Tag: travel

Summer 2026 Buses to the Lakes

by Jim
The Summer 2026 Lake District timetables have been published

Stagecoach has published details of the summer 2026 timetables for services in the Lake District that start on 23rd March, including the 555 Lancaster – Keswick and 755 Heysham – Bowness buses. Most of the changes are for the better. The new Guide can be downloaded here.

Service 555

The big news on the 555 is that there will be more journeys running via the motorway, which saves almost 40 minutes between Lancaster and Kendal compared to the standard route via Carnforth and Milnthorpe.

“Motorway” buses will leave Lancaster at 0810, 0914 and 1214 on Monday to Saturday throughout the season, which ends on 1st November. These will be supplemented by departures at 1014, 1114, 1314, 1414 and 1514 that will run every Saturday and on Monday to Friday between 29 June and 18 September. All these journeys continue to Keswick.

Fast buses will return from Kendal 1340 (1200 from Keswick); 1640 (1500 from Keswick) and 1740 (1600 from Keswick on Mondays to Saturdays throughout the season, with additional journeys at 1240 1440 1540 and 1840 on all Saturdays and Monday to Friday between 29 June and 18 September. All these buses will start at Keswick 1h 40m before the Kendal times. However, the existing fast buses at 0633 and 0720 from Keswick to Lancaster are withdrawn.

On Sundays and Public Holidays there will be fast motorway buses at 0814 and 1014 from Lancaster to Keswick, returning at 1600 and 1800 from Keswick (1735 and 1930 from Kendal). The “winter” journeys at 0820 from Kendal and 1845 from Lancaster are withdrawn.

The Bus Users’ Group has previously called for more, faster buses between Lancaster and Kendal and is pleased to see that our pleas have not gone unnoticed.

The new 555 timetable is here.

Service 755

The changes to the 755 are more modest and are designed to provide a more regular timetable. On Saturdays, the 1840 Bowness to Morecambe bus is extended to Ocean Edge arriving at 2035. There will also be evening journeys from Ocean Edge to Morecambe, Euston Road at 2005 on Monday to Friday; 1830 on Saturday and Sunday and 2040 on Saturday only,

The new 755 timetable is here

The new 2026 Lakes Guide can be downloaded here.

Even Faster to the Lakes on the X8

Not included in the new Guide, although hopefully it will be in the future, is service X8, which runs on summer Saturdays from Chorley to Keswick that runs fast via the M6 and A591 to Windermere, then Keswick. For the 2026 season the service will call at Lancaster Bus Station at 1005 for Keswick and at 1820 for Preston and Chorley. As this is an express service, the £3 fare cap will not apply and concessionary bus passes are not valid, although passholders can buy a discounted North West Explorer ticket at £9 (full price £12). This ticket gives a days travel on all Stagecoach buses in Lancashire and Cumbria and you can buy it on any bus that you need to catch into Lancaster to connect with the X8.

The X8 will operate on Saturdays from 28th March until 31st October 2026 and the timetable is on this link.

Confusing Christmas Times

by Jim

Passengers expect timetables to change at Christmas – it’s an old tradition after all. But can they reasonably expect to be able to find out when their buses will be running?

Not necessarily, at least if they rely on the internet and Stagecoach’s journey planner it seems!

Christmas Day

One thing that everybody knows is that there are no buses on Christmas Day. But if you were a visitor from Mars, or perhaps Edinburgh https://www.lothianbuses.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/LOTHIAN-XMAS-2025.pdf or, of course Switzerland where normal services are operated, you might want to check.

If, for example, you needed to travel to the University on Christmas Day you could make an enquiry on Stagecoach’s journey planner and would be happy to receive the following result:

Of course, having waited from 1258 until after 1358 (or any similar period throughout the day) without seeing either a 41 or a 100 you wouldn’t be very happy at all, as there are NO BUSES on Christmas Day, which everyone, except the people who run Stagecoach’s journey planner seem to know.

Christmas Week

Having been disappointed on Christmas Day, you might decide not to risk it on Boxing Day, which would be a shame as there is a limited service and the above JP result is correct, even though the times given are from the Infirmary stop, which is where the journey planner considers “Lancaster” actually is.

But surely the following day, Saturday, 27th December, won’t be a problem. Stagecoach is providing a Saturday service on the days between Christmas and New Year so that should be straightforward, shouldn’t it? Well, not exactly. A complication is that services to the University have different timetables depending on whether it is term time or vacation at the university. In particular, whereas in term time services 1 and 1A combine to provide a ten-minute frequency along the A6, during the vacation the 1 is withdrawn, leaving the 1A to run every 20 minutes along this stretch.

But make an enquiry to the Journey planner and what do you get?

A service 1 at 1233 (from the Infirmary, naturally) followed by a 1A at 1243 in a pattern repeated throughout the day giving the impression that there are twice as many buses to the campus as there actually are!

Strangely, the journey planner seems to know that in the vacations the 1A extends to the Graduate College (although it tells you to alight at the stop called “Lonsdale College” and walk, possibly because this is nearer to the actual Graduate College than the stop that has that name!), but it doesn’t know that during this time service 1 doesn’t serve the campus at all!

More confusion

Just to add to the confusion, the journey planner thinks that at least some service 100 buses (which in the vacation terminate at the Underpass) actually continue to the Graduate College as with the following enquiry concerning the 1254 (from the Infirmary of course) to the campus:

The online and printed timetables agree that service 100 terminates at the Underpass on 27th December and all other days during the vacation.

This post is being written on 14th December, by which time it is reasonable to expect passengers to be able to get correct information about services on Christmas Day and during Christmas Week. As far as the change of routes between the 1A and the 100 is concerned this happens every vacation and is not peculiar to Christmas so it ought to be in the journey planner automatically.

The Bus Users’ Group understands that Stagecoach’s website and journey planner are controlled centrally and not by our local Stagecoach Cumbria and North Lancs staff, but someone, somewhere needs to sort this out – and in the case of Christmas Day (non) operation has eleven days to do it.

Lonsdale Buses

In the interest of balance, we looked to see what our other local operator was saying about Christmas and as long as you think to look under the “News” pages of its website the information seems clear enough. https://klch.co.uk/blog/article/christmas-operations/