"Use local buses when trains cancelled"
Published 17 Feb 2012 17:00
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A Fairlie community councillor has asked if Scotrail should use local bus companies to provide replacement services for when the trains are off.
Over recent months, there has been widespread disruption and cancellations after overhead line problems and weather difficulties, resulting in more replacement buses necessary in order to transport travellers to their destinations.
During a recent meeting in the Semple Centre, Cllr. John Riddell asked: "Do Scotrail have a call-off contract with a bus company? and could they use a local company? Do they phone round half-a-dozen companies, and do they have a company that will respond in 20 minutes?"
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dormat
Unregistered User
Feb 17, 17:10
Report commentTheyre oowned by first so i would i assumed they would just use their own buses?
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PaperBoy
Unregistered User
Feb 21, 09:18
Report commentThe irony is that they probably use private coach companies, as they will not have any of their own bus fleet available. It was the same down in East Anglia where National Express used to run the trains, but you never saw National Express coaches running on a replacement bus service, it was always a private coach company or a mixture thereof.
It would be nice were Scotrail to use local firms for local replacement services, but in all likelihood, the decision will be based on commercial/financial grounds and some company from outside the local area will probably be able to offer the service cheaper and/or provide the fleet required.
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Organelle
Unregistered User
Feb 22, 17:43
Report commentThe Largs line is a total joke. I now just go to Wemyss bay and get a taxi.
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hazelkaye
224 posts
Feb 24, 21:31
Report commentLargs and Wemyss Bay - never the "twain" shall meet!
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theknowledgeableone
Unregistered User
Feb 29, 22:20
Report commentWhat local bus company in Largs would that be then?
At the end of the day any disruption due to weather or signalling problems is unplanned. There are no local bus companies with the volume required in the area to provide these buses. Stagecoach in Ardrossan and McGills in Greenock are the nearest large enough companies possible to provide replacement buses and even then those resources would be very sparse.
Plus theres the fact that bus companies simply dont have drivers sitting around spare, not even First Glasgow has spare drivers anymore. Drivers have to abide by EU driving regulations, working time directives and other mindnumbing legislation that limits the time they can be out driving. Bus companies would rather have drivers and buses out and about earning money rather than lying spare in a depot awaiting an incident on the trains- i.e. for the vast majority of the time the company concerned would be spending pretty much all of the time doing nothing!
ScotRail in this situation of disruption call their First Rail Support team who then have to basicallly phone every company they can think of to find any spare buses for hire.
First Glasgow cannot provide buses in this situation as all their depots for their buses are in Glasgow! By the time First Glasgow send buses from Glasgow to Largs the problem is probably fixed on the trains!
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Mar 14, 01:48
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