Looks like the back end of a bus

This is not just any bus parked up outside City Hall, no this is a Beat the Street bus, a luxury coach for the entertainment industry complete with bunks, kitchens, every conceivable mod-con for the comfort and ease of the hard worked artistes. I think the artistes in question were a band known as Texas who come not from the USA but from Glasgow in the newly independent state of Bonnie Scotland.

"After you, Claude – no, After you Cecil"

I'm not sure that whoever designed the bus station, or Interchange as purists would have it, wasn't on some sort of sadism trip or just plain incompetent or maybe both. The place consists of a long line of bays, over 30 I think, from which depart buses laden with passengers and into which buses similarly arrive. Simple you might have thought except when the arriving buses meet the departing buses at the same time or even better when a load of buses all depart at the same time. There then takes place an elaborate slow motion dance of the omnibuses with the lower number bays giving way to the higher ones. It's just the sort of barmy, ill thought out cheap-o design we've come to expect around here. It matches the similarly badly designed passenger waiting side of the shop which I moaned about before here. Still it does give time to take a few photos while we wait our opportunity to go home at long last.

The great omnibus Excuse Me

Weekend reflections are here.

"Buses are running well late"

Carr Lane

I was in town this afternoon on a spot of business and ran into a classic Hull gridlock with buses backed up on Carr Lane, Ferensway full in both directions and Anlaby Road looking like a no-go area as well. Marvellous! And not helped by the road works I mentioned  a week ago. The title is what I overheard a bus company man saying to a frustrated passenger. My bus home took 15 minutes to do 300 yards just leaving the station, even I can walk faster than that with my gammy leg and all.

Ferensway

Junction Carr Lane, Ferensway and Anlaby Road

Arnold Street

...or yet another photo of Anlaby Road. 

In the foreground is EYMS' Hull garage. EYMS quite rightly put up fares when the oil price rose but for some inexplicable reason haven't reduced them when the oil price fell. Must surely just be an oversight on their part, what say you? EYMS were subject of a documentary series on TV last year, On The Yorkshire Buses , if you seek adventure and derring-do then click on the link to catch up on all eight action packed episodes. *extracts tongue from cheek*

Lowering at the back is the spire of St Matthew's once dubbed the Stadium Church and now either closed or about to close because it's going to cost too much to fix it up. The local rag has it that this is Hull's last surviving Anglican church with a full spire, much good it did it.

Wicstun Express

Newland Avenue, Hull

Here's the bus from York stopping on Newland Avenue, but what all this Wicstun Express malarkey? Well Wicstun is the old name for Market Weighton, a small town somewhere between here and York. Oh verb sap 'Weighton' is pronounced something like 'wheaton' ...
The bus takes two hours to cover the 47 or so miles from York which hardly strikes me as galloping but then it does take the scenic route and stops along the way. As a marketing ploy they've adopted some stylized Viking complete with obligatory horned helmet. I'm not sure a Viking gives the impression of speed, they've more a reputation (thoroughly undeserved of course) for pillaging and general naughtiness. Vikings, of course, wouldn't have been seen dead in a poncey horned helmet and as roads were usually nonexistent or impassable they would have gone by boat up and down the Humber and been in York in a couple of hours with a full flood tide and no stopping at Wicstun or anywhere else for that matter. 

Carr Lane at sundown

That bus, the number 35, will go on down that road towards the setting sun until it reaches Willerby which I am told is the undiscover'd country, from whose bourn no traveller returns, at least not without a ticket.

Lincolnshire's Finest

Following a theme of painting scenes on transport vehicles this decoration on the side of a coach brings us several of the delights of our neighbouring county Lincolnshire. Obviously Lincoln cathedral is instantly recognisable , the Boston Stump in the middle and is that Skegness' clock tower lurking at the back? So go visit Lincolnshire it's a fine and pleasant county, oh, and while you're there do try the local Lincolnshire sausages very tasty, very sweet.

The wheels on the bus go round and round ...

I wouldn't want you to think I was one of those souls who take pictures of buses for pleasure, no sir, I took these for historical record only. Actually I was bored waiting for someone and well, you know, the devil, idle hands etc etc. So, the buses in Hull are for most part red and cream or blue and white, very occasionally  black and that's just about all I can say about buses, they're not really my thing, honest.

Back seat driver

The bus service to Cottingham was, until recently, a bit of a joke with timetables serving a mere decorative function. With the introduction of  a second route and a spruced up timetable the service seems to be much improved, so a quiet vote of thanks to EYMS. The fares, however, are still a bit eye-watering.

By Paragon Station I sat down and wept ...

