#bus24

August 21, 2021 3:19 AM

Twitter user @politic_animal set out at 3:00 am on Friday morning to answer the question "How far can you travel by local buses from London in twenty-four hours?" Here's a ThreadReader compilation of his ongoing reports from the epic journey.

(Spoiler: The answer to the question is "Morecambe", but it's not so much about the destination as it is the getting there, eh?)

posted by Grangousier (52 comments total)

That was delightful.
posted by hoyland at 4:27 AM on August 21, 2021 [3 favorites]

Utterly deranged and totally brilliant. I am almost concerned how much I enjoyed that!! Haha. By the way, the Wise gag demands a mercy killing, tho offset and almost completely compensated by this - 'I've lost my dignity' 'I've lost my mobile phone.' That kind of spectacularly surreal, decontextualised exchange merits it's own bus ticket. Free.
posted by dutchrick at 4:52 AM on August 21, 2021 [4 favorites]

Aylesbury Bus Station hasn't changed in at least forty years, since I was unceremoniously dumped there after a school exchange trip - due to the teacher-in-charge's bright idea we arrived a day early, and no one was at home to collect me, so it suited my frame of mind. This being the days when complaints about the standard of pastoral care were greeted with "What are you moaning about? He's still got limbs, hasn't he?"
posted by Grangousier at 5:03 AM on August 21, 2021 [4 favorites]

Used to do this all the time when I was a student, many years ago. Train fares being pretty much unaffordable by the time term ended, I'd travel hundreds of miles on a series of day-rover tickets. Took forever, but I'd get to see all kinds of out-of-the-way places.
posted by pipeski at 5:14 AM on August 21, 2021 [5 favorites]

The answer is: [spoiler]Back to one's own true self.[/spoiler]
posted by fairmettle at 5:17 AM on August 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

I love this, and I'm also very impressed with how far they got.
posted by pompomtom at 5:18 AM on August 21, 2021

peak level british nerdery (real nerdery - of the obsessive unfashionable variety) from an earlier time (1900s to be precise). A++
posted by lalochezia at 5:19 AM on August 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

"peak level british nerdery" - in a nutshell. Hehe. A timely reminder of some of the nicer things in the culture.
posted by dutchrick at 5:26 AM on August 21, 2021

I've wondered what the longest possible trip-via-local-buses would be anywhere in the world with no time limit. Surely someone has figured that out.
posted by clawsoon at 5:44 AM on August 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

set out at 3:00 am

Why?

(Rhetorical/existential question. I assume there’s some entirely reasonable practical answer.)
posted by eviemath at 5:44 AM on August 21, 2021

Why?

My guess: The further out you get, the more likely you are to have bus service only during daylight/working hours.
posted by clawsoon at 5:49 AM on August 21, 2021 [3 favorites]

Is guess it's to max the 24hr period and there aren't many places with night time local buses. Heading into and out of Heathrow let him get some night time travel. I suspect you can't get far in Morecambe after midnight.
posted by biffa at 5:54 AM on August 21, 2021 [2 favorites]

Rhetorical/existential question.
posted by eviemath at 6:31 AM on August 21, 2021 [2 favorites]

I do understand how 24-hour periods and fixed public transportation schedules work, thanks.
posted by eviemath at 6:32 AM on August 21, 2021

Lovely little project. FWIW it's about 250 miles or 4 hours by train. Although then you wouldn't get the photo of the Bolton town hall.

The local bus thing is an important part of the game here. You can easily take a long distance bus London to Edinburgh in a little over 9 hours. Or Inverness in 13.
posted by Nelson at 6:33 AM on August 21, 2021 [3 favorites]

I wonder if it is even possible to travel 250 miles (400 km) here in BC via local buses even allowing for infinite time.
posted by Mitheral at 6:55 AM on August 21, 2021 [3 favorites]

Rhetorical/existential question.

Ah, I missed the point of that when I first read your question. Perhaps the only good answer is, "Why not?"
posted by clawsoon at 6:57 AM on August 21, 2021

I did get your point but don't feel any obligation to accept your boundaries on the conversation, particularly given clawsoon had opened it up.
posted by biffa at 7:02 AM on August 21, 2021 [3 favorites]

I could get about 18 miles away by bus in an hour and that would be it and then I'd be stranded in a rural ex-urb park-and-ride lot without sidewalks. Also I couldn't start at 3am because our transit system shuts down at midnight.
posted by octothorpe at 7:11 AM on August 21, 2021 [3 favorites]

>I wonder if it is even possible to travel 250 miles (400 km) here in BC via local buses even allowing for infinite time.

