Good Luck England!

I don't know anything about football but there seems to be some big tournament this summer and England is playing in it.

We know our passengers will want us to join in, so our English subsidiaries will be supporting the World Cup - across the country our buses and publicity material will be saying so.

The campaign starts on Monday and this weekend the bus window posters are going into position. The message will be echoed across the country for as long as England remains in the game!

Well done Matt Wooll and team in Berkshire who kicked off early with getting the window labels into position already.

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Really good news from London

Yes it's true, two great tender successes for First's London subsidiary is that the Routemaster heritage contract for route 9 is retained for a further period.


 AND


Route 25, which we first won decade ago in June 1999, returns to First again under the latest announcements this week.

When route 25 came to us from Stagecoach it represented the largest contract ever to change hands. Those subsequent five years slipped past very quickly and before long conversion to artic and transfer back to East London.

To me of course it seems like only yesterday we won it for the first time - an early success in the days of First Capital shortly after acquisition by FirstGroup.

And we mustn't forget that our Routemasters on route 9 will now continue for a further contractual period. There were those who said, back in 2005, that they had it on 'good authority' that these heritage routes would be quietly dropped when the hubbub of discontent had died down following the end of 'normal' operations.

As you can see nothing could have been further from the truth!

Shown here SRM4 when in use on route 25 during the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977 and our own RML2735 performing on it in June 2004 and photographed by Trevor Wright.

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Running for the bus

Sorry we're late. I know I promised Sunday but actually the Bristol 10K run lasted longer than expected (not the run - getting out!) and it was a bit of a quick turnaround before heading out to Aberdeen.

Is now Monday night so back down in London and a chance to say THANK YOU to everyone who ran, helped and sponsored the run for the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Charity and, as I write, you all have raised £22,676 - an amazing result.

Our Commercial Finance man Richard Millward completed the 6.2 mile course in just 42 minutes, just ahead of Bristol MD Justin Davies.

A great reminder that the business is about people - our passengers and our staff - all of whom are part of the local community.

The UK Bus team just before getting underway in the Bristol 10K

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Election Night

Ah, dear friends you are looking at your PCs and not the interminable pre-closure of the polling stations telelvision "analysis" of what we might have done so thank you again for dropping by this blog.

Something of great nostalgia and the very latest news all wrapped up tonight.

The news is that yesterday we did in fact start our new Aircoach service from Dalkey to Dublin Airport (photo above), the one which has caused so much upset in the press. Regular readers will recall that Ireland is a regulated environment and you need a licence to run a bus or coach service. Both we and a local operator, Patton, had applied for a licence. He applied first so was offered it first, but declined. We applied second and when he declined it was offered to us instead.

Meanwhile Mr Patton started running anyway, and the Police and the other authorities have declined to do much about it. During this time transport matters have transferred to a new National Transport Authority.

We rather hesitated about starting, since the existence of an unlicensed operator rather makes a mockery of the system and guarantees at least some revenue abstraction. We asked the authorities to enforce the law to allow us to start properly but sadly nothing happened. Meantime the Patton company made quite a lot of noise about a friendly local Irish company being downtrodden by a foreign mutlinational corporation.

Licences offered in Ireland have a date by which operations must commence or they lapse. It has always been our desire to comply with the law so we thought we had better start anyway, which we did yesterday. The day, you will recall, was the occasion when Irish airspace was once against closed due to the danger from volcanic ash! No matter, we carried quite a few passengers (some both ways!).

No doubt there will be another dose of "David and Goliath" in the media but we have played this exactly "by the book" and am delighted to share this all with you.

And then the nostalgia - following my recent story Trevor Wright has kindly sent me a copy of his new book Moving Comfortably Ahead which pictorially charts the history of Capital Citybus, its predecessors and successors in 387 colour pictures. So many things I had forgotten! So thank you Trevor, and if you would like a copy please support this venture which is courtesy Jim Blake at 8, The Rowans, London, N13 5AD - £16.95.

Now I am not usually able to predict the next blog date but rest assured you're on a safe bet for Sunday. That is the day that my close colleagues in First run the Bristol 10k in aid of the Leukaemia and Lymphoma charity you all having raised over £22,000 for them. The event finishes before midday and Nicola Shaw and I have to be on a plane to Aberdeen by tea time. There does remain a good chance that photographic evidence of the noble FirstGroup directors and managers in action together with their supporting crew bus will be on line before it is dark.

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May day news

I have learned there are things you have to do in blog-town and that is clear up loose ends from time to time.

So firstly, yet we have done it. We have now beaten the target of £20,000 for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research thanks to my close colleagues who are running in next weekend's Bristol 10K marathon - their own personal contribution in support of my wife Alice's recovery from Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia which is currently at day 43 following bone marrow transplant. A long way to go but so far so good.

http://www.justgiving.com/runningforthebus

Secondly back in March I told you about our Bristol Superbus scheme whereby rail passengers with tickets worth £25 or more arriving at Bristol Temple Meads or Parkway can have one free direct bus journey (two if it is a return). This is a precursor to my scheme to make such arrangements available to passengers and viable for bus companies at all rail stations in the UK.

Well I'm delighted to announce that Bristol independent ABus has now also joined the scheme. Their routes 57 and 349 are now also part of the deal. This trial is being provided to all rail passengers at no extra cost so the bus operators are not getting any remuneration as we strive to prove that the ticket is valued by passengers and prove the technical issues.