Today being the first day of the month (March already ...) it's the theme day for City Daily Photo and, by what passes for democratic choice these days, it has been decided that 'People on the street' shall be the thème du jour. So here a motley crowd having safely negotiated the crossing between St Stephens and Paragon Station is making its way home or in the case of the guy with the box of Budweisers to a pleasanter place by far, I hope ...


Weekend Reflections are here.

Do you believe in Hull?

When I first saw these adverts I wondered if perhaps it was some silly campaign to drum up support for the City of Culture nonsense then I pondered the possibility that Hull was suffering from ontological insecurity? (After all Hull is no longer even in the worst 50 cities in the UK. If Hull's not crap then what is it?) Truth is neither of these was the case as it happens; this is just the latest gimmick dreamt up by the God-botherers desperate to rustle up some trade by saying Hull is a wonderful place (truly God works in a mysterious way).
Anyhow on a more serious note (am I ever frivolous?) it is reported that the Government is being urged to forget about failing towns like Hull (where I live) and Hartlepool (where I was born) and a host of others. Instead of pouring money into these places (did I miss out on this somehow?) the Government should help people to in effect abandon them or rather move to places where there is employment (the clever ones are doing this already, it's been going on for years). This help involves improving regional transport infrastructure instead of building the grand projects such as High Speed Rail.  In a thought provoking article that has got the Hull-lovers snarling and spitting obscenities The Economist magazine states some rather brutal opinions and some equally forthright solutions to perceived problems of high unemployment, poor education and a dependency on benefits. The Economist, of course, does not have to stand for election so it is free to posit politically suicidal solutions. I did, however, take to the idea that these empty cities would become like the Cotswolds in a few hundred years time because of the people fleeing them, now there's something to believe in.

I'm waiting for my bus

It's never early, It's always late,

First thing you learn is that you always gotta wait ...
I'm waiting for my bus.

(with apologies to Lou Reed)

Bus-Passenger Interface Experience

This is Hull's bus station, it's a replacement bus station for the one they knocked down to build a shopping mall a few years ago. You can see for yourself that it's a miracle of modern design. See how, if your bus goes from say door 27 and it's rush hour and the place is full, well, just how easy it will be to push your way through 20 or so different queues while carrying your shopping. Oh yes sir, a lot of thought went into the lay out of this place. 

Do you feel lucky?

I suppose that having spent millions on new bus/rail station and a new shopping centre there was simply no money left to design a safe connection between the two. So everyday thousands must wait for the green man before making it safely from one side to the other. Of course, people being what they are, some decide to cross on the red man and play a Hull version of Russian roulette with the buses with predictable consequences.

City Daily Photo's theme for today is 'Pedestrians crossing': see what others have made of this here.

From Park Street bridge

The park that Park Street once led to is long gone or possibly never existed; it's just a dreary cut-through from Anlaby Road to Spring Bank but it does have a bridge that rises up and over the rail tracks giving this view of Paragon station. 

Bus nut heaven

It wasn't until I had seen them several times standing outside the back entrance to the new bus station that I realised there were people who liked to 'spot' buses. There they would be with their little notebooks and cameras noting and photographing every bus as it passed. A harmless pastime I suppose; certainly no worse than taking a picture of your city and posting it on a blog every day.

Time to go home

This is the newish Hull Interchange or combined bus and rail station. Straight ahead for buses to all parts of Hull and hereabouts. Trains are to the left from Paragon Station.

Hassle to Hessle

So, on a whim, to Hessle, to see the shops and take a few piccies of the Humber Bridge. Hopped on the 105 bus to town, just in time to catch the 66 to Hessle. Big mistake. This "bus" was clearly mechanically spavined. Every turn, acceleration; stop, every damned inch of the road seemed to insult it's weakened frame and cause jolts and discomfort to the paying passengers. The roads of Hull are apparently not paved with gold or any other substance but consist of holes with other holes within; designed to catch the wary and unwary alike. The route of this bus is such that it includes as many twists and turns as it is possible to make so that, after 20 minutes, we were actually going past the bus station from whence we had departed. And on and on it went, grinding it's relentless way. Out of town the design of roads is to lay blocks of concrete, say ten yards long; then tarmac over these blocks. At every joint the tarmac wears out leaving a gap that this, seemingly unsprung, cart passed over with a sickening crunch. 

After 45 minutes of this we arrived having gone just over 7 miles at just under 10 mph. I think it may have been quicker to walk.

Tiger tiger burning bright ....

A couple of years ago the local football club was promoted to the Premier League. Gosh what fun and games! It was the dawn of a new age. Hull was to be a "Top 10 City". Well, the reality was just a tad less exciting and now the club are no longer a Premier Club and Hull is , well, still Hull.

In the euphoria of the promotion the local bus company painted one of  its buses as you can see. The Tigers  reference is the clubs nickname, on account of the colour of their strips, not, unfortunately, the quality of their playing.