It's not 250 miles, but I remember reading (maybe here at metafilter?) a few years ago about someone who travelled from Seattle to Vancouver by city / local buses. The border guards could not believe he did it.
posted by philfromhavelock at 7:21 AM on August 21, 2021 [2 favorites]

I wonder if it is even possible to travel 250 miles (400 km) here in BC via local buses even allowing for infinite time.

Well, in this country we are more spread out. I am in the Great Lakes basin and a few minutes of looking at transit websites and map sites, the farthest patchwork I can see is around the western end of Lake Ontario: Stoney Creek to Bowmanville, some 170 km — a touch over a hundred miles.

The bright side is you could do it in under four hours for less than ten dollars (transfers mostly work between transit systems and expire after a certain allotted time, usually ninety minute or two hours). It would be six different local transit systems, but they all link up, to the best of my knowledge.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:25 AM on August 21, 2021 [5 favorites]

I am working hard not to see if I can find a London to Penzance route that's doable in 24 hours.
posted by biffa at 7:32 AM on August 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

Very American of me, but it never occurred to me that intercity bus travel was possible on local lines. I'm pretty sure that within about 50 miles of the center of my city, I'd be out of options.

Oh, and the Aylesbury station being the worst of the trip? It looks about the same as the (very busy) transit station at the Mall of America. Transit in America really is shameful.
posted by Ickster at 7:50 AM on August 21, 2021

I am working hard not to see if I can find a London to Penzance route that's doable in 24 hours.

Godammit, just coming up for breath after trying to work out if Salisbury or Swindon provides the best link from South East to South West.
posted by ambrosen at 8:06 AM on August 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

>I wonder if it is even possible to travel 250 miles (400 km) here in BC via local buses even allowing for infinite time.

You can go 388km from Elkford to Golden in a little less than 36 hours, if you left on the right day. It's only two buses (local health buses that are mostly paid for by Interior Health so that people can get to the hospital).

If you count the government buses in the north as local transit, plus the health connector buses, you can get from Fort Nelson to Vancouver quite easily and then onto the Island as long as you don't mind including a ferry, which takes you from one corner of the province to the opposite, more than 1500km.
posted by ssg at 8:30 AM on August 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'm looking at Charing Cross-Heathrow-Reading-Newbury-Marlborough-Bath-Bristol-Tiverton-Exeter-Plymouth-Bodmin-Truro-Penzance. Not tried adding up the times yet but there are buses on all these routes. I suspect that getting to Cornwall after 6pm (which seems inevitable) would be an issue, getting from East to West Cornwall is particularly disjointed.

Finding it hard to tell if some services count as buses or coaches. I am staying away from National Express etc.
posted by biffa at 8:49 AM on August 21, 2021

(I did get your point but don't feel any obligation to accept your boundaries on the conversation, particularly given clawsoon had opened it up.

Given it was a simple comment on 3am being uncomfortably early, and not in any way a proscription on the conversation, I’m guessing you didn’t get my point. But this is getting into detail territory.)
posted by eviemath at 9:03 AM on August 21, 2021

These are fun thought exercises but actually doing it seems kind of miserable (and I respect it). I've seen several articles about the regional transit that covers the same basic territory as Amtrak between DC and NYC with a gap in Delaware, but it turns out there's now a bus that runs three times a day. Or at least there was in 2019. "While I had a good experience and all three vehicles I used ran on-time, I would not recommend this train-bus-train connection to anyone who is inexperienced with taking public transit. It is absurdly inconvenient to have to use a bus just to cover a 20-mile gap in what would be a 135-mile train trip." Also it doesn't actually save you any money. "The total fare from DC to New York, with SEPTA-New Jersey Transit connection at Trenton, would be about $48.00, which is comparable to Amtrak’s minimum advance-purchase Regional fare of $49.00."
posted by fedward at 9:44 AM on August 21, 2021

I am working hard not to see if I can find a London to Penzance route that's doable in 24 hours.

Bonus points if you can furnish a Gilbert and Sullivan pastiche called The Bus Routes of Penzance.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:48 AM on August 21, 2021

Very American of me, but it never occurred to me that intercity bus travel was possible on local lines.

