The English, we love heroic failures. Perhaps that’s why yesterday’s Friends of King Alfred Winchester running day remains so popular, popular to the point that Buses Magazine is a major sponsor. Yet, what it’s really celebrating is failure.
King Alfred buses were remarkably up-to-date, including the "Hores", brand new Leyland Atlantean double decks. Here we have a pair of Leyland Panthers, new in 1970, with typically bleached white, clinical and austere interiors
Those not in the know paused, smiled and said, "look at that old bus". As usual, there were a few "ordinary" passengers around, taking advantage of the free King Alfred bus network on the day. Imagine if Stagecoach had opted to run a Sunday service on 1st January. No room in the bus station, for starters
Through the eyes of the enthusiast, you can understand why, even 36 years after King Ælfred’s demise, the running day remains very popular. R Chisnell & Son t/a King Alfred Motor Services was essentially a rare example of an independent *municipal* operator.
The weather's usually been OK on the day, certainly in recent years. Yesterday's was particularly good. In spite of the large crowds and bus after bus on the Broadway, these two seemed oblivious, in spite of the roar of a Bristol RE
Add to this the wildly eclectic mix of vehicles operated and you have a potent cocktail. Those vehicles ranged from the bizarre to the unusual, none more so than its three Metro Scania single decks. Larger operators tended to leave these well alone. It was a type just as troublesome in preservation as one the road. Very ahead of its time. Nothing much was standard at King Alfred.
Life before power and digital blinds. Note the H&D hood over the cab windscreen
All the affection shown it could not save King Ælfred from defeat. Proving that it’s not a new phenomenon, King Alfred became an example of an operator struggling to keep service, slipping and falling back. From the 1960s, the relative prosperity of Winchester meant not only was it difficult to retain crews & fitters, continued and growing congestion took its toll on punctuality.
Unheard of in H&D's & King Alfred's days, there were plenty of yellow jackets around. As you contemplate the ECW similarities across the generations, what might've happened to King Alfred had it survived to dereg?
An increasingly damaged King Alfred had tried to sell but there were no takers. In the event, maintenance was to catch up with King Alfred and, faced with an embarrassing public inquiry, the company returned its road service licences to the traffic commissioners. Hants & Dorset agreed to take them on. In 1973, Chisnell therefore came to a somewhat ignominious end.
In past times, conventional buses were never easy for *anyone* to board
I’ve even know to visit the FoKAB running days but to celebrate something quite different. For all its warts and looming losses, the H&D of the early 1970s was very much a professionally run operator. And I prefer to think of the Winchester running days as a testament to the H&D of old and how it stepped in to assist a city and its smaller operator, at a time of need.
Everything went "smooth" on the day, with a little help from this hired-in banksman...
8 comments:
Sadly couldn't make it to Winchester this year, first time I've missed for years. Looks like it was a good day!
Come off it. It's not celebrating failure at all. It's celebrating what's missing from today's financially-led operations, a good old dose of customer service, a good old dose of commonsense, and managers who remember to use those two little words, 'thank you'.
"and managers who remember to use those two little words, 'thank you'."
Just like the manager in the picture :
'Celebrating failure' does seem a tad harsh - perhaps 'celebrating a glory that had, in reality, faded by the time Chisnells bowed out' would be better (if long-winded!)
You represent Hants & Dorset as something of a 'white knight' (to borrow a stock market term), but my recollection of the events of the day is that H&D had problems of their own - and, indeed, had to dig some fairly ancient vehicles out of retirement for a time in order to operate the former KA services. I suspect that the management of H&D would have been only too happy not to have to assume responsibilty for the KA operations, but there were very few other potential buyers for independent operators at that time, particularly those which were forced to sell up. Winchester is one of the most prosperous cities in the UK, so not exactly the most promising bus operating territory, so that any potential purchaser of an independent operator could probably have found more interesting and remunerative pickings elsewhere.
Agreed, the end of KA was rather ignominious, but I would hazard a guess that the Chisnells decided to bow out before things got any worse - certainly not 'quitting while ahead', but not really staying on to the bitter end either!
Winchester is an interesting case really. As has already been said it is one of the very wealthiest cities in the UK. The problems of KA are well documented and no doubt are at least partly due to it being, demographically, very bad bus territory indeed.
Yet the present day Stagecoach network appears to be really quite a success story, with a very stable network, high frequencies, almost all of the city covered commercially, a good inter-urban network, lots of investment in modern buses, and visibly high passenger numbers. Obviously new housing developments have helped the economics to some extent (although most of these are also quite affluent), and there has been a fair bit of public investment ('miracles' project etc), but even considering all that, Stagecoach do appear to have made a very good fist of Winchester, in defiance of the demographics.
The most noticable feature of this year's running day for me was the number of high profile industry figures giving up their spare time to participate.
The Op's director of Stagecoach South was conducting.
The Commercial director had a sales stand in the Guildhall.
The Chief Exec. of Reading Buses is well known as a founder member of FoKAB.
The SWT Road services manager is pictured in the yellow hi-viz.
The owner and MD of Velvet is indeed ensuring the smooth running of the free services.
And they are far from alone - there were many Council transport officers and consultants also participating. The New Year's day event is as much a social occasion for the industry's movers and shakers as it is a gricer event. I attended as a mere 'punter' this year, and spent as much of the day networking as I did riding on buses.
Long may 1/1/-- in Winchester continue.
All of which proves that a large number of todays bus industry senior management care just as much about tradition as those of yesteryear... in fact, knowing closely the habits of one or two of the latter in NBC days suggests to me that todays lot are a huge improvement...
At least todays MDs are generally sober after lunch...which is more than can be said about a number of their NBC equivalents...some of whom were inevitably falling-down pissed after 2pm....
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