A trip to Peterborough on the guided bus

Today was the last day of the unrevised  Stagecoach service B, so I decided to take a trip to Peterborough. I caught the 1321  B from St Ives. This was in the interest of 'research' but I did visit Peterborough Cathedral.

The13.21 bus left St Ives 5 minutes late, and reached Peterborough 9 minutes late. So we dropped 4 minutes against the schedule.   2 minutes were lost between St Ives and Hartford, which it is not possible to cover in the 10 minutes allowed by the timetable. So Stagecoach are right to ease the time on this section of the route.

I had imagined that the B ran as an express between Huntingdon and Peterborough, but this is not the case. The bus stops on request  at all bus stops en route, so on this trip we picked up of set down passengers at Stukeley Meadows, RAF Alconbury, two different stops in Sawtry, Norman Cross ( possibly someone heading for Stilton which has been bypassed by the new timetable) and Serpentine Green. At no point were there more than 11 passengers on board, and only 8 alighted at the end of the journey.

The return journey was at 1615 from Peterborough with 21 passengers on board.  Passengers boarded or alighted at Serpentine Green, 4 different stops in Sawtry,  and Great Stukeley. We were 6 minutes late reaching Huntingdon, but made up the time between Huntingdon and St Ives, arriving at St Ives on time.

The extra 10 minutes allowed in the new timetable due to start from Monday 6 August should give enough  flexibility to allow for passenger stops and traffic conditions.

It is a puzzle why Stagecoach have cut the large village of Stilton out of the route. And I do not see how they imagine that tacking what is really a 'stopping' service onto the end of the busway route is going to attract people to use the bus for Peterborough-Cambridge journeys.

Has anyone else travelled the Huntingdon-Peterborough section?

Bus services to villages between Huntingdon and Peterborough

As noted in earlier posts, extension of the busway service B to Peterborough means that Stagecoach is withdrawing its service 46 between Huntingdon and Stilton, and leaving several villages with no bus service. The Hunts Post ( 18 July, page 21) reports that Nene & Ouse Valley Community Transport will provide a bus service linking Huntingdon with Alconbury Weston, Sawtry, Glatton, Norman Cross and Stilton. There will be about 6 daily journeys.

Busway services to Peterborough

The timetable for the busway service B extension from Huntingdon to Peterborough is now available on the Cambridgeshire County Council website here. Or here.

Departures from Huntingdon are at 05.50 then hourly until 16.50 then 17.20, 18.20, 19.20. From Peterborough they are at 06.45, 07.45, 09.15 then hourly until 20.15. The service operates Monday to Saturday. Journey time is 44 or 45 minutes.

Intermediate calling points are described as follows: Little Stukeley opposite RAF Alconbury Main Gate (northbound), Alconbury near RAF Main Gate (southbound), Sawtry opposite Tinkers Lane, Hampton Serpentine Green.

Bizarrely, the Huntingdon to Peterborough journeys are shown in the same table as Huntingdon to Cambridge journeys, and vice versa - so  there is no indication of whether they are through journeys between Peterborough and Cambridge.

Link to Studley's tidied up version of the Peterborough-Cambridge timetable here.

Busway route B extension to Peterborough

Following the proposal by Stagecoach to extend busway service B from Huntingdon to Peterborough calling at Sawtry only, and to withdraw its service 46 between Huntingdon and Stilton, thereby leaving the Alconburys without a bus service, there has been a protest meeting attended by 250-300 people. See Hunts Post ( 27 June, page 3). The Hunts Post says that Cllr Maguire has suggested Stagecoach increases fares rather than cut the service, and that Cambridgeshire county council's Transport Manager, Paul Nelson, is investigating a 'community transport solution' for the Alconburys.

On page 7 of the same issue are 3 letters about the bus changes. One asks where in Sawtry the route B will stop, and suggests the need for an alternative bus route , presumably to link the string of villages, between which it will soon be impossible to travel by bus. A resident of St Ives calls for an enforceable public transport policy. Councillors Kadic and Brown write to say they are determined to ensure that the Alconburys have a bus service that meets local needs.

Busway extension to Peterborough

The intention of Stagecoach to extend its busway service to run between Huntingdon and Peterborough has taken a step forward, with Andy Campbell of Stagecoach stating that he has applied to the local authority to change existing service 46 and to register a new route B between those two places. The B will run through to/from the busway and link Peterborough with Cambridge (Hunts Post, 20 June, page 7). This information is provided in an editor's  note and responds to letters from residents of Stilton and Alconbury Weston, villages that are affected by these changes. The 46 will be withdrawn south of Stilton, and the new service B will serve Sawtry, thus depriving Stilton of a serve to Sawtry and Huntingdon. The villages of Alconbury, Alconbury Weston and Upton (total population about 2700) will be left without a bus service, it seems. The decision is being made, says Mr Campbell, on commercial grounds, and he thinks the new timetables will 'replace most of the current passenger journeys to and from Huntingdon'.  Options for intermediate journeys, it seems, are of no interest to Stagecoach, and neither is the concept of providing a regular ( until now hourly) service linking the string of sizeable villages on the route with the towns at either end. On of the letter writers wonders why Cambridgeshire County Council made the investment in the busway only for bus companies to withdraw feeder services. Elsewhere in the same issue of Hunts Post ( 20 June, page 15) are two articles on the same topic. Andy Campbell is said to blame the County Council for cutting its subsidies to bus services, combined with a cut in the bus service operators' grant for Stagecoach's decision.