This is ONE reason public transport is a joke.

[Burgerman]

RELIABILITY!!!

Quite apart from the train strikes, so no trains much running and when they do its unreliable. We also have problems with the bus services. Below.

More than 100 Stagecoach bus services have been cancelled across North East Lincolnshire today (Saturday, September 17).

Services 3 and 4 have been most affected, but many number 5 services connecting Grimsby to Immingham and vice versa have also been cancelled. Several 7, 8, 9 and 10 routes have been affected by the cancellations too.

It's not the first time in recent days that the area has been hit by bus service delays and cancellations. According to Stagecoach, a shortage of drivers, absenteeism and financial challenges are some of the reasonings behind the service issues.

A fortnight ago, a spokesperson from Stagecoach East Midlands said: “We are endeavouring to keep the majority of our services running smoothly despite the current shortage of drivers we are experiencing in the Grimsby area and apologise to our passengers for any inconvenience resulting from service cancellations.

“This is a national issue and Stagecoach is committed to resolving the matter as urgently as possible, so we can continue to provide reliable bus services to the communities we serve across the region.”

Stagecoach East Midlands has been contacted for further comment regarding the current cancellations.

The full list of cancellations is as follows:
Services 3 & 4

Morrisons-Cleethorpes

Service 3

6.00am
7.25am
8.10am
9.10am
9.55am
12.40pm
2.55pm
4.10pm
4.40pm
5.55pm
6.20pm

Service 4

6.45am
7.30am
8.00am
9.15am
9.45am
12.15pm
12.45pm
1.15pm
1.30pm
2.15pm
3.00pm
4.00pm
4.45pm
5.45pm

Morrisons-Grimsby Town

Service 3

10.40am
2.10pm
2.25pm

Service 4

5.55am
2.00pm
2.30pm

Grimsby Town-Morrisons

Service 3

11.50am
12.20pm
12.50pm
1.05pm
1.50pm
2.35pm

Service 4

12.12pm
2.30pm

Grimsby Town-Cleethorpes

Service 3

9.22am
12.52pm
2.52pm

Service 4

6.13am
6.43am

Cleethorpes-Morrisons

Service 3

6.40am
7.10am
8.25am
8.55am
10.40am
1.10pm
1.40pm
3.10pm
3.55pm
4.55pm

Service 4

6.35am
7.15am
8.15am
9.45am
9.00am
1.15pm
1.30pm
3.15pm
3.45pm
5.00pm
5.30pm

Cleethorpes-Grimsby Town

Service 3

7.40am
10.10am
2.10pm
2.25pm
5.40pm

Service 4

10.00am
7.00pm

[Burgerman]

And this stuff has been happening since I was a kid.

THIS is the public transport that our green agenda governments are forcing us to use after doing everything in their power to force people out of their cars. Because thats "greener"... Beats me how empty smoke belching busses or trains can be green. Maybe its because they mostly dont work. Or getting everything delivered by truck to your door is "greener". Just had a big 7.5 ton truck deliver some aspirin. Another deliver some household fuses. Thats green? Same with groceries. Ordering a few bits online better than me using my van to get a full months load of shopping at once? Its all bonkers. And mostly it doesent work.

This is why I use my van. Or powerchair. Public transport is hopeless. My van hasnt let me down ever, in its 15 years. Nor did the previous one in its 11 years. Nor did all my bikes and cars before disability either. Those always went when I wanted to go. And hey went when I wanted to go. And also they went WHERE I wanted to go, from my own driveway... And they can change routes, carry my stuff, (the bus wont) and go back or someplace else when I decide. In comfort. To my door.

[Burgerman]

Northern rail, more disruptions than services!

https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/service-updates

London trains are not on strike today! But still dont work properly!

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/indicator.aspx

[Burgerman]

Underground is broken too!
elizebeth line broken
https://tfl.gov.uk/tube-dlr-overground/ ... -elizabeth

picadilly line massive delays
https://tfl.gov.uk/tube-dlr-overground/ ... piccadilly

And this is better than some days!

[martin007]

You will have nothing and you will be happy.

[Burgerman]

Not me!
Theres also 4 major central london stations shut. Because, queen... Dont know how long, or days/weeks. But my van still works as normal. It is RELIABLE.

[Burgerman]

New rail strikes planned for most of the country on 1st and 5th october. And more days unknown as yet. My van doesent go on strike.

And new paddinton station and associated lines all shut down from midnight again for repairs.
My nephew and family (wife, 3 kids, just went from london to heathrow. Heathrow "express"? £65 per ticket! A total of 325. And it was delayed.

[foghornleghorn]

Your van doesn't go on strike because it sits in the driveway the whole time not moving.

