Mr K Does It Again! Review Part 2

What amazes fbb, when he takes a look at a superb book like this, is how much it must have taken to keep the company going smoothly and to serve its customers reliably. A simple soul, without some contact with actual bus operation, sees a bus which appears from its depot, trundles up and down its route for the day; then goes home to bed.

But its driver has to have his legal breaks; the bus will need fuel and every four to six weeks it will have its legally required “safety service” which is jolly near a full MOT. On top of this will be routine maintenance and those annoying repairs when the floggle-toggle falls off and needs glueing back on again.

For today’s companies it is less complex as routes are fairly simple (mostly!) and there is only one depot. But remember the inteiguing extract from the 1970 list of depots, sheds and open parking that fbb posted in yesterday’s review.

There won’t be fuel or repair facilities at A G Harris’ Hall Farm, so the bus that sleeps there would have to be “cycled” back to its home depot and, usually, swapped with another from time to time. Mt K has a section showing how buses are allocated to a duty roster which makes all this happen – unless anything goes wrong when changes have to be made, often at short notice.

The workings of this system are well beyond fbb’s pay grade; but well worth a peruse. fbb recommends subdued lighting, lots of cups of tea and coffee and a bottle of tranquilisers!

Apparently the above page makes up into a very comfy Aran jumper! 

And you need one of these as well.

fbb suspects that one of today’s young depot managers would be overcome with vicarious delight to have 19 spare vehicles to set against a peak vehicle requirement of 88! (By the way, apologies for the blue tint on some of the screenshots.  For some strange reason, closeups come out blue and fbb couldn’t be bothered to make them monochrome.)

But Chapter 7 is the highlight of this fascinating volume.

Working timetables are the core of all bus operation as they include much more information than those issued to the public. Here is a local Lowestoft route

It shows the route number (in red); the type of vehicle allocated to that journey; the garage overseeing that journey and the “Car Line” which fbb assumes is the vehicle duty roster number.

And a slightly longer sort-of circular route, also from Lowestoft.

Its a both ways round lollipop!

Longer distance routes can be particularly fascinating as the company attempted to provide a service to every possible village roughly on line of route. Here is a Norwich to Diss selection!

In this case, although this is a NOR (Norwich) route, we are given the “outstation” for each journey. You can go back and look these up and marvel at the clever scheduling that allowed such a rural service to be just that – a service to the rural areas. 

If this noble concept exists in today’s bus industry, it relies on the goodwill and the money of the local authority to fund it.

Which reminds fbb.

There is a really terrifying list of each service operated and its financial performance. The vast majority of Eastern Counties bus routes have their “profitability” shown in RED. In other words, that route loses money!

For the purpose of this blog, it doesn’t matter which these routes are; just look at the last two columns. The penultimate column is he cost of that service, and the end column is the profit or loss – mostly loss.

The taxpayer paid until a Conservative Government came up with Privatisation and Deregulation – and we all know what that has done to our bus networks. You only have to look at a map of the former Eastern Counties area.

Have fun with the Norfolk “map”!!

What truly interests fbb is the plethora of services running on one or two days a week; again in an attempt to provide some service to these rural and remote areas.

Note three different route numbers for these villages. And below we have a Friday only option.

Again, it is worth investigating which of these occasional routes is still in operation 53 years later.

As well as the network map, fbb must report that there are three excellent diagrammatic “creations” for city services in Norwich, Peterborough and Cambridge.

fbb is, as all his readers know, famed for his shrinking violet modesty; so he declines to adulate the cartographer of these superb and helpful productions.

In a serious note, fbb must acknowledge Keith Shayshutt’s sustained efforts and patience in researching the mapped networks and keeping the old blogger “on song”. Also, please note that Keith credits Ben Colson and Robin Bennett as co-authors of the book. The additional two completing the triumvirate have been closely connected with buses in the Eastern Counties area.

Their corporate expertise is reflected in the quality of the book.

Again, at the outset, many would think that this volume is just too eclectic for their simple interests. But do not be deceived. This book is about real bus operation; about how Eastern Counties made it all work often under difficult commercial circumstances.

If nothing else, it should be compulsory reading for all those young men and women whose aspirations are to move into senior positions of bus company management. If you can understand the minutiae of this book, you will find running a chunk of First Bus or Stagecoach an absolute doddle!

Over the next few days, fbb will try to contrast and compare a selection of Eastern Counties bus services today with those of 53 years ago.

You wonder how many fbb will find that still exist.

 Next Contrast and Compare blog : Weds 11th October