coach t ravel on trial
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By S. Buckley, Assoc.Inst.T.
IMPRESSIONS GAINED AS TO CURRENT STANDARDS OF COMFORT ON CROSVILLE EXPRESS COACH SERVICES BETWEEN LONDON AND CHESTER VIA Ml AND M6
IT ALL STARTED at the Public Transport Association conference at Harrogate in May. Presentation of papers and their subsequent discussion are major features of such conferences. But regular attenders—including journalists—also find that the opportunities for private talks among delegates prove invaluable.
In just such circumstances at Harrogate I was discussing with my namesake (though no relation), Mr. C. R. Buckley, general manager of Crosville Motor Services, the current levels of express coach service comfort. I reminded him of the contention often expressed that coach operators would have to bring up their standards of coach comfort to those offered by the modern car if they were to retain their current patronage. An extension of this theme often expressed is that if, on selected services, comfort was given a higher priority than was normally allowed, compared with keeping fares to a minimum, then a new class of passenger could be introduced to coach travel.
Mr. Buckley's answer was both simple and positive. He considered a good, modern coach already offered a standard of comfort at least equal to that of the private car. To prove it he invited me to travel on a Crosville express coach service and I accepted. Later it was agreed that if Chester—the head quarters of Crosville was selected for the overnight stop on my way up from London any points needing clarification could be examined on the spot.
As a result it came about that I travelled on Monday July 1 from London to Chester on Crosville Service X2 via Ml, Lichfield and Crewe. The following day I returned by feeder service L4 from Chester to Runcorn and then on service X61 via M6 and MI back to London.
So much as to how the trip came to be arranged. But before the brief details of the journey and my reactions to the trip, it will be helpful to make a disclosure of my normal mode of travel. This I consider is an essential preliminary to a quality judgment of this kind. Professionally I have had experiences in both road and rail passenger operation. Currently, in addition to rail commuter travel, I use whatever mode of transport is most appropriate to each assignment I undertake—as any ex-transport manager should! That has involved travel by car (Austin 1800), rail and air in that order of usage.
By a coincidence my most recent main-line train journey was the 408 miles return from London (Kings Cross) to Harrogate and back for the PTA conference. (I particularly mention it because of two points of comparison with my coach trip which I will comment on later.) To ensure that no special concessions were made on my behalf I purposely took on the role of an average coach passenger. Any journey of this kind starts at one's doorstep. In my case it would have been easier to have left my home at Potters Bar at about 10 a.m. and be driven in my car to catch the Chesterbound coach at the first stop out of London (Edgware) at 10.47 a.m. But it would have been an unrealistic short cut for the average coach traveller.
Abnormal conditions
So, instead, I made the somewhat timewasting journey by rail and Underground from Potters Bar to Kings Cross and on to Victoria tube station. Because of the go-slow situation on the railways I allowed double the time L would normally have taken, leaving Potters Bar at 7.45 a.m. and only arriving at Victoria Coach Station at 9.50 a.m. with about 10 minutes to spare. Having seen the abnormal cotillions under which both Victoria rail and coach stations were operating the previous Friday evening because of the go-slow, when !made arrangements as to my ticket, I was impressed by the relative return to normality at Victoria coach station by Monday morning despite exceptional increases of over 25 per cent in weekend traffic on many services. I boarded Crosville Coach CRG.39 with Driver W. Wilson at the wheel. The company's fleet is virtually standardized on Bristol chassis and this particular vehicle had an RE chassis series 2 with a 47-seater ECW body.
Being a late arrival and again with no special privileges, I occupied a seat over the rear of side-wheel—not by any means the most favourable position.
Dense traffic
After confirmation with the driver of the duplicate service coach as to subsequent picking up points, we pulled out of Victoria • at 10.03 a.m. It was a bright and very warm morning and repercussions from the go-slow made London traffic even denser than usual as Driver Wilson wended his way to the northern outskirts where we joined M1 at 11 a.m.
The lunch stop was taken at the Blue Boar at Watford Gap. Still assuming the role of a coach traveller I had a two-course lunch for 7s 5d including coffee—I was served only ight minutes after leaving the coach!
The journey was resumed at 12.50 p.m. nd we left M1 immediately afterwards to ntinue along AS until we turned off for ichfield where we arrived on time at 2.02 • m. After a 10-minute stop we continued on hrough Stone and Newcastle-under-Lyme riving at Crewe at 3.50 p.m.
Thereafter there was a dramatic change in e weather. Up till now it had been sunny nd very warm. Then developed one of the ost severe thunderstorms the area had had or many years so that we arrived at Chester t 5 p.m. in torrential rain with roads flooded nd street lights on, but still to time.
