26th July 2022
The railways were on strike today, which I thought might have implications for the loadings on my first bus of the day, but Greater Anglia Trains were managing to run a partial service, so there was no noticeable impact.
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| Ipswich Borough Transport. One of the last council-owned bus companies in the UK |
I left Ipswich at 09.50 on service 93 to Colchester operated by Ipswich Borough Transport, one of Britain's few remaining council-owned bus companies. The route was mainly down the A12 trunk road but with some sizable diversions, particularly around the large village of East Bergholt, although that produced few passengers from such a prosperous and well-to-do community,
Not long after leaving Ipswich we had crossed the county boundary, leaving Suffolk for Essex
ESSEX - County Town: Chelmsford
Essex is very much a county of two halves, with a rural north, akin to neighbouring Suffolk and an urban south which merges almost seamlessly into the London conurbation. With its origins in the ancient Kingdom of the East Saxons, the county lost some of its northern parishes when county councils were set up in 1889, whilst parts of the south east are now administered by London Boroughs.
I left the Ipswich bus at the top of the town as we ran into Colchester and walked through the city centre to the bus station, which is at the bottom, in Osborne Street. Two bus companies run on the 88 service to Halstead. Unusually it is promoted as a "joint" rather than a competitive service. Both companies show the other's journeys in their timetable whilst Hedingham Omnibus even confirms that they accept each others day and return tickets, although First Essex is rather coy on that. Such joint services used to be the norm before de-regulation, privatisation and compulsory competition were wrongly seen as being in the passengers' interest.
Although in Essex, Halstead could have been a Suffolk town with a pleasant main street on a gently sloping hill and an air of quiet prosperity.
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| Halstead, High Street. |
I had only ten minutes before my next bus, but felt that I had already seen most of the town on the way in from Colchester. That next bus was Stephenson's 38 to Braintree, which on leaving Halstead was immediately forced to make a u-turn in a car park due to a road closure and an alternative route to be followed leading to much bafflement amongst certain passengers.
Braintree
My turn for bafflement came when we arrived in Braintree, where I needed to alight to get a connection on to Chelmsford. Although I was expecting the bus to call at the bus station I wasn't unduly surprised when most of the other passengers got off at a roadside stop in the town centre. This often happens when the bus station is not ideally sited for the shopping area. We continued on our way towards Witham, but seemed to be getting farther and farther out of town. Eventually, I assumed I must have misread the timetable so I got off and walked back towards the town centre. Big Mistake!
By the time I'd got back into town and found the bus station (which had recently been relocated) I was just in time to see my Chelmsford connection depart! I found out later that had I stayed on the 38A it would have eventually made its way around the extensive one-way system and got me to the bus station rather quicker than I had walked it.
Luckily I had a Plan B, which involved the next bus to Chelmsford leaving in half-an-hour, so giving me a bit more time to look round Braintree and its street market. There was more bafflement at Chelmsford bus station, where the powers that be have chosen to give extensive information about where all the local city routes start from, but have ignored completely all the out-of-town services despite these being provided by the same bus company! I had to resort to the Bus Checker app on my 'phone to find the right stand for the 351 on to Brentwood.
This was another fast run along the A12 trunk road or its original route where that had been superseded by the modern version. Another road closure meant we had to join the modern dual-carriageway A12 for several miles and miss out completely the sizeable village of Ingatestone.
Brentwood
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| Brentwood High Street |
Brentwood is unusual these days in having a main road run along the High Street, although the street is wide and the traffic has been calmed. The presence of a red "London Buses" double-decker and an East End style Pie & Mash shop reminded me that I was now getting close to London.
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| Sainsy's Pie and Mash shop |
The penultimate bus of the day was operated by a new (to me) operator - NIBS Buses (no, I don't know what it stands for either). This took me to Ongar, or "Chipping Ongar", which was once the north-eastern extremity of the London Underground. That was how I'd arrived in the town on my previous visit almost 50 years ago, when, ust as I was doing now, I transferred on to a bus bound for Chelmsford. The area even looked vaguely familiar!
First Essex's service 32 took me to Chelmsford, although as there are two separate routes between the two towns I've no idea if this was the way I went all those years ago Arriving at just before 1800 meant it had been another very long day's travelling, but my hotel was central and near the bus station, so I had time for a bit of rest and relaxation before heading out to find an evening meal.
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