{"id":2564,"date":"2023-05-04T11:46:10","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T11:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/the-end-of-an-era\/"},"modified":"2023-05-04T11:46:10","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T11:46:10","slug":"the-end-of-an-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/the-end-of-an-era\/","title":{"rendered":"The End Of An Era"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0About 57 Years Ago<\/span><\/p>\n

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It was in 1966 that the first Red Arrow route began from Waterloo Station. From memory (as unreliable as ever!) It ran a route for commuters at peak times\u00a0 and a revised route for shoppers inter-peak.\u00a0<\/div>\n
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fbb remembers excitedly clutching his tanner (sixpence, two and a half new pence in the new dispensation) and pushing his coin in the huge pay box and turnstile combo that London Transport perceived was needed for speedy loading.<\/span><\/div>\n\n
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It was neither speedy nor reliable!<\/p>\n

From this somewhat hesitant beginning, Red Arrows expanded substantially …<\/p>\n

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… although not all the routes operated at any one time and some were not Red Arrow!<\/div>\n
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Over several years the network has been progressively reduced and the Red Arrow brand dropped completely. Today<\/span> there are just two ex Red Arrow services<\/span> left.<\/div>\n
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And Now …<\/span><\/div>\n
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Tomorrow here will be none!<\/div>\n
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If you live in or near the Metropolis you can nip out today and ride the 507<\/span> and the 521<\/span>.\u00a0\n
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The 507 links Waterloo with Victoria via Horseferry Road, Lambeth Bridge and Lambeth Palace Road. Frequency is every 7\/8 Monday to Friday and every 12 on Saturday and Sunday.\n
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The 521 runs from Waterloo to London Bridge via Holborn.<\/p>\n

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This is very much a poor relation, running every 10 minutes Monday to Friday only<\/span>.\n
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So why are these being withdrawn? Transport for London is anxious to tell us that it is to save money in Central London and re-invest it in the suburbs with better services like the well-thought-out (??) Superloop proposals.<\/div>\n
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But, as always this change has been the subject of consultation which seems to be a growth industry these days.\n
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The 507 and 521 withdrawal is part of a significant re-jig of routes in Central London.<\/p>\n

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Do we assume, therefore, that a high percentage of the passengers on the 507 and 521 have all enthusiastically voted for the withdrawal of their service?\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n

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Or is the “consultation” just another heap of statistics to ignore and thus do what TfL wanted anyway?<\/div>\n
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Explanation of the whole raft of changes is lengthy and expressed in long-hand. There are a few maps dotted around as here for the revised C10 in the Waterloo area …\n
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… and for services along part of the Edgware Road.<\/p>\n

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But, mostly, all you get is diagrams of stop locations which have been changed or are needed for a change of bus to complete a now-withdrawn link. There are a lot of withdrawn links!<\/p>\n

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But, for the deceased\u00a0 507 and 521 there is just a textual long-winded description.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Here’s the 507:-\n
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And the 521:-<\/p>\n

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Yawn!<\/div>\n
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Surely it would be so much easier with a proper map<\/span>?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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With such a big change, one difficulty is to get the information on the bus stops in good time. There are the modern version of “E Plates” to stick on; plus “direction” information.\u00a0 Then there are the so-called timetables in the bus stop frames.<\/div>\n
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Correspondent Katie was excited to spot changes on Marsham Street at least 5 days before the change<\/span>!\n
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At first she was all for a chocolate peanut award to TfL for the service 3 sticker …<\/p>\n

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… but then withdrew the recommendation when she noticed that it still said “towards Waterloo”. Katie did suggest just a chocolate-less peanut for the service 3 label but the awarding committee felt disinclined to dip into their reserves for only a half-hearted effort. Half a peanut?<\/p><\/div>\n

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It is anybody’s guess where the 3 does go after Marsham Street – TfL does not tell us and there is no map. so tough cheese if you are not familiar with the geography of these ill-explained changes!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Public Transport is so good in London that the Metro Mayors “up north” all want to be as good. Pity their ill- informed residents!<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u00a0Next Saturday Variety blog : 29th April\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0About 57 Years Ago It was in 1966 that the first Red Arrow route began from Waterloo Station. From memory (as unreliable as ever!) It ran a route for commuters at peak times\u00a0 and a revised route for shoppers inter-peak.\u00a0 fbb remembers excitedly clutching his tanner (sixpence, two and a half new pence in the new dispensation) and pushing his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-camcab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2564"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}