Dundee to Barnsley
I'm away to Barnsley for a few days!
Left Dundee on Megabus Neoplan 50147 from Dundee to Perth (Broxden), where new colour coded swing tickets are being used to distinguish the luggage (presumably in time for the new luggage handlers arriving at Dundee Bus Station). MAN 50042 then took me nearly all the rest of the way. We left Broxden 27 mins late, Edinburgh 20, but we sat at 20-30 late all the way down. 50042 was very slow when I did a Manchester trip in it, but then it appeared to be fixed when I got it to Aberdeen some time ago. It's back to "normal" now.
We left Perth just over half an hour late, crossing the Forth and into Edinburgh, down the A1 to Newcastle. On the way down, got to Newcastle. I saw the back end of a Go-Northern bus showing "via M.Centre No.1" rather than via MetroCentre - the ultimate use of stop specific names? I also saw the building under which I sheltered in the rain and wind in March is being rebuilt... well, that side anyway. On the A1/M1 (junction 61), saw a parked bus which had been painted in an advert for a local car garage. Shortly after, the northbound London - Inverness megabus then passed us... before we stopped at Oak Tree on the A1 for fuel.
The bus got to Sheffield Meadowhall Interchange having made up a few minutes. The departure display monitors were all off, there was no hot water in the toilets and the tap came off in my hand... thought I was back at work... anyway, since the last time I was here, Stagecoach's takeover of the Traction Group has led to buses like this being repainted.
Final bit was a train journey from Meadowhall to Barnsley, on a Class 140 train (Leyland Nationals on tracks!), standing for nearly 10 minutes before getting the slightly bigger half of the trip to sit down. I'm really going to have to investigate the Stagecoach Yorkshire/Traction route to see if I can avoid these...
I was staying with David & Jacqueline, the couple I met before, and David had booked me a taxi. Trouble was, he took well over thirty minutes to get to the pick-up at Barnsley Interchange, despite the rank only being one street away, and then getting lost, two mobile calls, and then when we got there, "oh, I recognise him" when David was looking out the window...
Yes, I'm enjoying my "holiday", despite all that!
posted by Suzy Scott @ 23:10
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