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The current service pattern dates from April 2016, when the county council reduced its budget for supported services and combined the "Silverdale Shuttle", which connected Silverdale village with Silverdale railway station, and the service then operated by Stagecoach, which linked Silverdale to Carnforth. The marriage of the two services was always uneasy as the focus on the local links to Silverdale station lead to an irregular service pattern and reduced frequency of buses through to Carnforth, which also affected the villgaes en-route that did not have the alternative of the train.
The new timetable, whilst retaining some peak-hour short workings to Silverdale station, sees other station-shorts replaced by through journeys to Carnforth giving an almost regular 90-minute headway throughout the day. Journeys serving Carnforth High School are retained at slightly amended times, whilst another advantage of the new timetable is the removal of most of the differences between the "schooldays" and "school holidays" services on the route. The regular timetable has been achieved inevitably at the expense of train connections at Silverdale station, which are now particularly poor in the afternoons. Bus-to-bus connections at Carnforth are good on those journeys that arrive at 10-minutes past the hour, with a 5 minute wait for the 55 to Lancaster, but not so good for those hours when they arrive at 40-minutes past and require a 26 minute wait for a 555. The trains at Silverdale and Carnforth don't run to a regular pattern, so maintaining bus-rail connections whilst offering a regular bus service will always be hit-and-miss.
Northbound bus-to-bus connections are generally good. Journeys that depart at 1020 and 1320 have connections from Lancaster arriving at 1014 and 1314 and departures at 1150 1450 and 1550 have connecting arrivals at 1135 1435 and 1540. However, the late afternoon service is poor.Following the introduction of a regular service the 1709 from Carnforth to Silverdale has had to be put back to 1740. A brave passenger might attempt to connect into this by catching the 555 from Lancaster that arrives also at 1740 (!) but its a risky strategy and most people will no doubt choose the earlier service 55 even though by arriving at 1714 this means a 26 minute wait. Nor is the train from Lancaster a suitable alternative: it arrives at 1712. The BUG feels that the 1740 should be retimed to give a reasonable connection out of the 555 or at least that the proposed spot-connection should be guaranteed.
The last bus of the day at 1915 continues to offer a connection off the 555 that arrives at 1900 whilst the return working at 1950 from Silverdale continues through to Lancaster as service 490 from Carnforth, although the BUG wonders why this is not shown in the county council's timetable leaflet. At least that is now correctly titled "Silverdale to Carnforth" rather than "Silverdale to Warton" as it was last time!
The Saturday timetable is now identical (apart from the service to and from Carnforth High School) to the Monday to Friday, although the need to retime the 0907 journey from Holgates Caravan Park to improve the train connection at Silverdale station has resulted in the loss of the present "Saturdays only" 0838 from Carnforth.
Despite that, he BUG feels the changes are a big improvement, and not only because they are much closer to what we proposed to the County Council in 2016, and require only a "guaranteed" connection at Carnforth at 1740 and the inclusion of service 490 in the timetable leaflet to receive our full support.