The new coach service connecting Orange to the Bathurst Bullet 2 launches on Monday, but you could easily have missed it.
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Unlike the train service, it has received almost no attention outside of the pages of this paper.
Not even NSW Trainlink have announced the service on their website.
Timetables are still yet to be updated.
It's no wonder we're hearing so little about it, the new service is a disappointment.
On paper it looks promising.
A new coach connection to the second Bullet should mean more options for commuters and travellers heading from Orange to Sydney.
In practice, NSW Trainlink have partnered with Australia Wide Coaches so that the existing daily Orange-Sydney-Orange coach service will now divert into Bathurst Railway Station to connect with the new train.
This is a problem for two reasons:
One, that coach used to provide a valuable service for people wanting to leave Sydney at 5pm and be back in Orange at 9.15pm.
Now that it has shifted to meet the train, anyone wanting to get to Orange from Sydney after 4pm will need to take the 5.47pm Bathurst Bullet and a coach that arrives into Orange at 10.45pm.
That makes it a late finish.
More problematically, the 'new' coach service is operated by a business that runs a service in direct competition to the train, and it shows.
The existing coaches connecting Orange and the Bullet have six and seven minutes between bus and train arrival and departure.
Just enough time to get off one service and onto the next.
The new train for Bathurst could be complemented by a prompt coach departure to Orange and beyond ... this would give locals greater choice when travelling down to Sydney.
- Reader Jed Coppa
The new coaches will have 20 and 23 minutes.
This means an unnecessary extra 15 minutes for passengers waiting at Bathurst Station.
A small difference but one that makes the direct Orange to Sydney coach that little bit more appealing by comparison.
Passengers taking the new coach to the Bullet 2 will have a choice to make.
They can get off at Bathurst and wait 20 minutes for the train or stay on the coach the whole way to Sydney and arrive 49 minutes earlier.
Anyone who is under any time pressure and can afford the fare will opt for the coach.
The same is the case in the evening.
The Bullet leaves Central at 3.05pm followed by the coach at 3.40pm.
Either way, you're arriving into Orange on the coach at 8 o'clock.
The new train for Bathurst could be complemented by a prompt coach departure to Orange and beyond.
This would give locals greater choice when travelling down to Sydney.
Instead we've had a new service shoehorned into an existing service leaving commuters with no more options than before.
Jed Coppa
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