A Grain-ular Timetabling Issue

[Chris]

There aren't many opportunities to see two buses in Grain village at any one time, unless the two service 9 (referred to as a 199/9 in Club publications for historical reasons, 199 being the former contract code still used for some internal purposes) buses in the afternoon stick together for the entire journey. The other opportunity occurs by chance at around 15:15  during school holidays, when the Arriva use of the Saturday timetable during school holidays clashes with the Medway-contracted journey operated by ASD, which fills the gap in the Arriva timetable on regular Mondays to Fridays. 

Unfortunately, traffic in Strood and a road closure in Allhallows meant both vehicles were running very late last week, and there was only a brief moment to jump out and take a picture whilst the ASD driver changed blinds and ticket machine for the return journey and the 191 did the reversing manoeuvre. Whilst both buses run via Allhallows outbound, the Arriva service operates direct on the return, arriving back in Chatham earlier. Meanwhile on the ASD service, we had four passages of Lower Stoke over the return journey! 

The rather vibrantly red bus shelter is a recent replacement, matching various others in the Medway Towns (some of which are also in green), featuring a rather nasty "contravision" style metal panel in place of "glass" panels in most cases, although these appear to be plain metal. 

Chris