Strange Prototype (of what?) in East Anglia

[trisonic]

First to name what this is (it may be suitable for another area but it's too weird):

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos taken last Wednesday 4th August.

 

Brownie points only for identifier...........with murky details........

 

Best, Pete.

[edcayton]

It's the famous misguided busway!

 

Ed

[stewartingram]

Misguided busway, St.Ives to Cambridge line. How dare you post such rubbish on a respectable forum.....

[Dagworth]

I'm assuming that it's the (mis)guided busway to the north of Cambridge?

 

Andi

[trisonic]

It's the famous misguided busway!

 

Ed

 

 

Ooooh, more details (incl. location) required for House points, Ed!

 

Best, Pete

 

 

 

[trisonic]

Here's another photo of the strange device (I saw a bicyclist on it!)..........

 

 

You guys are way to fast for me. I was visiting the RSPB site with my cousin, Ornithologist, Mike Everett when he said "you may be interested in this, Pete....."

 

Best, Pete

[Allegheny1600]

I can't say where this is but at least it looks (slightly) prettier than the one in Leeds! Mind how long before this one is covered in bumps & scratches?

This is the sort of nonsense we have to look forward to between Leigh and Manchester

Cheers,

John E.

[edcayton]

I had cause to be at the MG Owners Club HQ at Swavesey a couple of weeks ago, and had a look at the "station" next to the level crossing. I had my blind friend with me and he was fascinated by it, and was able to poke about with no fear of getting run over. It is interesting to see the devices to guide the buses back on to the track and to prevent other vehicles from doing so. How long before the local yoofs start blocking the thing with stolen cars etc?

I can just about see justification for a dedicated bus road, but the only advantage I can find claimed for the guideway is that it can be narrower than a plain road for two buses to pass. Are they really going to build another of the things between Dunstable and Luton?

 

Ed

[ForestPines]

Bristol City Council have an ongoing plan to convert the Bristol Harbour Railway into one of these, although government cutbacks may have put it off the agenda for now: lately, the Council have been dropping hints that they'd rather like a tram system stocked with Parry People Movers instead.

[backwaterscotland]

They built a guided busway in Edinburgh a few years ago "to reduce congestion" - it is now being converted into part of the new tramway system (if it ever gets finished) and the buses have been returned to the (congested) roads that they were removed from.

 

Andy B)

[trisonic]

Misguided busway, St.Ives to Cambridge line. How dare you post such rubbish on a respectable forum.....

 

 

I'm assuming that it's the (mis)guided busway to the north of Cambridge?

 

Andi

 

Well, you two are right - the thing has never opened and the council and builders are in dispute (what a surprise) over costs and who pays what. It goes straight through the RSPB's latest "sanctuary" near Hemingford Grey - where Mike lives....

 

I was hoping for more local input and the state of play right, now....

 

Best, Pete.

 

 

 

[Anglian]

Shame they didn't reinstate the railway line instead.

[Lord-Claud-Hamilton]

Well, you two are right - the thing has never opened and the council and builders are in dispute (what a surprise) over costs and who pays what. It goes straight through the RSPB's latest "sanctuary" near Hemingford Grey - where Mike lives....

 

Do you mean the Lakes at Fen Drayton?

 

I was hoping for more local input and the state of play right, now....

 

Best, Pete.

 

As I understand it, there are issues/faults with the route that make it unusable for buses. As has already been said, the Council and builders are in dispute as to who pays for the work to correct things. At the moment it's the most expensive Cycle/Dog Walking Path in the UK!

 

The thing is, nobody wanted the guided bus route in the first place. Even the guy who designed the system said it wasn't suitable for the job!

 

What really annoys me is that the people that agreed to this, despite all the objections, are long gone and wont be held accountable!

[Lord-Claud-Hamilton]

Shame they didn't reinstate the railway line instead.

 

As much as I would have liked to have seen this happen, it wouldn't have worked either.

 

There were much cheaper and practical options that should have been used instead.

[trisonic]

Do you mean the Lakes at Fen Drayton?

 

 

 

 

I think it must be, I'm afraid I'm not au fait with the area. If I remember you enter and the bus route crosses the entrance road perpendicularly (where I took the photos of the "station").

 

Best, Pete.

