(13 Sep 2013, 9:53 pm)eezypeazy wrote A Red Northern Bus is a Red Northern Bus... although some people would spend many hours discussing shades/pantone references/etc


Precisely... a lack of a bus is NOT causing that person to follow a prescribed course... this is the bit you don't understand. The lack of a bus (anywhere - even in Fencehouses) causes a constraint of options; it does not prescribe or dictate what happens next. It cause them to seek alternatives (as we both agree, I think), but that's just life...

This is more important than this debate... it's a fundamental discussion of what's happening, today, in many rural communities (and others not so rural). For example, you can trace it back to the Durham County Council 'Category D' classification in the 50s/60s. DCC wanted villages that had been built around collieries to die; some did, some survived as dormitories. DCC's argument that was the cost of providing schools/shops/doctors and, yes, transport to these places was excessive, given that there real purpose (ie., coal mining) had gone.

If you've always lived in a remote, isolated community, you've never had the benefit of public transport; you've never had it, so it's never been taken away from you. So why should the lack of public transport be translated into you being "forced" (your word) to use an alternative, where public transport has never existed? And why should the need to provide public transport become a responsibility on either a bus company or a local authority? (Whole new debate opens up - hopefully...).

Believe me, I'm not trying to have a debate about words here; I'm trying to stimulate debate about the benefits, and limitations, of public transport, and buses in particular. But I do get upset when people describe a bus service that's carrying no-one as a "life line" (how often do you read that in a newspaper?); and that's why I object to words like "forced" being used inappropriately.

As enthusiasts (and I guess I've been one for longer than most people on here), shouldn't we be spending our time encouraging others to use buses, rather than getting our knickers in a knot when the wrong colour bus turns up? The more people use buses, the greater the demand, the more buses there will be and the more interesting and varied this hobby of ours becomes. But if all we do is perpetuate negatives, well, we're just talking the industry down and doing it - and ourselves - no favours at all.


Oh, I wish... then I might be earning a helluva lot more than I do now...!!!