Snow: Thank you to Bus Operators.

The East Midlands has today seen more than it's fair share of snowfall with some places seeing more than others. For example Nottingham for an hour we had some decent snowfall with a significant covering for the time scale resulting in Lilac 25, Blue 39 and Skyblue 45 being diverted or terminating away from their normal terminus'. After half hour of no snowfall it was gone!

However, some places such as the Peak District weren't as 'lucky' with the snowfall resulting in significant snowfall which saw High Peak withdraw all of it's services and tried keeping their highly popular limited stop Transpeak service operating until around midday when the decision was made to suspend the service due to poor driving conditions...I think poor is a bit of an understatement I think hazardous would be a better word!

Here is a brand new Transpeak Enviro200 stuck in snow after service was fully withdrawn. From High Peak Facebook Page.

As you can see conditions we're difficult for those out there and it's without a doubt that we've got to thank those who venture out into the unknown tackling the routes head on and those who provide updates to the pubic and once again this "snow storm" proved how well bus companies keep their passengers in the know with the situation out on the road.

High Peak (Transpeak branded) Enviro 200 stuck in snow awaiting rescue from the horrendous conditions. From High Peak  Facebook Page.

With more and more people using social networking to connect with friends, family and companies it makes sense for companies to provide information straight to their Twitter and Facebook pages. For the first time in a while every 'major' bus company in the East Midlands has posted their service disruptions to their respective pages and it's great to see!

...Although it is quite annoying when you read posts such as "Lilac 25 (Diversion route), Blue 39 (Diversion route) and Skyblue 45 (terminus change). All other buses running to normal unless mentioned above" and you see comments such as "Is the 56 still running to Arnold?"...well of course otherwise it would have been mentioned! It must take up so much time for bus companies to go though all notifications and want to smash your head against the wall when you see comments like this. But there are some genuine comments asking about what stops are being observed based on the diversion which the companies will happily reply to to help you get to where you want to be.

Despite this I think we should all come together and thank the fact that the bus companies provide us with the information while trying to juggle getting the information to drivers, posting to social networking sites and answer to questions regarding diversion routes - And finally, we cannot forgot about the drivers, they're the ones who spend everyday tirelessly driving around getting you to your destination safely and with conditions as bad as they're (as seen above) we should take our hats off to them!

A special mention to Transpeak's drivers - while their page is not manned by management it's manned by drivers which makes their job even harder as they have to find the information out by themselves but today they did really well.

Congratulations and thank you to all those involved in operating the buses today despite the weather conditions. You do us proud!

Now have brew and a chocolate biscuit sat in front of the fire on us! Stay safe everyone out there.