Lothian Buses fined....

....for running early! As you might just have guessed, it did not involve the routes to Penicuik.

http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Capital-bus-firm-fined-for.6448317.jp

Well, despite being packed into the X47 like sardines and the bus apparently running 20 minutes late, it was nice to have a pleasant bus driver. He kept everyone informed of where we were and when we reached the park & ride the engine stopped and he told us that it had not broken down and that there would be a slight delay while he went to the loo

What is it with the buses during the festival? Princes Street is absolute chaos According to the bus tracker a 47 was due in 8 minutes. Eventually it just disappeared, never to be seen again. Sometimes I can't help wondering if they do actually track the buses or are just glorified clocks telling you when the bus should be there

There's one thing though. I doubt whether they're likely to be fined for being early.

Admin wrote:

There's one thing though. I doubt whether they're likely to be fined for being early.

Very true! It seems to be more and more common nowadays to see 37s running up or down Queensway as they try to get back on schedule - it is getting rare to see one out on its own since they always manage to catch up.
Princes Street is horrendous when waiting for buses and it looks like moving the stops around has not made much difference!

Friday the 13th was not a good day to travel My son came up to visit us for a few days. His flight was supposed to arrive at 8:30pm and I was going to pick him up from the airport.
He rang to say that the flight had been delayed and not to bother going for him. It eventually arrived at the airport at 1:30am and he came to the house at 2:25am

Can you believe it, this is the second night in a row that my bus has broken down. Last night it was at Gowkley Moss and tonight it is LIberton I have now had to take a 37 instead of the X47 that I was on. Never mind, soon be home and it's the weekend

Was it one of the older buses that broke down? (Not a blue-top) They seem to be having lots of problems, especially on the 15 / 15A service which seems to come with a built in smoke machine. It does not look to good when Lothian Buses are not buying any new vehicles at the moment - they might end up like First Bus!

Yes, it was the older buses. What made it worse tonight was that in Princes street I let a 37 go past as the X47 was just behind it

http://news.scotsman.com/transport-news/Bosses-put-brakes-on-early.6501928.jp

A good job they don't have a "running late" alarm on their buses - imagine the racket on most Penicuik services!

Having commuted for nearly 13 years on Lothian Buses I can tell you it is one hell of a climb down to start travelling regularly with Firstbus, in particular the 141. Buses that always have an unclean, unkept feel about them, as (without wanting to sound snobbish) do many of the passengers it carries. Generally the time keeping is okay, the one advantage though is very few traffic jams and if it does get stuck anywhere then there is stretches of road the driver can put the foot down. They always seem to put the decent buses on at the weekend, so folk like myself get lumbered with what I can only describe as tin cans on 4 wheels, unlike Lothian who generally operate decent buses all day long..

I would certainly agree with you about First Bus, musicman. I rarely use them, but just seeing them around you notice that most of them are older (P registrations) than Lothian's oldest vehicles. I wonder how some of them manage to pass the emissions tests, especially when this is a major multinational corporation, not some back-street bus company!

There might just possibly be a small, tiny bit of disruption to services on the 16th!!!!

http://www.lothianbuses.com/more-info/news/traffic-news/449-the-papal-visit.html