Arriva Stafford Services

[Bob]

I'm not surprised about Wednesfield haemorrhaging money.  Do you think Cannock will survive?

[The King]

I'm not surprised about Wednesfield haemorrhaging money.  Do you think Cannock will survive?

Yes, the busses may not improve but with the 74/75 at College peak and the 60/825 runs they'll be able to keep going. The current Garage manager (Mr Brent) is notorious for penny pinching and to his credit it does work. The main issue with Cannock is the fact the busses are not very well maintained and they have certain drivers who are allowed to get away with things like going off route or running early (I'm not going to incriminate anyone or myself).

Edit: When Cannock had the 76 it was losing roughly £7000 a month at Wednesfield it's considerably higher due to Nx's 54.

Just to be clear this is not a lets have a go at Arriva and their are no false facts or false accusations to be thrown around.

[winston]

I'm close to a few people at Arriva and the rumor is that it will be closing in December at the latest as it is hemorrhaging money at the moment. Also their is a rumor with Cannock Drivers that the 76 will be cancelled by Arriva and will be ran from Penkridge by Select bus Services.

Those Centro contracts that Arriva won for 5 years in 2012 for Hill Top garage for next to nothing must really be hurting Wednesfield's figures now

[The King]

Those Centro contracts that Arriva won for 5 years in 2012 for Hill Top garage for next to nothing must really be hurting Wednesfield's figures now

Well that's the thing, those centro contracts pay pittance compared to what they paid 4 years ago and Wednesfield struggles for drivers massively mainly due to the fact that they are on £7.40 P/h (figure from late 2015)

Stafford being connected to Cannock has always been a good thing for Drivers as they're both on the same rate of pay.

[Bob]

Yes, the busses may not improve but with the 74/75 at College peak and the 60/825 runs they'll be able to keep going. The current Garage manager (Mr Brent) is notorious for penny pinching and to his credit it does work. The main issue with Cannock is the fact the busses are not very well maintained and they have certain drivers who are allowed to get away with things like going off route or running early (I'm not going to incriminate anyone or myself).

Edit: When Cannock had the 76 it was losing roughly £7000 a month at Wednesfield it's considerably higher due to Nx's 54.

Just to be clear this is not a lets have a go at Arriva and their are no false facts or false accusations to be thrown around.

Not very well maintained is an understatement.  Can a garage survive on routes like the 74? The 75 isn't a very busy route. Not sure about the 60/825. The 1 & especially the 2 don't seem to be doing very well. I'd be interested to see how many other arriva routes nationwide have been converted to Sapphire and then subsequently elongated and then cut!

[The King]

Not very well maintained is an understatement.  Can a garage survive on routes like the 74? The 75 isn't a very busy route. Not sure about the 60/825. The 1 & especially the 2 don't seem to be doing very well. I'd be interested to see how many other arriva routes nationwide have been converted to Sapphire and then subsequently elongated and then cut!

I can't comment on the 1,2/2e but the 60,61,62/825 does lead to a lot of missing buses due to driving hours and the sheer traffic into Stafford at peak. the 75 is only busy at peak with the college kids over the summer it is very quiet same with the 74.  I thought Stafford ran the 825 better than Cannock, the drivers seemed a lot more relaxed and less on edge than the Cannock drivers do and you could see that in the way they drove.

[Bob]

Yes it was a stupid decision to change them to being inter worked.  Eventually people will get so p####d off with the level of unreliability they'll just find other means of transport

[Bob]

Also due to the amount of knackered buses now being used on the 825 etc it's not just traffic that's causing missing buses unfortunately

[The King]

Yes it was a stupid decision to change them to being inter worked.  Eventually people will get so p####d off with the level of unreliability they'll just find other means of transport

I've seen yourself a few times quite annoyed at the reliability. The interworking is what it is and wont be changed any time soon and neither will the fleet. The only reason some of the newer fleet is so knackered is due to the busses being fitted with "Econspeed" which slows the acceleration right down which made the 63 plate Pye Greens struggle up Bradbury Lane. 61 plate busses struggle to accelerate up any hill which leads to drivers trying to accelerate too hard and the engine eventually says nope and gives up.

(I'm not going to comment on this further as commenting further may adversely effect myself) Thank you all for reading what I've had to say on this matter and I wish any driver on this forum affected by the closure of this depot the very best of luck

[Bob]

One good thing about the recently transferred Volvos is that on the rare occasions when they're on pye greens they make absolute short work of the hills

[Westy]

Couple of comments.

Why was 'Wednesfield' edited out of my requoted comment?

As regards the comment about the Cannock manager & drivers running early & the poster saying he cant say anymore, any regulars who read this forum & also read Arriva's Facebook page will be aware of similar comments, so dont think the poster has too much to worry about in my opinion.

[Cheese]

I'm close to a few people at Arriva and the rumor is that it will be closing in December at the latest as it is hemorrhaging money at the moment. Also their is a rumor with Cannock Drivers that the 76 will be cancelled by Arriva and will be ran from Penkridge by Select bus Services.

In regards to Stafford Garage it is shutting in September with all the routes going to Cannock Garage and 20 Drivers will be relocated with 26 facing redundancy!

It's a sad time indeed but as along time follower of this forum but a 1st time contributor I can agree with Bob that in the past 12 months Arriva in the West Midlands have been really poor!

76 is being withdrawn except for Sunday's, Select running hourly 876 Penkridge to Wolves. Not all Stafford towns going to Cannock, 6 being run off Telford off the back of the 5.

[Bob]

Not looking good for Arriva to be honest is it

[woody38]

The problem for buses is people are not going into town anymore, look at Wolves, look at Stafford etc, a lot of buses are running with hardly anybody on them. In wolves in the last week Mothercare closing, BHS on Wednesday. Arriva are withdrawing or reducing the services because of customer demand. 30 years ago the 892/3 as it was would be full on a Saturday coming out of Albrighton to Wolves now it's dead, where have all the people gone you may ask. A lot of it is online I work for a delivery company & parcels are increasing your on year, more and more people are ordering online.  City & towns don't help themselves look at Stafford all they are doing is moving the  shops from one end to another, a few new shops are coming well 2 the rest are relocating, the north of Stafford will be dead once Marks moves out, the guildhall is empty, the same in Wolves they are building a new debs & H and M are coming but it's going to need more than that to bring people back into town..

[Bob]

I see what you mean but if it's the case that people aren't going into towns why are nx not cutting services left right and centre?