 

 

 

[Foulounoux]

There is only one positive aspect to the busway - it does at least protect the route for when they see sense and reinstate the railway

 

It could be worse they could have built on it

 

 

Colin

[trisonic]

As much as I would have liked to have seen this happen, it wouldn't have worked either.

 

There were much cheaper and practical options that should have been used instead.

 

 

As I understand it ( I love your moniker btw) they wanted to get the buses off the A14 which is considered both dangerous and too busy.

 

Best, Pete.

 

 

 

[jamie92208]

If it ever does get opened I hope it lasts better than the York Road one in Leeds, the Concrete is starting to spall badly in the upper edges and apparently the buses are always breaking guide wheels. The sad thing is it's built on top of the old tramway up York Road and they lifted the long buried rails to bid the busway.

 

Jamie

[298]

If it ever does get opened I hope it lasts better than the York Road one in Leeds, the Concrete is starting to spall badly in the upper edges and apparently the buses are always breaking guide wheels.

 

Which shows how the taxation system favours larger vehicles, since they are accountable for the damage caused to our roads yet hardly pay their way.

 

What was the point of this anyway...? Are Cambridge bus drivers generally lazy or so inept they are incapable of properly steering their vehicles...? If it was a guided trolleybus route then a dedicated RoW may be appropriate, otherwise it seems a waste of a good road or light rail alignment.

[Welly]

I've noticed that the ballast is already straying onto the "rail" despite that fact that there is no regular traffic yet - that will make for a bumpy ride!

 

When will it open? I'm thinking of taking a ride on it out of curiousity...

[cbeagleowner]

It seems to be the biggest white elephant we'e had around here for a while. Barely a week goes by with out a busway story in the Hunts press! If only they would reinstate the railway. There was group called cast.iron cmapainging for that priginally. I don't knwo whether they exist now, but I reckon and extension of a Liverpool Street service that would have run on from cambridge to St. Ives, Godmanschester, Huntingdon and Peterborough would have been good fro commuters, and another way of keeping those buses of the A14, which isn't the greatest road in the world.

[Barry J]

Can someone enlighten us as to what the problems are preventing it's use?

[AMJ]

One of the other (mis)guided busways that failled to deliver was the one that was installed to take passengers to the Dome in London. This used a system of a wire in the roadway as a guide, but it didn't work!

 

Slightly OT I think that the following link might be a better idea as used in a few French cities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_Guided_Light_Transit

 

A cross between a monorail, tram and a trolleybus. The proper rail forms the guide and also a common return for the electric power. This reminds me of the very early trolley bus systems that used a skate (onto one rail of the tramway) for the common return and took the power from the overhead.

[Skinnylinny]

One of the other (mis)guided busways that failled to deliver was the one that was installed to take passengers to the Dome in London. This used a system of a wire in the roadway as a guide, but it didn't work!

 

Sounds like a giant Faller car system... is this a case of the prototype following the model, or the model following the prototype?

[pete_mcfarlane]

Which shows how the taxation system favours larger vehicles, since they are accountable for the damage caused to our roads yet hardly pay their way.

 

What was the point of this anyway...? Are Cambridge bus drivers generally lazy or so inept they are incapable of properly steering their vehicles...? If it was a guided trolleybus route then a dedicated RoW may be appropriate, otherwise it seems a waste of a good road or light rail alignment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridgeshire_Guided_Busway

 

The 6-metre (20 ft) width of the bus guideway is narrower than the 9.3-metre (31 ft) width of a single carriageway rural all-purpose road built to 2009 standards (excluding attendant verges and footpaths/cyclepaths in both cases).^[70] A conventional road would have been too wide for the guideway itself to fit on top of the narrower existing railway embankments and across the under-bridges along parts of the route

So basically you can't turn a double track railway route in to a single carriageway road without widening it (which is presumably very expensive). Guiding the buses controls their position on the roadway, so you can allow less clearance between passing vehicles.

 

The biggest criticism I'd make is the low top speed (55mph) compared to rail - this isn't competitive enough for medium distance journeys like St Ives to Cambridge.

 

A much better solution to congestion on the A14 (and other dual carriageways) would be to ban lorries from the outside lane and enforcing this with numberplate recognition cameras. Most congestion on dual carriageways is caused by lorries doing 56mph taking 2 minutes to overtake lorries doing 54mph.