Heathrow Express is £25 single / £37 return. Children aged 15 years and under travel free.

[Burgerman]

Van is currently parked on the street as it happens! And so far its gone just over 10k miles. 10k miles on public transport would have cost more than my van!
And again. WHEN I choose to go somewhere it just does. How much or how little I use it has no effect and does not change the facts. Or its reliability or choice to do so.

And the prices were what I was told by my nephew. And yes kids are over 15. Even at those (your) prices its still rediculously expensive. £37 x5 is still 185 quid! You could do that in a van like mine for £10 to £15 of fuel. And that goes when I want. And isnt delayed. So no missed checkins with a full family to pay for. As I say, reliability is important and public transport is a joke here. Even if it was cheap, and its not.

EDIT.
You are wrong. I just looked. Unless you want to travel cattle class. I dont suppose he did. So the prices were correct - almost.
First class, is £55 return. Even 1st class is still worse than my van! Or his car.
https://www.heathrowexpress.com/tickets ... s-offers#/

[Burgerman]

At the end of my street is a main road. At the opposite side of the main rd is a bus stop. A couple of weeks back there was a long line of people waiting for the bus (for 30 mins while their lives ticked away - if it even turned up on time). I was the opposite side of the road drinking a can of diet coke watching the world go by. In the que across the road, there was a scooter. I use the term loosely as it was the size of a car complete with a roof. Its owner must have been 40 stone. And a small scooter with a little old lady...

Knowing that there was only a single space for a wheelchair on these busses I was watching to see what happened and who would win. The answer was neither. The one space was already taken. And this is yet another issue with public transport. Now they were both headed towards a council estate about 2 miles away presumably. Since thats where this bus went. So both could probably get there on the scooters. But thats hardly the point is it. What if I too had been waiting for that bus?

Now admitedly most of the time theres about 3 people total on them wasting diesel and belching clouds of black smoke. So it wouldnt be an issue. But what if it is. What if its the last bus home. What if I am trying to get to an apointment at a fixed time. What if my battery is dead and need to use a bus to get from a resturant a few miles away. to home. (ileostomy/pressure uissues etc) Its just not usable. Because its not RELIABLE enough. Because even if the thing isnt broken down, not on strike, and is actually on time and running you still cannot garantee you can even get on it! So it useless to me.

Not to mention that even though they are heavily subsidised by normal people, that are already paying for their OWN transport the cost of a ticket is still mental. The cost of tickets every time you want some shopping would add up and be astronomical and they dont go to the supermarket and wont carry your stuff anyway! Again why would you?

[Scooterman]

The single wheelchair space on a bus is a pain in the butt, especially when a long way from home. Cos if it's the last bus and there's already a WC in the space you're fooked, you've got to work out another way home instead. There might be railway station just round the corner, yippee! But then you realise it's not a wheelchair accessible station. I was told by south western railway that cos of health and safety reasons only manned stations have lifts. And it's mainly main line stations which are manned. Some unmanned stations have underpasses or ramp bridges but they are few and far between, at least down here. I think they have a few up north.

But when it runs on time, and there's no other sod in the wheelchair bay, public transport is fine. And saves the hassle of trying to park in town, especially at Christmas.

You will have nothing and you will be happy.

That's a WEF quote, and a Marxist/Communist goal, everything is owned in common as in a commune I guess?

But it's cobbler's cos it's part of the human condition to get pleasure and security from owning your own stuff. And the less people have the more they cherish what little they do have.

I remember reading Animal Farm by George Orwell at school. And it was an allegory of the Soviet Union. If you've not read it, the animals overthrow the tyrannical farmer (aka the Russian Tzar Nicholas II) and form a commune with a constitution of equality. But the pigs who were the most intelligent animals on the farm (aka the Bolsheviks), started making excuses why they should have special privileges like living in the farm house, and have clean sheets and better food etc. Just like ruling political class in the Soviet Union gave themselves special privileges. The MPs and Lords in the British parliament do similar.

I'll get off my soap box now

[Burgerman]

The world knows that marxist ideals, socialist economics etc always fails caastrophically. They tried that across half the planet for a century. Millions were kept trapped in poverty and millions starved or froze. And owned next to nothing. And there were mostly no products to buy. Empty shelves. Almost no production. And what was produced was terrible quality and too expensive. But that was irrelivant as you couldnt buy anything anyway! As they said in soviet union "they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work". So eventually they all went to the free market economy route. Even china with its communist government went capitalis free market 50 years ago while holding its nose. And went from the very poorest with no food/heat/health to the 2nd richest place on earth.

So now the left dont push socialism. They would be shot down in flames, like corbyn or venuzuala used as a typical example.

