CITYBUS NEWS Fares going up

Noticed a notice on my bus to work this morning that Citybus are revising their bus fares.
This is Plymouth reports the increases today
Citybus is hiking adult fares by about five per cent from Sunday - blaming increased fuel prices and demand for petrol in India and China.The firm, owned by Plymouth City Council, insisted it has kept 'increases to a minimum' and reminded customers new cheap-rate child single fares, announced earlier this summer, are also being introduced. Apparently the first hike since October 2005. Of course its mainly rising fuel prices which get the blame for the increase.

Of course passengers wont be happy - no one is happy when costs go up - but one comment left by a reader on the news site did catch my eye:

This is not the first price hike since Oct 05,everytime i get on the bus the price go's up.If the goverment hopes to get more people out of their cars and on to the buses their going the wrong way,bus prices are far too high as it is now.Im giving up using the buses and getting my own car becouse of the high cost,rubbish service and
rude drivers who swear at the customers!

sorry - but this just made me smile!

Plymouth Central Ambulance

One of several private ambulance companies which operate in Plymouth. This smart Mercedes is seen parked in Keswick Crescent, Estover. The paramedic lives locally and occasionally has her vehicle with her, more often than not its a Range Rover based ambulance.

Where is the bus

This is the bus stop at the bottom of Keswick Crescent. It was taken at 11:07. I should not have been there at 11:07. The bus I am waiting for was due at 10:55. It actually came at 11:12. When there is only one bus an hour this is a long wait. It was a good job my plans were flexible. I was planning on taking advantage of Devon County Councils excellent network of Dartmoor services but at least one option was lost due to arriving in town so late. There was of course a Sunday Service today. Naturally yesterday was also a Sunday service. My young son and I caught buses yesterday - both on the 50A - both running nearly 15 mins late. It didnt help in that none of the bus stops around this part of the city have the 'realtime' displays. When (if) we get this then maybe it will help numb the pain of relying on the buses on a Sunday. We actually caught another 50A home from town this afternoon. It was due to leave at 16:05. At 16:05 the service dissappeared off the realtime display altogether and we feared the worst. It did arrive at 16:10 only 5 mins late. I can cope with that! It arrived at Keswick Crescent nearly 15 mins late. It was difficult to see where that extra 10 mins was lost as there were no real holdups anywhere. I can only assume that its a timetable issue in that the buses dont have enough time to cover the route?

Below is a picture of Plymouth Citybus serving the Plymouth Seafront. Well, I wish there was a bus in this picture. But there was no service to this area today. Sunday Service - which means no service. It was a pleasant day. A good day for a wander around the ever popular Barbican and Plymouth Hoe. It was actually really busy. I do find it amazing that there is no service down here on a Sunday.Plymouth proclaims to be proud of its maritime history. Just dont try to explore it on a Sunday or a Bank Holiday. Or if you do - bring your car.

Is there another City which seems to actively discourage tourism like Plymouth? There were plenty of coaches bringing tourists in to the Barbican today. Most of them would have had the pleasure of a visit to Bretonside Bus Station. Nice.

I did mention the excellent Dartmoor network built up by Devon County Council. The Sunday Rover ticket now covers the whole Stagecoach Devon network, quite a few smaller operators, and most of First Devon & Cornwall services in Devon. This now gives more people of Devon full access to the Moors on Sundays than ever before. Apart from the people of Plymouth - unless you are lucky enough to live on a First route then you dont have full access - unless you pay Citybus to take you to somewhere where you can access the network. I was going to mention that the Dartmoor network must be great for pensioners with their free travel. Then I remembered that Plymouth Pensioners are not allowed to leave the City anyway. They are only allowed to visit places in Plymouth. Still - at least they can catch a bus to Plymouth Hoe or the excellent Barbican - unless its a Sunday obviously.

Tesco

Tesco operate a large smart fleet of lorries across the country to service all its stores. This fine looking beast a Mercedes Axor is pictured at The George, Plymouth having just left the Roborough store.
As usual there are more photos like this on my Flickr site. There is also a new Flickr Group just for Supermarket vehicles which will hopefully soon attract photos from across the country

St Johns Ambulance

The days when St Johns relied on second hand ambulances acquired from the main NHS fleets are long gone. Their fleet is now highly standardised on these smart Renault ambulances.

HX04NNU sits outside Derriford Hospital this lunchtime.

Bretonside Bus Station

This girl was sitting in the middle of this mini roundabout in the middle of the drop off zone for ages last Saturday. It was a nice warm afternoon and was quite pleasant there, but I did wonder why she was sat there - it did seem an odd place to sit. A story on This is Plymouth tonight may go some way to explain why she chose not to sit in the bus station seating area itself...

The Shame of Bretonside
11:50 - 23 August 2006
A pensioner is today waiting to find out if he has contracted HIV after being pricked by a drug user's needle - the latest victim of the decline of Bretonside Bus Station...

