Ghost bus service!

[yorkie]

There is an excellent article about this fiasco at http://theticketcollector.wordpress.com/

The main points are:-

* DfT run a bus from Wandsworth Rd to Ealing Bdy (calling at Kensington Olympia) to replace the XC service as the rest of the route can be traversed using service trains, so the replacement route is to get a train from Brighton to East Croydon, train from East Croydon to Kensington Olympia, bus from Kensington Olympia to Ealing Broadway, slow train from Ealing Broadway to Reading, then a train from there!!!
* It costs £500 each day that it runs (but DfT won't say who pays this bill - presumably they do!)
* It's not in any timetables/planners
* They can only get away with it being a bus due to a legal loophole introduced in 1982
* The service must 'broadly correspond with the discontinued service in terms of the localities it serves' so they are able to get away with terminating at Ealing rather than continuing to Reading !!!
* DfT did not follow proper procedures
* DfT went against the advice given in 2004 by the DfT's own minister of state, Tony McNulty.

Does anyone believe the DfT is fit for purpose?! I wouldn't trust them to open a can of sardines that was already open (to quote a classic Red Dwarf line!)