Unfortunately the heavy rain continued roughout most of my overnight stay in Chester with the thunderstorm returning in the early hours. As a result there was at least one coach traveller not as fresh for the return journey as might otherwise have been the case.
Contrast
To provide a contrast with the outward journey I returned from Chester to London via Runcorn. This involved leaving Chester at 9.15 a.m. on the L4 limited stop service to Runcorn during which I was the only passenger on this one-man-operated bus.
At Runcorn I joined the X61 service from Liverpool for London, routed by the two motorways M6 and Ml. The London coach should have left Runcorn at 10.10 a.m. Due to a delay in Liverpool it arrived 20 minutes late and because of the tight schedule throughout the motorway run and further delays on A5, Driver J. Cowap was unable to catch up on the timetable.
On entering M6 at 11 a.m. we continued to the Keele service area (Fortes) for a coffee stop and came off M6 at 12.40 p.m. to get involved in the inevitable traffic delays on AS so that it was a relief to join M1 at 2 p.m. at the Crick junction. Almost immediately afterwards we pulled into the Blue Boar service station at Watford Gap for a late lunch stop.
Behind schedule
Leaving there at 2.40 p.m. nothing eventful occurred until we left M1 to join Al at 3.45 p.m., unless it was the rare sight of a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce under tow. Shortly after joining Al we stopped at the Hendon Way Hotel to set down two passengers. Because of pedestrian railings on both sides of the road at that point they had a circuitous walk with suitcases to join their waiting friends on the other side of the road.
Thereafter we became more and more involved in heavy London traffic still aggravated by the effects of the railway go-slow, so that we arrived at our Victoria coach station destination at 4.30 p.m., 30 minutes behind schedule.
Once again, for me, the journey home to Potters Bar by tube and commuter train was slower and more uncomfortable than would otherwise have been the case but for the go
slow so that I took a further two hours on the last 15 miles or so.
Overall my impression was that the standard of comfort provided by the modern coach such as those employed by Crosville largely substantiated Mr. Buckley's claim at Harrogate that it was the equal of normal car travel. In this context comfort is being considered solely in the physical sense and ignores any psychological benefits which the freedom of a private car offers.
Written en route
Many of the notes on which this article is based were written en route at least as easily as my report on the discussion following the PTA conference was written in a first-class compartment returning by rail from Harrogate. Indeed on the latter occasion one got the impression that there was the unfortunate match of a 70 mph timetable with a 50 mph suspension.
As regards the time factor, obviously the express coach service operating between London and Chester is at a disadvantage compared with rail. Whereas the coach is scheduled on the X2 service to do the journey in 6 hours 59 mm, the 9.05 service out of Euston is due in Chester general at 11.49 a.m. But the successful development of express coach services proves that there are a substantial number of travellers for whom the time factor, though important, is not the first priority.
While discussing the time factor, mention should also be made of the overnight services which I myself did not use. On occasions too rapid a journey resulting in arriving at one's destination at, say, 3 or 4 a.m. before local public transport has started to operate can be a disadvantage. In the case of the overnight coach service the 11.36 p.m. from Chester is due in to London Victoria coach station at the more reasonable time of 7 a.m. with similar timings in the reverse direction.
The comparison of fares as between road and rail shows the advantage to be very heavily in favour of the express coach. The period return coach fare from London to Chester is 42s Sunday to Friday, and 49s on Saturday. Second-class ordinary return rail fare for the same journey is £4 17s 6d.
This overwhelming financial advantage which the coach traveller enjoys must obviously be a prime reason for coach patronage. Failing any unforeseen development on a national level it would seem that this comparative level of fares as between coach and rail is likely to remain substantially the same. If this assumption proves correct there could be a danger that coach services would not be improved and developed as much as they might because the economic factor alone was sufficient to ensure adequate traffic to make the service remunerative.
But in looking for ways in which the express coach services could be improved one must remain realistic. For example it is inevitable that once an individual has made— on a car—what is probably the next largest expenditure in his life after his house, he is going to use his car to the maximum. Indeed the economics of the exercise demand that he should and even more so if his happens to be a company-subsidized car.
Strong attraction
Moreover the overwhelming door-to-door convenience of the private car will prove too strong an attraction for most people when deciding whether or not to accept the higher costs of running a car as compared with the lower cost of coach fares which by any standard are very economical indeed. Therefore however attractive to the proposers schemes for providing luxurious coach services with a reduced number of seats so as to attract a new type of passenger may seem, in the hard, practical world in which traffic managers have to earn their living, such potential passengers do not exist, at least not in the numbers necessary to make them a viable proposition.
However, in this comparison between the private car and the express coach I suggest there is one aspect of comfort that might receive more attention from coach operators. Although admittedly it is largely psychological, most people gain satisfaction from being able to see forwards easily when travelling by road, a facility which is normally readily available with a private car.
