Having been in Skegness for a week in July 2014 I though I'd take a look at how Stagecoach in Skegness operate services in the high season. Unfortunately one day went to pot and didn't improve as you'll find out when you read this article.
Last summer was without a doubt one of the hottest that I can remember for a long time and as people do during the summer holidays they head away on holiday some abroad and others flock to the British seaside. We chose to go with the seaside resort and Skegness was the chosen location and I was very keen to try out the newly refurbished open toppers changed from 'Coastal Cruiser' to 'The Seasiders' having arrived and settled I thought Saturday would be a great day to try out the award winning (The Award for Marketing Initiative of the Year) open toppers having got the times the night before I headed out for the service 3 to Skegness Interchange.
Walking to the bus stop I was astonished at the queue that had already formed, the summer timetable states that service 3 operates every 10 minutes and service 1 (which is ran by standard closed roof buses) every 10 minutes giving a combined frequency of every 5 minutes along this corridor. It was coming up to 30 minutes of waiting and some people of the queue by this time had either walked off or used Taxi firm 'Red Cabs'. In that space of time 2 open toppers, 2 single deckers went in the opposite direction; something was clearly wrong. After a half hour wait a Hunts Coaches Olympian pulled up packed to the rafters of passengers (picking up the waiting Stagecoach Skegness passengers from other parts of the route) after taking 5 passengers and turning away others it pulled shortly after was a Red Bus ALX300 where a large proportion of the passengers went, still there were a good fiveteen people waiting at stop. Nearly 35 minutes the first Stagecoach vehicle to turn up was a Interconnect Wright Gemini which only had a few seats spare and I boarded the bus arrived nearly 50 minutes late and was parked in the bus park opposite the station.
I've never actually had a need to go to the Bus Station as there isn't really much there for me when I got off the IC9 at the station wanting to see what it was like and I was shocked at how poor the bus station appeared there was sufficient information on the services but there was no colour it looked like it was abandoned something which wouldn't draw much attention. So far my experience with Stagecoach Skegness wasn't very good but still I persisted to make my way to the stand where the open toppers pick up I thought it was going to be a 'in and out' style thing, it wasn't! There was plenty going on in the station there was a man with a high-vis jacket, clipboard and radio walking around tirelessly organising buses.
The first bus was a single decker which was on the 3 the driver was ordered to drop off passengers and then reverse into the stand behind for service 1 it picked up and went out, a open topper arrived the driver let the passengers get off moved it towards the office got out and left the bus (which was still there after I finally got a bus). Everyone at that stand was wondering what was going on, there was no information given to us and it was only when a woman went over to ask the man with the clipboard what was going on the information that he gave the woman was "It's taking well over an hour to get to Fantasy Island, buses are getting stuck and because we've not got enough drivers on today most are on their break" he then said "the last service 3 departed around an hour ago". By this time I had been waiting for around 40 minutes, the next bus arrived pulled in, again closed roof and was ordered to swap drivers and was put onto another IC route (not sure which). Shortly after another open topper arrived and the driver took it straight into the bus park and left us.
Now approaching an hour with no buses departing on the 1 or 3 for quite some time a service 3 arrived and was a Dennis Dart which very quickly got full and driver went off by this time I was near the front of the queue. The third open topper arrived and driver left it but this time on the stand (it looked promising) the driver then walked into the supermarket opposite the station. There were plenty of drivers hanging around on their "break" but no buses going out. Finally over an hour of waiting a open topper arrived and it was 'Salty'; the driver apologized to us about the wait and gave the same explanation that they don't have enough drivers that day - A bit odd that it's one of the busiest days of the week and they didn't deploy enough drivers. But now sitting down top deck near the back I was quite contempt.
Some of you maybe wondering why didn't you take another bus, well there were two reasons. 1) It was hot and I wanted to have the sea air to cool me down 2) When you're a bus enthusiast out to get a certain bus you've got to persevere and I did and got my reward (just about)
So now on the bus and travelling to Fantasy Island (my stop) on a open top bus the journey was stop, start and we didn't really get anywhere very fast it did take nearly an hour to Fantasy Island. So wanting a drink and something to eat I went to a cafe, I had a BLT and a coke having relaxed I made my way to the stop hoping for another journey this time I was only going as far as Roman Bank I was very tired and had enough. The Roman Bank junction outside Fantasy Island is one of the busiest roads I've seen and it quite dangerous for pedestrians.
Let the wait begin! I joined yet another long line of passengers waiting for a bus one bus had just left and that was a East Lancs Mylennium we were waiting 20 minutes and 3 buses arrived 2 open toppers 'Sandy' and 'Pierre' and a East Lancs Mylennium there was confusion as people tried to join the 'smaller' queue but I stayed with Sandy and got a seat.
Overall I was impressed with the quality of the refurbishment and they captured the seaside brilliantly well with the 'seasiders' (Refurbishment programme will be a article discussed in the feature).
Before I conclude this article I'd like to make it clear I wasn't complaining about Stagecoach themselves as many of the problems they had on the road were unpredictable and they had no power over the only criticism I had was not having enough drivers and perhaps the 'man on the ground' should have gave more information to the waiting passengers had we not have asked him directly would we have ever had an explanation?
Now time for the conclusion to this rather lengthy article I think that the road structure of Skegness cannot cope with the sheer number of pedestrians, number of cars, coaches or buses and if possible needs updating although I can't see that happening any time soon.
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