England - with real county boundaries |
It wasn't a continuous journey but one I fitted in a week or so at a time when the time was available. I travelled on 51 days and for 5,000 kilometres (almost exactly).I started at my local bus stop on the outskirts of Lancaster and ended up there 25 months later.
I used:
257 buses
13 ferries
5 trains (two of which were steam trains)
3 trams
1 "electric Railway"
1 miniature Railway
1 pier Railway
1 tube train (on a pier)
1 "floating bridge" (i.e. a chain ferry)
1 transporter bridge
and a hovercraft!
You can follow my journey day-by-day, starting here.
For planning purposes I used Traveline or Google Maps/Transit initially, but then for detailled planning I used County Council websites, confimring crucial connections with the websites of the bus operators themselves. The standard of information on both Traveline and County Council websites varied enormously across the country. For initial "journey planning" I used the South East version of Traveline - far more user-friendly than some of the other regional variations. But sometimes I needed full copies of timetables and these were better obtained from bus operators or (some) county councils.
But what I needed most of all were network maps. The motorist has a choice of numerous commercially-available maps of the road network with Ordnace Survey drilling down to the last detail. The bus passenger, in contrast, has to make do with a hotch-potch of locally-produced maps to varying standards and quality and in some parts of the country none at all. Bus operators only include their own routes on their maps (unlike in previous times) whilst some county councils, who still have overall responsibility for ensuring public transport information is available, seem to have given up, no doubt citing austerity measures imposed by central government.
For planning purposes I used Traveline or Google Maps/Transit initially, but then for detailled planning I used County Council websites, confimring crucial connections with the websites of the bus operators themselves. The standard of information on both Traveline and County Council websites varied enormously across the country. For initial "journey planning" I used the South East version of Traveline - far more user-friendly than some of the other regional variations. But sometimes I needed full copies of timetables and these were better obtained from bus operators or (some) county councils.
But what I needed most of all were network maps. The motorist has a choice of numerous commercially-available maps of the road network with Ordnace Survey drilling down to the last detail. The bus passenger, in contrast, has to make do with a hotch-potch of locally-produced maps to varying standards and quality and in some parts of the country none at all. Bus operators only include their own routes on their maps (unlike in previous times) whilst some county councils, who still have overall responsibility for ensuring public transport information is available, seem to have given up, no doubt citing austerity measures imposed by central government.