The two Bristol/ECW coaches I travelled on were equipped with excellent headrests. But inevitably the accumulation of all these headrests in a 47 seater coach obscures the forward view for most passengers when normally seated. Admittedly with the present type of body construction there has to be some compromise between the basic need for comfort and a possibly secondary need to help passengers while away the time by viewing the countryside en route.
But I recollect that before the war bodies were available known as "observation coaches" in which the floor level was inclined from front to rear with the seats correspondingly raised one behind the other. This type of construction could seemingly achieve both the prime and secondary objectives in this case. Moreover the current tendency towards underfloor or rear-mounted engines should provide suitable chassis for the mounting of this type of body.
Ventilation and heating is another aspect of travel in which compromise is necessary. In this context, in particular, it is important to bear in mind the type of passengers which would normally be carried. In this respect my two journeys were no exception, with 90 per cent of the passengers being middleaged or older. Ventilation in these two coaches was provided by individual nozzles for each passenger located beneath the parcel rack in aircraft fashion. But despite their simple method of operation by pulling out or pushing in according to whether one needed" ventilation or not, coupled with a directional facility, several of the passengers seemed unable to make use of them.
The combined result of this was that the coach was not ventilated as much as it might have been. This is obviously no criticism of the construction of the coach as the facility was there to be used. But with elderly passengers forming a large proportion of their passengers the additional facility of overriding control by the driver (in addition to the -roof ventilation which obviously is not available for use in thunderstorms!) could be an advantage.
As I said earlier, in a journey of this sort one starts at one's own front door and I consider as a result of my experience last week that one of the most fruitful avenues for improvement in express coach travel would be in the co-ordination of the terminal journeys which virtually every passenger has to make in addition to the main coach journey. Not only is there the likelihood of apprehension in the minds of elderly travellers when they have no alternative but to make their own local transport arrangements, but even in my case, with a transport background, I am still faced with an irritating local southbound journey to ultimately travel north.
Understandably the bulk of local passengers in London, as indeed in most cities wish to get to or from the centre and the major proportion of services are arranged accordingly. Admittedly there are some crosscountry bus routes but the number that can be of any use to coach passengers wanting to catch an express coach at its first stopping point out of London (in my case either Edgware or Hendon) must be very small indeed.
Considering only the northbound coaches leaving Victoria each morning operated by the many companies using that station, it would seem that the numbers involved could justify feeder coaches operating on the perimeter to uniform transfer points. Not only would this be both reassuring and timesaving to passengers but it would also eliminate their present contribution to congestion in to the centre by not having to make their journey to and from the centre. But I have to admit that I was the only passenger on the feeder service from Chester to Runcorn!
Crime prevention I cannot understand why John Darker (CM July 5), lists my statement, on loads stolen during 1968, as one of those which caused Mr. Alex Kitson's outburst in the same issue. From Mr. Kitson's excellent suggestions on crime prevention in transport I detect views which are parallel with my own and in no way even contrary to my particular statement Like him I am convinced that the great majority of drivers are honest. This point is proved by the fact that the value of goods stolen is only an infinitesimal percentage of that transported. Nevertheless, the losses do tot up to really big money which, if they could be prevented, ought to be put to so much better use within our industry.
Of those people who actually lose their loads, however, I still contend that the incidence o collusion is shamefully high. The enemy withi our ranks whether he be a bent operator, driver, or a member of the internal staff, is, i fact, responsible for any unjustified repute tion for dishonesty with which our industry ha been dubbed. Yet, among our multitude honest workers, there are pathetically few wh are sufficiently resentful of the unfair smear upon their characters to offer information whic some of them must surely possess.
I believe a major combined operation b hauliers and trade unions, on the lines sug gested by Mr. Kitson, to weed out the dis honest few who do such disproportionat damage to the reputation of our great indust could achieve a great deal in a short time.
While we don't want to become a bunch o snoopers we have all got to realize that turn in a blind eye to somebody else's "dodgy actions encourages a climate in which th unrighteous can prosper at the expense the rest of us.
J. T. BROWN, Directo Ades Express Limited, Rotherhithe, Lando
Route diagrams
Through Commercial Motor I would like t plead with the powers that be in council transport offices—to give route advice b diagram rather than by script.
The diagram form is better in every wa At a glance. folk know what's what and wh to do, whereas script is often mysterious an takes time to fathom out.
Also let's have really helpful placing detour notices such as for restricted weig bridges. So often these are not known abo till one gets to the bridges concerned.
Is it too much to ask for signs about the to be placed at sensible places where on can divert?
"LEONARD LEYLAND