Thanks to Alan Peters at ABus for joining the scheme and helping it on its way.

In another charity event from many years ago Northumberland Park staff pull RM429 through North London for BLISS at Whipps Cross Hospital

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East London Line Extension

It was rather handy really. This morning I had to get from my home near Tower Bridge to Canary Wharf to have a meeting with the Olympic Development Authority. By the time I had finished the East London Line Extenson had opened to the public and I could get back via Wapping station for the first time since December 2007.

Only yesterday, it seems, the L T Museum took its 1938 tube stock out for a final run on the East London Line reminding us of the days when tube stock did indeed work on this branch.

Amazingly that was two and a half years ago and today for the first time we are plugged in to Dalston Junction and in due course to West Croydon and Highbury & Islington as well.

I'm very pleased to see the Overground brand in increasing use. When, as Capital Citybus, we tried (and failed) to win the franchise for the North London Line in the 1990s we chose 'Overground' as our trade name. Odd now to look back on our proposals. Well, we did not succeed in winning the franchise (National Express did), but at least the name Overground came into being and now runs around London in one form or another.

A different subject altogether. I see Trevor Wright's new book "Moving Comfortably Ahead" on Capital Citybus is out. I am sure someone will send me one (I'm happy to pay!).

"Moving Comfortably Ahead" was alredy in use at Citybus, Hong Kong, when we joined their owning group. I began to use it as we morphed from blue and silver Ensign Citybus into yellow Capital Citybus thinking it was a good idea but years later Citybus MD Lyndon Rees told me he actually didn't like it in the first place!

In time we moved onto another clever strapline (well I thought of it so thought it was clever) "here today, here tomorrow". It came to me when I heard critics of the private sector say we were here today, gone tomorrow. As we used it, we also made it clear we could be relied upon.

I've not had anything to do with the book but look forward to seeing what is says about those happy days. I think it is almost all entirely photographs - a great reminder of a varied and colourful time in London's bus history.

I believe the rules at Twitter require us to use this link when using their photographs so I am happy to oblige: http://twitpic.com/1ivrn3

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T T Tsui

My old boss, Tsui Tsin-tong, has died in China aged 69. He suffered a stroke whilst still active as a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultantive Conference.

"TT", as he was always known, was a prominent Hong Kong businessman. His name became known in transport circles here when he expanded his portfolio of companies outside Hong Kong, where he owned Citybus, to acquire the London bus operations of EnsignBus in 1990 in what would become Capital Citybus, which he owned until 1995.

It was widely expected that further acquisitions would follow. In fact his activities were part of a more general diplomatic initiative which ended as abruptly as it had started as the relations between China and UK improved in the period after the Tiananmen Square episode of 1989. Subsequently Hong Kong ceased to be a British colony. The details of this are much more about international economic and political history than transport. When I write my book I shall cover this in more detail.

Until then, suffice to say, that working for a rich Chinese philanthropist was an interesting experience - one shared by my close colleague and hero Lyndon Rees who will have his own chapter in my book - a man who arrived in Hong Kong to open platform double-deckers with two conductors and retired having brought tri-axle air-conditioned one-person buses to the colony.

Returning to TT, we made frequent visits to Hong Kong, some of which were simply to be displayed as the European trophies of growing Far Eastern economic growth. As is the way, sometimes we arrived and were kept waiting for days. On other occasions we were whisked off a long flight to be taken to a huge event and promptly despatched again. People in the circle changed rapidly. On one occasion we spent an entire day (a Saturday I might add) discussing business opportunities, only to be taken aside in the plush toilets of some Hong Kong skyscraper to be told the meeting was a sham and would be re-run tomorrow without one of the key people who had already been earmarked for dismissal.

There was little time for rest. A rare free Sunday afternoon was interrupted with the news that we were to "go walking" with TT. We ended up at a restaurant where the hapless occupants of a large table were ejected by the owners and replaced by us as the owner welcomed our illustrious leader.

Of course the conversation was largely in Cantonese and we strained to hear our names pronounced in English and hoped to catch the intonation around it to work out whether the reference was positive or otherwise.

And then in a flash time was up and they were gone.

TT was a great collector of ancient Chinese artefacts. I kid you not - the capital expenditure approval for what is now our Northumberland Park depot was being discussed at another huge meeting of mostly strange Chinese characters. Whilst the agenda item was being discussed, a youthful but scruffy lad entered the room clutching a tatty carrier bag. TT partially withdrew the contents - a vase of some kind by the looks of it. He beamed excitedly as this new artefact came into his possession. He promptly announced we were adjourning for a celebration lunch and when reminded of the business at hand, approved the purchase of Northumberland Park with a wave of his hand.

His rise in business was accompanied by critics and periodically questions of the origins of his wealth made the press - occasionally in the UK and sometimes referring to arms sales.

We saw nothing of this - we did see his extraordinary persuasive and inciteful personality, generosity, and political influence. We also saw a rather short attention span and rarely understood his longer term direction. We were part of something else.

There was much else going on - and sadly we neither understood the activities nor the language......

Here, outside his Mayfair flat, and after a couple of hours standing in the street with  a cardboard bus, I pose with T T Tsui for a publicity shot to promote our bid to run London bus route 29 using three-axle, air-conditioned Leyland Olympians sometime in 1991.


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