hi, Scott ... you win the prize for the most extremely timed "hello" post I think I have ever seen ... at 03:25 in the morning!  ;)  ... welcome to the forum!

We do look forward to your contributions / especially help on "questions bus" ... a number of our members in the Bath / West Wilts area (which overlap as a travel to work area, even though they are different local authorities, with all the problems that causes) have met Scott over the past few months, and I rapidly learned that he's a font of knowledge about anything with rubber wheels that runs to a timetable on tarmac.

Whilst I do host this forum on one of our servers, it's very much run and guided by the moderator and admin team - I suppose that technically and very occasionally non-technically the buck stops with me, but it's very rare that I have to take on a "boss" role as little happens without moderator discussion and majority support.  As we have a strategy, individual issue tactics become automatic / obvious.

I'm up at 05:00 this morning - almost as extreme as yourself, Scott ... customer headed for the airport, by Taxi.  If there were easy public transport from right outside, I suspect that would have been his choice, but 05:00 on a Saturday morning is hardly the time that there's such demand.  Or is it?

Welcome Scott.  I'm sure I'll be interested in your bus input as well as anything railway connected.

Here's a (F)first question for you.  I have made some assumptions about Bristol Greyhound, who are about to start a service from Temple Meads to Clevedon, being related to First, but I can see nothing in their application to the Traffic Commissioners to suggest it is. Any info on this?

Don't feel you have to get up early to answer.  :)

Saving the wor best place till last then!  :-X

Thanks for the kind responses folks.


This service, which is due to start on March 25th, is unrelated to First. It is numbered X7 and was erroneously - or at least, I hope it was erroneously! - quoted in the VOSA files as running every six minutes! There is almost no information on this service on the Internet so I'm sorry to say that I can't add any more than that (even the council site has no details available).

Welcome Scott. I'm suspecting you may also use Ivo as an alias on another forum.,

Your suspicion is suspiciously accurate! ;)

I am 99.99% certain I know who you are too.

Welcome Scott.  :)

I believe we met some time ago in Bath for a RailUK fares workshop.

I know from reading your posts in that other place that your knowledge of public transport will be most useful here in the Coffee Shop.

Already useful to me.  :) Thanks.

Hi Scott, & welcome.
Not known to me in my parochial part of the rubber-wheeled world, but as I have an attention span that a goldfish would be proud to have, I'd have forgotten who, what & where within a day.
Is this perhaps a slow take-over of a metal wheel forum by rubber wheel members, methinks :o
However, I'm suprised that as a company known to us both appears to be disposing of depots, that there's someone else still employed within the UK .
I take it at that time of the day you'd just come off lates ;D

Sentiments of others, echoed, Scott.  Hull is even more difficult to access at present!   :(

Good God, no!

There are forty three boards here, and one of them is entitled "other ways to travel" where bus posts go, and thirty six being pure train related. That ratio's in stark contrast to our member's travel patterns, where we established a while back that 4 out of 5 FGW train journeys aren't complete travel schedules - that travellers move from one transport mode to another to make their complete journeys.

I strongly encourage posts about getting around by public transport - any public transport - and private transport links too.  It's all about getting from "A" to "B".   Members who want "rail only" can simply click past and ignore "other ways to travel" if they wish.  Just don't blame me if you're sitting at Chippenham station for 4 hours waiting for the train, oblivious to the bus that's going from the forecourt every hour to exactly where you want to go.

Should bus posts and comments grow to a level that it's diluting rail posts, we  have the option of creating a separate area which can be collapsed so that uninterested members can pass it by even easier ... if we should ever get to that stage, we would probably also have members who would be clicking away from rail in the same way - again, yes, that's an option.

Late shift? No such thing in my world at the moment! ;D

As Grahame knows, I've done a lot of timetable work for First - N.B. I am not a first employee [yet] - this year, but it was basically done whenever I felt like it! The earliest any work started was 1115; the latest any work finished was 0350...

...just as well it was Reading Week at Uni!

I was just going to post, I wonder if this is 'ivo' but then it seems others have beaten me to it - the different username fails to disguise you. I really ought to introduce myself also. :)