Better late than never, approximately 4 weeks late, here’s my little round up of Bee Day 2 action, heralding the arrival of tranche 2.
By all views, things were cracking on much more smoothly this time round. Stagecoach drivers started early at Queens and Oldham whilst their staff went for Bee related training (VFing, etc). An image of improved co-operation on all parties involved.
The night in question also went tremendously smoothly… almost too smoothly. One of the biggest changes (or lessons learnt) from the first tranche, was that the incoming operators were allowed on site much earlier in all 3 cases (Queens, Oldham and Rochdale), so a lot of vehicles were moved during the day (or even days before) instead of in a mad rush at 2am at the ‘official’ handover time.
Vehicles were in healthy flow all evening. The B8RLE’s started arriving at Queens Road from 2am from the ‘top secret depot’ (ADL E400s and Solos stored at a similar ‘secret depot’), the B5LH hybrids leaving for Oldham in dribs and drabs just before hand to make some room.
The signs outside Queens and Oldham were still, as of Tuesday, still the old operators.
However, as service began in the morning and the following weeks passed, the story was quite different.
A problematic run out at Oldham on the first weekday after launch was particularly noted by Mayor B who called it “only minor, nothing major, which are teething problems”. They held a launch event at Oldham Bus Station (or as TfGM seem to be pushing ‘Oldham Interchange’ despite it not, er, interchanging modes with tram, train, taxi or anything really). They’ve also moved the Travelshop and office into the Spindles.
One passer-by went for the jugular and struck whilst the iron was hot. In-front of the assembled bigwigs and press, asked why her 409 was 30-minutes late. Mayor B’s bag carriers confirming it was a vehicle breakdown causing gaps. And that’s the first issue on the 409.
Since moving the 17/18s to Oldham from Queens, there’s a little problem of how to get drivers to Rochdale, Langley, Middleton or Manchester to perform reliefs. Instead of keeping a handful of vans or buses spare to use as taxis, and incurring dead mileage and costs associated with it, the smart move was to interwork the beleaguered 409 with the 17 – a move which would probably have worked well if you discount the absolute shit show of traffic on both routes. Once the 409 battles it’s way up Rochdale/Oldham/Ashton Road, it takes a deep breath to regain the courage and heads down in to Manchester down Rochdale Road to push through city centre traffic as either a 17 or 18 – some 18s also facing a hit-and-miss run down Oxford Road to get to the MRI. The 409 was always suffering huge punctuality problems before hand under First, and this change, if not carefully managed and monitored, could lead to even worse reliability for users on both legs, especially if there’s an incident in the city centre.
They touched on the resolution of the current cluster fudge that is the current fare structure becoming ‘flatter and fairer’ in January on Bee Day 3, in 9 months time! Weekly customers see a massive reduction of, er, £1 a week! Amazing value.
The current situation where 4x weekly tickets is £1.40 cheaper than a monthly is absolutely ludicrous, and the result of total and utter wasteful bureaucracy of the highest order. They can sort it now, for the sake of passengers, but they won’t and refuse to. I can’t find it now but I did see someone post screenshots of an email from Mr Rhodes at TfGM basically saying it’s System 1’s fault the weekly is cheaper.
Passengers were also facing higher fares as they lost some localised rates. 348/350 £3.50 day ticket, Salford’s SuperSaver week, etc. Oldham Times covered the ticketing ‘chaos’ of higher-value tickets, but they do give greater freedom over the operator-specific ones.
| Year | Ticket Type | Price |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 – current | Weekly | £21 |
| Monthly | £85.40 | |
| 4x Weekly Tickets | £84 | |
| 2025 | Weekly | £20 |
| Monthly | £80 |
It was announced that on April 7, five buses will be added to the V1/V2, 163, and 472/474 services and from 28 April a further 15 will be added to the 8, 10, 20/21/22, 501, 524, 575/576, 601-606, 607, 608/35, and 609 services. The Wigan and Rochdale services got their renumbering on Bee Day 2 too.
But hidden in the PR for the day was £5.6m grant from something called the “Traffic Signal Obsolescence Grant and Green Light Fund”. I can hear Siemens rubbing their hands together.
Aftermath…
Come April, the proverbials really started to hit the fan.
The LDRS took to the MEN to report “AWOL drivers” and on the on-going cancellations. Mayor B piped up blaming resource planning: “Truthfully, I think there was leave planned at the Easter weekend that the company hadn’t realised, so driver availability was definitely an issue over the weekend.”
And driver shortages has been the topic of the month. Vast amount of services dropped, they seem to be struggling and Stagecoach have resorted to calling in the agencies to assist.
Various community Facebook groups were abuzz with complaints about the services. One comment I was shown was from a lady begging “Come back First, all is forgiven!”.
Further afield, West Yorkshire CA confirmed that they’ll be implementing a franchised network from 2027.
