“Bus spotter blog picks up hundreds of followers”.
It’s surprising what a mention in the Sun newspaper can do for your site statistics and the sudden popularity of a bus blog. Not this blog, the X1 News Blog.
Visitors (yellow) and page views (red) to the X1 News Blog, from 14th January to 12th February 2011 inclusive. On 11th February, it hit the Eastern Daily Press. Yesterday, it reached The Sun
I’m not referring to the Bournemouth-Lymington X1 (X12) but the 113-mile bus service from Peterborough to Lowestoft, via King’s Lynn, Norwich & Great Yarmouth. If its length wasn’t enough, the thing operates at half-hourly intervals and by English standards, it’s therefore truly prodigious. The PVR is claimed to be 19.Since the autumn of 2008, the First Eastern Counties X1 has usually been home to brand new 74-seat Volvo B9TL/Wrightbus Gemini buses to dual purpose standards whose seats beat the average you find these days. But they’re still somewhat harder than in bygone times. This the more so, given the length of time an end-to-end passenger will spend on the vehicle. A single trip westbound takes 4 hrs 34 mins.
The X1 News blog is also prodigious. Like its dependent bus service, the X1News Blog isn’t for the faint hearted. It chronicles the almost daily account of vehicles in service but does so in a well written and informative manner. Unlike the Sun headline, not everything therein is about Spotting. Read the blog and you’ll get the definite impression that the service, in spite of its length, is pretty reliable and often very punctual (except perhaps on summer Saturdays and at some peak time pinch points).
Slightly ironic that the Sun should tempt us to find a new car online, to the right of the article
The blog refers to recent Jointace adverts on the X1’s rears. Perhaps such advertisements are prophetic. May be passengers need joint care products to assist those who struggle get comfortable on long trips aboard the Gemini. Note that such adverts have appeared in Bournemouth and Poole where generously pitched leather seated luxury or 2+1 seating prevails!
Unsurprisingly, First keeps an eye on the X1 News Blog. “We think the blog is an excellent example of how modern technology can be used in a positive way to monitor local services”. Sure beats an Inspector with a clipboard though I’d guess the union might have something to say if the blog was ever used as part of a disciplinary.i The X1 News Blog
7 comments:
Golly gosh, never heard of it. So if it hadn't been for the X1 mention in a paper that - as a Telegraph and Times reader - I never look at I would have remained in blissful ignorance (-:
Quite content with Omnibuses blog thank you!
Will the Omnibuses plug cause an even bigger spike than The Sun?
The X1 (and associated X2) is now the only First service linking the otherwise isolated local networks that is all that is left of the Eastern Counties business. It is pretty much the only service on which the £13 "network ticket for unlimited travel on our services throughout the eastern counties" is of use.
Of course those who visit the X1 site regularly are regulars so when The Sun suggests there are 500 followers every week the actual number will be less because the same people come back.
noticed the picture in the sun newspaper with the guy on, he is sitting on a back of a leyland national?
LOL
Anonymous said...
"noticed the picture in the sun newspaper with the guy on, he is sitting on a back of a leyland national?"
Yes, definitely a 'Tin' - and a fine variety of moquettes and seat trims as well!
I hate to break it to you but the seats on said X1 vehicles are of the standard modern bus type with minimal cushioning and a less than generous seat pitch, so are not exactly the greatest when travelling any great distance.
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