Sunday Variety

fbb guesses it is no worse than Lumo, Aventra and Pendolino! But it does sound fun!

Transport Integration At Headbolt Lane

Steve Rotheram (without the second “h“) is Mega Metro Mayor of Merrseyside. Unlike Andy in Manchester he already has full control of his trains; so his aspirations for the London-style integrated system are already, broadly, in place.

He has got to “franchise” the buses; his race to take control is running a few years behind Mr Burnham’s Bee Network. He has, however, got a few yellow buses.

Isn’t he just one happy chappie? Maybe, maybe not.

His trains (and new ones are trickling into the fleet) are already yellow.

And he has just opened a new station at Headbolt Lane, one stop beyond Kirkby, Newtown of fond Z-Cars memory.

Why a battery train? Well, despite the fact that the Merseyrail system is almost completely powered by third rail electrification AND huge tracts of the Southern Region are ditto. Network Rail have, however, decided that third rail electrification is not safe.

You do wonder why a mile of track east.of Kirkby should be dangerous whilst the rest of Merseyrail remains in use seven days a week.

So the short extension from Kirkby to Headbolt Lane has no electric. The trains run on batteries; hence the video.

Only they haven’t got enough trains to run the service. What to do? Run diesels? They haven’t got any of them!

They used to have some nice yellow Pacers, but they have all been turned into baked bean cans. So the management have come up with a spiffing idea. To celebrate the opening of the new station you reduce the service.

Instead of a train every 15 minutes to Headbolt Lane this is what you get.

A paltry hourly service to Headbolt Lane and the frequency to Kirkby reduced from every 15 minutes to every half an hour.

Oh yes, the car park is not built yet …

… and there are no buses actually serving the new terminus.

So a fine example of a locally controlled integrated transport system for the people of Merseyside. But, to be fair, Steve hasn’t yet worked out how his franchising system will work; or, more importantly, how he will pay for it.

However, as far as fbb knows, Mr Rotheram has no aspirations to be the next Prime Minister, so he may not make such a mess of it as seems likely in Manchester.

Readers may remember that McGill’s rescued half of Glasgow’s night buses when First Bus announced they were ditching the lot. McGill’s have just released their Night Bus stops map for central Glasgow.

The coloured stars are places that you might wish to visit to enjoy the City’s “Nite Life”.

So fbb asks, “Where is the First Bus batch of Night Services? Why is there no joint publicity? Why doesn’t Strathclyde PTE print a proper integrated leaflet?”

The McGill’s recent artwork generally …

… has a distinct smell of Stenning about it, something of the Brilliance of the Bus Beautifier from the Bush; seen below with Roger French celebrating the end of Catch the Bus Week …

… which seemed to have little impact on passengers or services in Seaton, Devon!

Whu remembers “diamond painting”? It had nothing to do with diamonds and was certainly not painting; which may explain why its existence has faded from so many memories. The fbbs next door neighbour was very keen for a while and even gave the fbbs one of her “diamond painted” pictures.

The idea is that you pick up little bits of coloured plastic with a sticky stick …

… and stick them to an even stickier numbered backing sheet – a bit like painting by numbers. There are many accessories, including one to make filling in the large areas of colour withyough dying of tedium!

fbb’s jackpot idea for cheapo window boxes was to use some of the tiny plastic blobs to represent flowers. Months ago, fbb was given a selection of blobs to enhance another model – thanks Denise – and there were plenty left. The blobs are very small.

So instead of spending £11 plus postage on Noch window boxes, fbb bodged a bit of plastic angle, a little strip of “grass”, the blobs and some PVA glue all at negligible cost.

And here is the result.

Successfully;y, so fbb claims, this Trompe L’Oeil takes the observer’s eye away from the appalling bodge of different sized stone work. Well, as your esteemed modeller so often avers, it looks fine from normal viewing distance, i.e Lyme Regis !!

The bad news is that neighbour no longer does diamond painting but she has agree to have a rummage to see if she has any colours tucked away.

There is quite a bit more to be done for the replacement Peterville Signal Box. It needs some +representation of the internal stuff, some lights and, most importantly, a privvy!

Plenty to do.

Electric buses in Glasgow.