Half term and changes in the Nottingham bus world, Saturday 19th Febuary 2011

We have reached the half term week. The schools have broke up, so the town and city centres are going to be full of kids, MCdonalds is going to do a roaring trade, as are the cinemas and shops. The Skyline has altered in Nottingham, the the eye has been constructed, so this will dominate the Market Square for the next few weeks.

My working hours will be down this week, but I dont mind, as the extra time is welcomed, it means I can set a couple of things in to motion. More of which at a later date.

I have been at my new employer for 6 months, well it will be 6 months on wednesday to be precise, So how do I make sense of it, well I have settled in, I turn up everyday for duty, (well to be honest, in the last 10 years of working I have only had 3 days off sick), and do the job. I will be honest I do have a burning ambition, well a smoldering one, but I am happy.

In the bus news in Nottingham, Veolia, have sold the bus operation in the city to Premiere travel, and already some of the veolia vehicles have been noted on Premiere workings and vice versa, In Loughborough, some of the University of Nottingham Hoppa buses have been noted operating on the X9 service between Nottingham and Loughborough. This takes Premiere to 100 vehicles, the business was started in 2002 with just 2 vehicles and has grown steadily in that period. So it brings a chapter to an end.

Veolia's Nottingham operation originated with the Dunn-Line business, who sold in 2006. I worked for Dunn-Line between 1999 and 2002, and saw the business through its ambitious expansion phase, were the fleet grew from 100 vehicles in 1999 to 260 in 2002. It was exciting times with the company rarely out of the trade press, and you didnt know what would happen next.

After the sale due to lots of factors which I am not going to go in to, the company started to contract, with various parts of the once mighty empire sold off. This just confirms my idea that all empires either implode or naturally come to an end

You only have to look out in the wider world and look at the Roman empire, where are they now, point made I think.

I look at rapidly expanding empires in the same way as blowing up a balloon, grow to big and too quickly with out the backing and resources and the whole thing goes bang.

Maybe this should go as a warning. TTFN