Here we go again....
The new operator of the franchise for most of Scotland's railways, First Group, has been called to a public enquiry for two of their Scottish bus subsidiaries. Their division titled "Scotland East" comprises Midland Bluebird Ltd. (depots at Balfron, Bannockburn near Stirling, Galashiels, Larbert near Falkirk, and Linlithgow), and First Edinburgh Ltd. (depots at Dalkeith near Edinburgh, Livingston, Musselburgh near Edinburgh, North Berwick). Midland Bluebird Ltd. was last called up to the TC three years ago, and it will be their third public enquiry in six years. West Lothian Council, and other local authorities around their operating area, have frequently complained about standards of service, missing vehicles, etc. I've had a few incidents with this operator, but most have run smoothly. FirstGroup have also recently announced a profits hike. Funnily, when I hit the First Group website a moment ago to check the above link, it said "Safety is our highest priority. We are never complacent..." Oh, it's ok then...
Transgender Day Of Remembrance
I mentioned this as a footer in my email signature, and I had a few people asking me what I meant by this. Basically, this day was set up to remember trans people who had been murdered, for whatever reason - mostly something to do with being themselves. Further information on the day can be found at http://www.rememberingourdead.org
What I didn't want to hear...
This week had went relatively smoothly - in comparison with recent weeks. It was my half day, I stopped off for some things along the Perth Road on the way into town, and then home. It was just by coincidence that I turned on the local radio whilst in the bedroom for 10minutes - and heard of a bus crash. The news was somewhat more grim, in a Megabus double decker had left the road a Gateside, just south of Forfar. I took a look up there (to be pedantic it was closer to Kinnettles road end, but the two are a minute apart). The bus collided with a tractor/trailer, and hit the ditch. The driver died on the scene. The bus is likely to be written off. The bus involved was VLT37, which I have a pic of somewhere... In the meantime, the bus looks like WLT416, which is the other of the "pair" - pic here. The Courier did a piece on the incident, which can be found here. Thankfully they left out the pictures which were splattered all over the front of the paper...
