Nottingham to Lavenham-A rural adventure

Suffolk County Council are withdrawing or partially withdrawing over 40 sponsored services in April 2011. A Bramcote Bus Blog correspondent travelled to Bury St Edmunds to find out more and to explore some of the last rural links this area has left.

East Midlands Trains class 158 multiple unit train about to
operate the 05:54 Nottingham to Norwich service.

The day started early. With a 05:54 train to catch from Nottingham, the taxi arrived at 05:15. The first leg of the journey was on an East Midlands Trains class 158 from Nottingham to Peterborough. We then changed on to the 07:45 National Express East Anglia class 170 Turbostar to Bury St Edmunds. We arrived at 08:58, one minute late. My bus was leaving at 09:15 and the plan was to take the 09:05 Coach Services 84, from Thetford. However, the service starts at 08:05 then there is a two hour gap until it starts hourly at 10:05. Therefore, the 09:05 does not exist.



The ticket I recieved when I asked for a Bury St Edmunds
Plusbus. The driver of First service 85 gave me a very
strange look, but he accepted the ticket without complaint



This meant I had to take the 09:13 service 85 to the bus station. Unfortunately, this got me in at 09:16, one minute after the 753 to Lavenham departed. As I approached the bus station, I saw the bus I wanted pull out. Frustrating though this was, it was an hourly service, so I was able to take the 10:15 Chambers service 753, towards Sudbury.

The bus was a Volvo Olympian. As it made its way through the winding roads and villages of rural Suffolk, it creaked and groaned at every opportunity. The driver seemed to know exactly where everyone wanted to get off and the bell was not used at all. After about thirty-five minutes we pulled up in Lavenham. I went into the tourist information centre, to find out about the 112 which on Traveline was advertised as withdrawn. The centre called Traveline, who gave me the departure and arrival times for Sudbury and Hadleigh. Unfortunately, they neglected to tell me that the service no longer served Lavenham. Not the most useful of services for me then, could they not simply tell me the timetable at the bus stop was wrong and the service is no longer applicable? Obviously not.



My return ticket from Lavenham to Bury, costing me £2.55.
The ticket machine was a Wayfarer 3, standard on rural routes here.

 

I returned on the 11:40 service 753 which was packed. The bus was ten minutes late, and the double deck bus was clearly necessary. After lunch I started to explore the urban town services Bury has to offer, operated by First. Full details of this will follow in a post tomorrow.


 All in all it was a very good day, but it shows that while some rural services like the 753 are flourishing, others like the 112 are being withdrawn, taking communities off the public transport map.