It used to be a totally American thing - it was a major plot in at least one of the many Camp Fire Girls novels (1900s-1930s).
posted by clew at 9:51 AM on August 21, 2021

I suspect that in the right circles there is vigorous and subtle debate about what exactly counts as a "local" bus.
posted by clawsoon at 9:59 AM on August 21, 2021 [3 favorites]

Nope, a local bus service is any service where it's under 15 miles as the crow flies between stops
posted by ambrosen at 10:09 AM on August 21, 2021 [5 favorites]

(I added the “local” bit as it was kind of implicit that Stagecoach or National Express weren’t in the running. You could probably get from one end of the country to the other in about a day on National Express, but where would the fun be in that?

I’m quite surprised by how much of the media I watch is people taking simple journeys on public transport. Especially since I’ve not done it much in the last couple of years. Am currently at East Croydon station and it feels almost exotic.)
posted by Grangousier at 10:11 AM on August 21, 2021 [2 favorites]

So much fun. Thanks, OP!
posted by Bella Donna at 10:42 AM on August 21, 2021

Thinking about this and Toronto, and defining it to not use the Go Train, I think you could go from Hamilton to Burlington to Port Credit to Long Branch into the TTC, but I am not sure that you wouldn't get stuck in Burlington. I am also interested in how much of the English buses would be privatiized, and am wondering about the mix of public and private, or how many places had private busses of a variety of kinds.
posted by PinkMoose at 11:00 AM on August 21, 2021

I remember reading (maybe here at metafilter?) a few years ago about someone who travelled from Seattle to Vancouver by city / local buses

That might have been me! I'm one of many people who has done that and bragged about it on the Internet. Sadly, I think one of the links of the journey was discontinued a few years ago. Possibly Mt Vernon to Bellingham?

I wonder if it is even possible to travel 250 miles (400 km) here in BC via local buses even allowing for infinite time.

The best I was able to figure out was about half that: the 230km from Edgewood to Fruitvale on BC Transit West Kootenays, with the caveat that there's a short ferry on that route.

There's also the 271km trip from Hope to Whistler, with the major caveat that the "to Whistler" part doesn't exist yet — it's just a study with an unfunded implementation. The farthest you can get from Hope is Lions Bay, at 180km.
posted by Banknote of the year at 11:28 AM on August 21, 2021 [3 favorites]

TILT wait WHAT they rebuilt Slough bus station?
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:49 AM on August 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

I am also interested in how much of the English buses would be privatized, and am wondering about the mix of public and private, or how many places had private busses of a variety of kinds.

They're all private operators (I double-checked – there are a few municipally run bus services in Britain: Reading and Edinburgh are the largest, and Northern Ireland is run nearly all by Translink). Apart from the London route at the beginning, times and routes are chosen by the operator, although there is subsidy to reach some towns, and some off-peak services.

The main form of de facto subsidy is the fact that people over the state pension age (currently 67) get free travel, which is paid for by their local council on a per-journey basis by smartcard. I believe this pays for a lot of off-peak routes, although I don't have numbers.
posted by ambrosen at 12:02 PM on August 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

they rebuilt Slough bus station?

Although TBH although it was a lovely brutalist landmark it was a miserable place to wait for a bus: a big echoey poorly-lit concrete cavern that always smelled of diesel fumes and piss and never had enough places to sit.

(I imagine this pretty much describes every bus station of its era.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:34 PM on August 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

I am not sure that you wouldn't get stuck in Burlington.


I am sure you wouldn’t. Its transit system commingles with its neighbour: Burlington Transit route 1 goes into downtown Hamilton, and the HSR route 11 runs into downtown Burlington.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:42 PM on August 21, 2021 [2 favorites]

And the TTC won’t get you much further than Long Branch, so on to MiWay in Mississauga and then Oakville Transit.

Sorry for the detail into local specifics. /GTA resident, public transit nerd
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:44 PM on August 21, 2021 [4 favorites]

Nope, a local bus service is any service where it's under 15 miles as the crow flies between stops.

I thought that Great Britain was metric. Hmm.

Anyway, by that rule some (maybe most?) of the Ontario GO bus routes would fit. I just measured the crow-flies distance between the stops from Trent University in Peterborough to the Oshawa station, and they're all less than 15 miles. If that pattern of less than 15 miles between stops keeps up, you could do a crow-flies distance of 210 km from Trent University to Brantford on "local" GO buses following the rule. No idea if you could do that in 24 hours
posted by clawsoon at 3:30 PM on August 21, 2021

Did they have to use a bus replacement rail service at any point?
posted by sebastienbailard at 4:39 PM on August 21, 2021 [3 favorites]

Respect to this man for being able to walk after 24 hours in those sorts of seats.
posted by praemunire at 10:21 PM on August 21, 2021

Even if it doesn’t look glamorous, I’m envious that a country’s public transportation can be so competent that this is possible.
posted by EmperorOozy at 11:00 PM on August 21, 2021 [6 favorites]

I thought that Great Britain was metric. Hmm.

