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Bustitution

I for one am all in favour of ending this farce. The service I travel to work on in a morning (0545 Cleethorpes – Newark Northgate), is bustituted on a regular basis (approx. every six weeks).

This is annoying at best as it means a much earlier start from my stop. However, the worst part is that quite often, the bus is supposed to meet the train at Market Rasen. The bus does not use the station car park, but one approx. 1/4 mile away. If the bus is running slightly late, the train does not wait but leaves at its scheduled time. By the time passengers realise the train has gone, the bus has often left as well, leaving passengers stranded for another hour for the next service. Not a very pleasant situation on a freezing cold morning in December.

The drivers don't often know were they are going,  with one incident a couple of weeks ago that ended up with the bus picking up at Barnetby and then heading all the way back almost into Grimsby before heading to Market Rasen (approx. 26 miles additional journey). Needless to say, the train had long gone by the time we arrived, 1/2 hour late. Both companies involved are Stagecoach and East Midlands Trains (a wholly owned subsidiary of Stagecoach).

The really annoying part is that these bustitutions are planned weeks in advance due to ‘Planned Maintenance’. However since the Hatfield blockage, all ‘Planned Maintenance’ on the Grimsby, Lincoln, Nottingham lines has been cancelled due to it having to be used as a diversionary route. EMT quite clearly are taking this to the nth degree and milking the situation for everything it is worth.

This is just yet another travesty in the way EMT operate what is jokingly called a rail service along this line.

Quite frankly they are neither bothered nor care and are just grabbing everything they can from subsidies etc whilst making a pathetic effort to run a railway. Following the reduction in carriages (from 2 to 1) on the 1645 Newark Northgate - Grimsby service (the only train in a 5hr 20 min period), causing severe overcrowding on the train, countless complaints have been sent to EMT, Government, Lincoln council, MPs etc, all to no avail. EMT basically are, to put it bluntly, just sticking 2 fingers up to their customers and saying "tough, if you don't like it, don't travel with us". They are clearly trying to force passenger to change to buses, especially those travelling between Lincoln and Market Rasen. The buses, surprise, surprise are operated by Stagecoach.

Re: Baker to end bustitution