Cambridge Guided Busway - ongoing discussion and updates (merged topic)

[whole diary]

[onthecushions]

The thought crossed my mind that since we have track maintenance vehicles that can run both on rubber tyres and steel rails, it shouldn't be beyond the wit of UK^▸ (United Kingdom) bus and train builders without full order books to devise a bus that can do the same. We could then have a "guided" bus that could use existing tracks, even street tramlines and still have the flexibility to terminate in the high street. The replacement of rails with short-life concrete guideways is quite pointless.

The performance and economy of a bus running on rails would be spectacular, with perhaps 20% of the rolling resistance of the tarmac alternative.

The down side of buses is of course quality and capacity. Cambridge, as a UK hub of world creativity, deserves better.
 
OTC

[Red Squirrel]

Something like this, maybe?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_142

[stuving]

Or, more like what was suggested, this experimental beastie?

[eightf48544]

The LMS^▸ (London Midland Scottish - 1923 to 1948) experimented with a road rail coach in the 1930s.

http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/r137.html

Gives a good account it also mentions a road rail lorry for freight.

Plus ca change

[onthecushions]

...so add a Boris bus body....

The Boris bus is 4.38m high (14'5"), so a bit higher than C1^▸ ((on coaches) National route restriction), (about 4.00m) but shorter and narrower. It would still be safely below  standard contact wire height of 4.7m.

Could they run in multiple?

OTC

[grahame]

I've being working a couple of hundred yards from Chesterton Station - that's about 2 miles north of Cambridge station on the line to Ely.  Small problem that (as yet) Chesterton Station isn't open ... and from leaving the place I've been working (part of the science park and business park) I have to make my way to the main station to catch my train. I set off at 16:30

There's the Park and Ride bus which runs to the station every 15 minutes or so from up the main road to the east of the science park, which runs via the cinema complex and the centre of town.  There's the guided bus, which runs every 15 minutes from the stop on the south side of the science park, which calls at Jesus Green and the City Centre on its way.  Then there's the number 2 which runs from within the Science Park every 10 minutes, but takes a very much longer route and doesn't go as close to the station.

All three of these buses, which call at different stops at the science park (you will have noticed) leave south on the same road, but only the No. 2 actually stops there.  And they're joined by a non-stop service "C" every hour and a limited stop occasional service 9.  I find myself wondending which stop to go to, and why all the buses can't stop where the number 2 does for the science park - it would save on bus stops, and it might bring the operators a bit more business with (in effect) a five minute service not a 15 minute one.  Oh - and it might allow for quicker connections too.

My bus, at 16:45, was scheduled to take 19 minutes to cover the two miles to Cambridge Station.  It didn't of course - it took almost 25 minutes as on a Friday afternoon it wended it's intricate way around the back streets of the city for (it turned out) 2 passengers, then queued it way through the shooping street and cafe area on the way to the station.  And it went right past the station without stopping (or to be accurate, stop-start in the traffic but not letting passengers off) to the stop that's behind platform 3, quite a way from the station entrance.   Fortunately, I stopped a fello traveller ducking behind a container and found the unadvertised back gate to the station, and open (even a member of staff checking tickets) so I was able, by a whisker, to catch my 17:15.

The guided bus (for that's what I was on) may make the journey from St Ives to the Science Park very much quicker, but the journey from there to the station averaged just 7 m.p.h. I can't say I'm impressed with this element of the brand new service that was introduced - with great fanfare and at huge expense - just a couple of years ago.  And indeed I can't help concluding that others think it's unfit for the purpose of linking people in the technlogy part of the city to the nation's local public transport hub - otherwise they wouldn't be bulding a new station.  And - I note - extending the guided busway to the station.  As I walked, close to that new section, I wondered at the heavy machinery involved in the building of the track, and at the deep digging that seemed to be going on. It muts be costing a fortune.  In the room in which I was training, a deep rumbling noise had me asking my delegates what was going on, and they assured me that it was something they're quite used to - deep pile driving for foundations for the new busway. Apparently the concrete that's used for the busway further north has been cracking due to poor foundations, and this time they're taking to chances.  Someone suggested that they might have done better with vehicles that ran on steel rather than concrete, as that has a degree of flexibility and would have been much quicker and cheaper to build.  A colleague of his suggested crosswise timbers under the steel rails, which would act as a further cusion, reduce subsidence possibilities further, and make for a comfortable ride.  Of course, this is Cambridge but even here I doubt whether such a novel idea would fly.

[Chris from Nailsea]

In the room in which I was training, a deep rumbling noise had me asking my delegates what was going on, and they assured me that it was something they're quite used to ...

... it was Isambard Kingdom Brunel, turning in his grave. 

[Brucey]

From the Cambridge News

Five injured as guided bus derails in Trumpington

[ellendune]

I thought it was supposed to be  a guided busway. Perhaps it is really a misguided busway (in more ways than one). 

[Western Pathfinder]

Cuthbert Dibble & Grubb et all will have turned up to help out no doubt !

[TonyK]

That's at least the sixth accident since the busway opened.

[JayMac]

How would that compare statistically with accidents suffered by non-guided buses?

[TonyK]

How would that compare statistically with accidents suffered by non-guided buses?

A very good question that I don't have an answer to. Most of the incidents have been caused by people being on the busway when they shouldn't - sadly, an 81 year old lady died there in November last year. One was caused by the bus missing the start of a section of busway, which bothers me a bit, as the Ashton Vale route has nine sections in the two-mile guided bit. That cost the bus company ^90,000 in repairs to the track, as well as the bus. One was caused by a bus driving at speed into the back of another. Given that the buses are supposed to be the only vehicle on the route, I would expect a greater degree of safety than with buses on ordinary roads shared with drivers.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Cuthbert Dibble & Grubb et all will have turned up to help out no doubt !

I'm rather embarrassed at how long it took me to work out that amusing reference, Western Pathfinder. 

[chuffed]

Surely Cuthbert Dibble and Grubb are now based at Trumpington rather than Trumpton ?