Miles are the main holdout of imperial measures in the UK. We also use inches and pounds in daily life, although that's on the decrease. Kids these days will tell you their height in centimetres, unless you look old, when they'll switch to feet and inches. Same deal with pounds, except we divide by fourteen and tell people our weight in stones; again, kids will be more familiar with kilograms, but probably know their weight in stones to appease older folks. Pounds are pretty much only used in recipe books, alongside grams. But not in food packaging, which is all metric. Inches are an old-people measurement, and nothing much is 'officially' measured in inches. You'd probably estimate the size of a room in square feet though - it sounds bigger. Our engineering is pretty much all metric, and you'd only buy a 7/16" spanner (wrench) if you were working on vintage cars or bikes or whatever. Fixings, materials etc. are all metric now. Temperature has shifted strongly towards Celsius in my lifetime; however, some older people still use Fahrenheit for hot weather (but always Celsius for cold). Sounds hotter. Fluid measurements... well... we have gallons and pints. We don't use quarts. Our gallons and pints are not the same as US gallons and pints. Pints are used to measure beer, milk or blood, and not much else. We also don't use the 'cup' as a measurement, although you can buy cup measures to allow the use of US recipes, of which we're rather sceptical. The imprecise size of the 'cup' is probably the reason we've never taken to it, and prefer weights. People mostly measure liquids in millilitres or litres these days in my experience. Fuel pumps showed UK gallons as well as litres until... I don't know, somewhere between 1990 and 2000. Fuel prices on signs went to litres only somewhere in that time. However, most people measure fuel economy in miles per gallon (presumably to avoid mixing imperial and metric). Land tends to still be measured in acres. UK acres are not the same as US acres. An acre is a furlong by a chain, neither of which are used (except furlong in horse racing).

All in all, it's a well-thought-out system that works very well.
posted by pipeski at 2:59 AM on August 22, 2021 [25 favorites]

I thought that Great Britain was metric. Hmm.

Me too. So the first time I arrived (after being snaffled by a tout at Victoria Station off to a backpackers in, umm, I don't recall. Inner Westish somewhere, presumably) I went for a walk, and saw a sign that said "Kentish Town: 3". I thought "3km is a reasonable walk" and started off.

The UK is metric the same way the UK was a member of the EU: sort-of.
posted by pompomtom at 6:39 AM on August 22, 2021 [3 favorites]

After many conversations explaining British things to my American partner I think everything in the UK is eventually explained with "sort of".
posted by fullerine at 11:00 AM on August 22, 2021 [5 favorites]

If that pattern of less than 15 miles between stops keeps up, you could do a crow-flies distance of 210 km from Trent University to Brantford on "local" GO buses following the rule. No idea if you could do that in 24 hours.

You have a point of divergence where you have to choose between proceeding SW to Brantford* and SE to Niagara Falls, which is over twice the distance from said point of divergence (which I guess would be Burlington). In any event, I think the only regularly scheduled way to get to Burlington from Toronto is by train; in days of yore there was a Lakeshore bus, but that service stopped some thirty years ago.

*In a desperate attempt to haul this topic back to its UK origins, I'd note that a one-time bandmate was from Brantford and spent a couple of years living in England. He told me once that ever time he had to give his place of birth to an Englishperson for documentation and the like, "Brantford, Ontario" was transformed to "Brantford-on-Terrio" (sp?).
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:36 PM on August 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

BBC: London council worker's bus odyssey sparks Twitter storm. It seems to mostly be an interview with Mr. Kibble. Who says some questionable things like "sometimes Twitter can be a nice place for discussions." Really, it's charming and very BBC.
posted by Nelson at 8:18 AM on August 23, 2021

Throughout the whole thread I wanted to know how he planned to get home. It seems an egregious omission.
posted by bendy at 6:32 PM on August 23, 2021

Throughout the whole thread I wanted to know how he planned to get home. It seems an egregious omission.

You got to the end where he said how he got home, right?
posted by clawsoon at 7:32 PM on August 23, 2021