Messages

["All service information, maps, fares and times can be found in the timetable page here (link to https://www.diamondbuses.com/bus-services/?region=Surrey)"]

Hi Simon,

The Diamond South East upcoming changes page references new Heathrow services H21, N30, 459 and 710 along with the wording "All service information, maps, fares and times can be found in the timetable page here (link to https://www.diamondbuses.com/bus-services/?region=Surrey)", however upon clicking that link it only seems to show the current services. Am I missing something, or has there been a bit of a premature posting/delayed adding on the website?

https://www.diamondbuses.com/news/dbse-network-update/

Thanks in advance,

Hi Simon,

It's being reported by unofficial sources that Diamond South East have lost the 458, 557, 616, 663 and 814 to other operators following Surrey County Council retendering (no mention of 555). I was just wondering if you were able/prepared to confirm is this is or isn't accurate?

Thanks in advance,

The "UB1UB2 Southall" Twitter page has posted a video of what appears to be a Diamond Streetdeck post-decapitation under a railway bridge in Staines. The single deck route 458 comes under here normally, but it's believed this was on rail replacement.

https://twitter.com/UB1UB2/status/1644771125543731200

Hi Simon. There is talk that the South East school routes won at Surrey County Council tendering last year (83/87 to Collingwood College) are being terminated after the Easter holidays, and currently out for emergency retendering. Are you able/willing to confirm if there's any truth in this? Thanks in advance.

The Bedfont Lakes business park services BL1/2 to Feltham/Heathrow respectively are being taken over from RATP London United from Monday 13th February 2023 (or 2022 if you look at the Diamond website image ).

https://www.diamondbuses.com/news/new-bedfont-lakes-service-130223/

I would be surprised if Diamond are not taking part.

Apologies if already posted elsewhere on this forum, but Diamond have today put a statement on their website confirming that they won't be participating and their reasons why: https://www.diamondbuses.com/news/2-fare-cap-statement/

The list is certainly incomplete - Falcon Buses in Surrey have confirmed that they are taking part in the scheme despite their absence from the list!

In regards to exclusions, it appears operators can nominate some service exclusions as the Stagecoach South news article says the N1 and N700 night buses in Guildford and Brighton respectively are excluded, as also are the PT1-5 school buses in Guildford.

The service was retendered and we lost the tender at that point

Thanks Simon, sorry to hear that. There's still a couple of services that were retendered at the same time that appear to have been deregistered by existing operators but as yet the new operator not yet announced. Namely a couple to Collingwood College (83/87), and possibly one to Esher High School (663) to where I believe you already run 2/3 vehicles on the 814? Are you at liberty to give a hint if Diamond had any success among these last few, or am I just being a bit too nosy now?

Hello Simon. I understand that Diamond SE's evening and Sunday 461 service was recently retendered by Surrey County Council, with the daytime operator seemingly having since made a variation to their route registration from the end of this month. Are you able to say if this means Diamond has lost the contracted evening/Sunday element to the 461's daytime operator, or just them potentially amending their existing timetable to coincide with the new academic term and not actually related? Thanks in advance!

As a variation on the theme, how many TOCs can you get on one train?

This example has three - base Midland Mainline livery, with Central Trains semi-circles applied, then Cross Country logos stuck over the top!

https://the-siding.co.uk/class170/pages/170106.htm

From the Yeomans website: http://www.yeomanscoachholidays.com/Bus-Timetables

Yeomans Travel have made the difficult decision to withdraw most of their commercial bus services in the City of Hereford, the last day being New Year's Eve, Friday 31st December 2021.

Yeomans Travel has been family owned for over a century and currently provides bus and school services, contracts, private hire and holiday tours. In September 2015 we stepped in and kept the bus services running when First closed their Hereford depot citing that it was not viable to operate with such low passenger numbers.

Most of the Hereford city bus services are run on a commercial basis without any Council subsidy. The Government had given financial support to all bus companies during the Covid crisis to keep some services operating but this finished at the end of September. Since then we have continued to operate these services without support but this is not sustainable.

In recent years, and especially since the start of the Covid pandemic, the number of passengers carried has been in slow decline as more people have bought cars and traffic congestion in the city has got steadily worse. The rise of out-of-town shopping and employment centres has also reduced demand for travel into the city centre. There have been no discussions with local operators about bus priority or traffic issues until recently when the Government unveiled a package to local councils to assist bus travel.

We are now carrying only 50% of the numbers of bus passengers that we were carrying in 2019 and this is unfortunately typical of bus services across the whole of England and like many others are also having to absorb the large increase in fuel costs.

Whilst Yeomans Travel is aware that Herefordshire Council is working on a new Bus Strategy that will involve support for bus services across the County, we are having to act now to protect the future of the Company. We are upset that the Council have not even mentioned the reason we are stopping these services in their press release. When we informed them, with the reasons behind it, they offered no assistance or asked what they could do to help other than to ask us to carry on until April. If it is not financially viable, why would we continue until then? There was not even a thank you for stepping in with six weeks' notice and solving the problems 6 years ago when First did the same thing only on a bigger scale.

Therefore the following services will be affected from this date:

City services 71 (Credenhill), 72 (Bobblestock), 74S (Bishops School), 77A (College Green and Bobblestock circular), 79A/88 (Putson and Redhill) will be withdrawn.

Service 74 to Newton Farm will continue to operate but the route via Hunderton will be withdrawn. Service 78/78X to Rotherwas/Skylon Park will also continue to run.

We had given Herefordshire Council the statutory notice required before withdrawing these bus services and they have already published a tender to operate emergency timetables on these routes, which they also failed to mention. These will now be financially supported, if we had been offered this we would have continued operating these services which would have meant no disruption to services at all and saved a lot of time and effort all round.

There are no job losses created by these changes and we will still be operating our subsidised services throughout Herefordshire.

We would like to thank our staff for their hard work and passengers for their custom and support over the years but we cannot continue to operate something that is not commercially viable.

Thank you both!

Hello all,

I was just wondering if anyone happened to know the overall vehicle length and type of transmission of the three Volvo B7RLE / Optare Esteems 30408/93/94 (PO58 KPY/X/U)?

Thanks in advance!

Thandi have added another Van Hool - FL21 BUS.

Having withdrawn operations last year, it looks like they will be back from next Thursday. The following (some new) routes appear in the journey planner from 15th April, however in the absence of a map it's all a bit hit and miss just typing in random origin and destination points, so the actual routes may well be longer (or indeed others not yet 'found').

Victoria, Heathrow, Newport, Cardiff, Bridgend, Swansea University, Swansea

Victoria, Hammersmith, Heathrow, Bristol University, Bristol

Victoria, Finchley Road, Fosse Park, Leicester, Loughborough, Derby

Victoria, Finchley Road, Sheffield (Meadowhall), Leeds, Bradford

Victoria, Finchley Road, Birmingham, Manchester