They just renamed everything. Such as the black lives matter group, really an anti capitalist socialist organization of extremists. The massive green agenda is another grab at centralizing control and is green socialism. They want to tell us what to do. Wokism is another. They want control over what we think and say. And it had better agree with the lefts agender or you get called a "right wing extremist, facist, racist, etc. And they push all this stuff day in and day out. Its the same old centrally controlled nonsense, the same EU/ussr style socialism, a "great reset" to have another way to end up with all the same socialist and marxist values but they dont (cannot now) call it that.

The reason that behaviour, living standards and everything about society is falling compared to the 70s 80s etc is that we have endless socialst style big government, globalism and centralised control, minimum wages, a massive support system for the incapable, the lazy, the low life scum that we see drinking/doing drugs across our towns an cities. And instead of prosecuting law breakers we are given an email adress to complain. Same with the ever more costly and ever less capable NHS. Socialist style anything only gets worse over time as they find ever more ways to do less, and take home the helicoptered in £££ while doing little actual work. Personal responsibility is dead. The stte is expected to do everything for you.

[Scooterman]

You knocked it out the park with that reply BM

I read a book on Mao’a “Great Leap Forward”. They reckon about 50 million Chinese starved to death because of the crackpot collectivism policies he introduced.

Millions of Russian peasants also starved to death in the Soviet Union, and in Ukraine due to more crackpot collectivisation schemes run by communist party bureaucrats who didn’t know the first thing about farming. Ukraine was more due to Stalin deliberately starving half Ukraine to death.

One of the famous alleged Stalin quotes was, “One death is tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic”. He was a cold hearted SOB.

[Burgerman]

Communism, and socialism and socialist "economics" are both appear "nice" and fair and aim to improve the lives of the poorest in society. But are actually completely evil. They always do the exact opposite and the economy and living standards drop to the point where the poorest cannot be helped and the masses starve or at least live in poverty. Because money isnt wealth. Eficiency and productivity is. And socialism stifles that. So no wealth left to prop up the poor.

The "evil" capitalist free market system seems evil on the surface. The rich get richer etc. But there isnt a fixed amount of wealth in the world. So the rich getting richer does not mean the poor get poorer. Quite the opposite. The entire system and living standards improve. More overall wealth, and more overall tax revenue from greater production. And more wealth producing exports. Meaning productivity is much higher. Theres This means that theres not only food and other goods on shelves at lower prices but the whole system is wealthier. Living standards always rise under these "evil" capitalist free market systems. For all. Just like east germany after the wall came down, or china, or any place that dumped socialism in favour of more free market capitalism.

Venuzula did the opposite. They were rich compared to most south america standards. They have masses of resources. The biggest oil reserves anywhere in the world. But they vited for a socialist government. Now they run around with million percent inflation, wheelbarrows full of cash to buy non affordable or non existent food. Everything is destroyed. They have no water, power, hospitals have no doors, drugs, power in many places. Obviously they cannot afford a social security system! But they keep voting socialist because they are now so desperate for free gov handouts... A vicious death spiral downwards.

Beware all those that are in the socialist leaning EU, or Biden voting Americans, or trudo voters in canada. You will all gradually enter the same poverty inducing collapse of your living standards. It just takes time.

[Burgerman]

Half the UK and half of the US would or did vote labour or social democrat. Which is for two reasons.
1. They literally do not understand what they are actually doing and believe all the marxist propaganda they recieve in schools.
2. They do know. But their hatred of anyone that has more than they do, means they just dont care. They would rather make the whole of society poor, as long as them rich people have less.

The politics of envy. And stupidity.

[Burgerman]

AND public transport is on strike again across the country.

My van never goes on strike. Cheaper too. You would need to be on a train drivers 65k per year to afford a train ticket anyway.

[Scooterman]

AND public transport is on strike again across the country.

My van never goes on strike. Cheaper too. You would need to be on a train drivers 65k per year to afford a train ticket anyway.

Not if you have a railcard

Do you know the train guard gets paid per ticket for walking through the train and checking tickets. They get a few pence per ticket checked. That's why when the train is empty the guard never checks tickets. It's only when there's a lot of people on the train.

When I was at work there was a 'time and motion' dept. A guy used to time how long it took for an employee to do a job, say paint a door. That would then be the standard door painting time. And if the guy painted the door in less time he got a bonus.

And we used to have company houses at work, which some of the painters and decorators lived in. And not only would they get paid for painting their own house, they would get a bonus for every window they painted quicker!

Ah the good ol' days

[Burgerman]

What good is a railcard if theres no trains running (yet again)?

[martin007]

You can use it to wipe your ass...

[Burgerman]

Or you can wait. And wait. And wait...