It is another lamentable chapter in the long, sad story of Bretonside Bus Station - one of the principal 'gateways' to Plymouth, according to city planners.Hopes that Bretonside's years of squalor might be nearing an end were dashed last month when ambitious plans to transform the bus station, which was officially opened in 1958, were thrown out by the city council.

The sad story of a 74 year old visitor from Scotland picking up an injury from a drug users needle is just another in a long series of problems at Bretonside. In the day time it is an unpleasant dirty place. In the evenings and into the night it is downright scary. The city has a lot to offer visitors - its just a shame that those who come by coach see Bretonside first.

It remains to be seen if and when the promised development of the area comes about. The council quite rightly dont want to spend a lot of money 'tarting the place up' if its due to be demolished shortly - but, this being Plymouth, we are well used to waiting for ages before promised developments come about - if they come about at all. When we read of new plans for Plymouth and grand new designs we all say 'very nice - but it'll never happen'. Most of the time we are right - it doesnt.

"We are consulting with interested parties and we hope by Christmas to be in a position to give a progress report" say the council. Like the young lady below - we are waiting - just dont expect us to wait in Bretonside.

CITYBUS REPAINT N108UTT

© Nick Rice
I have been after this bus for a while but have never been able to get a decent picture of it. Thankfully Nick Rice managed to get this shot on Royal Parade.

Compared with the previous livery carried by this bus - a big improvement.

From Plymouth to Dakar

© Neil Rickard (blogged from Flickr)

Trawling through Flickr I came across this wonderful photo of one of our old First Devon & Cornwall breadvans, K621ORL in an unusual setting. Its seen in the dessert on route from Plymouth to Dakar in the Plymouth - Dakar challenge!

More details on this trip can be found here with many more photos of the trip here.

I guess it makes a change from Stoke Village!

CITYBUS NEWS 129 New Livery

Two of the older Darts have been repainted into the new Citybus livery 129 and 123. I finally managed to track down 129 in town on Saturday 19th August. Its certainly a big improvement on the older non-low-floor livery but then lets face it, it was a poor livery)

Plymothian Bridges Number 6

Coombe Viaduct in Saltash
This fine viaduct is just down the line from Bridge number 5. It takes the main line over this small creek on the River Tamar. Built in 1894 to replace an earlier structure built by Brunel. There is an excellent Wikipedia page on the viaducts along this line here.

For more photos taken of the viaduct on a day trip with my sone back in January this year see my Coombe Viaduct Tabblo. If you have Google earth installed on your computer (and it is brilliant!) click on the main photo above to visit the photo page on Flickr. There you will see a link marked "Fly to this location" Click the link and open the file it offers you. You will then 'fly' direct to the location of this viaduct for an aerial view. Its all very impressive stuff! This feature is available on several of my photos on Flickr.

Big Brother

It cant have escaped your notice that tonight is Big Brother Night. Who will win the £100,000? You decide! Well I don't really care this year. However it does give me a nice cheesy link to this photo. Plymouth Citybus have been busy fitting new CCTV cameras to their fleet and if you look carefully you will see the new camera as found on the back of Citybus Dart 117. There is another camera above the door to the bus. If the system is used properly then it has got to make the buses a safer place. It should help cut down on vandalism and driver abuse which has got to be a good thing. Lets just hope that Citybus don't spoil it by not having the cameras on when they are needed. All to often we hear of incidents taking place in front of CCTV only to find out that the camera was not working at the time.

I also show the full advert carried on this bus below. Its nice to see Citybus helping to make bus spotting sexy!

Unlucky 13

The days of council owned municipal bus companies seem even more numbered than ever. This past week has seen two more once proud civic fleets start the journey into private hands.
Blackburn has announced it is ready to sell its fleet to Transdev under the control of its Blazefield subsidary. Transdev recently took over control of Bournemouth, the last municipal operator to fall into private hands.
Also this week Chester council has announced it is to sell its fleet too. Chester Bus is in need of serious investment in its fleet which is one of the reasons given for its sale. Both companies have tried very hard to make a sucess of their operations with rebranding and trying hard to push their services.
What does this have to do with Plymouth? Well, in one sense nothing at all. On the other hand it does make a future sale of Plymouth Citybus seem even more inevitable. At the beginning of this week there are just 15 municipal owned bus companies left. With Blackburn and Chester most likely to have been sold by the end of this year, that just leaves 13 left. If I was a betting man (and I am not!) I might be very tempted to put my money on Stagecoach in Plymouth within the next couple of years? They certainly seem determined to reach out into new parts of Devon at the moment so the appetite is there...

Plymouth Station

I was browsing through Flickr tonight and came across this fantastic photograph of Plymouth Station by night taken by 'Moltar' which I just had to share here.
Why cant I take photos this good?!

Keswick Crescent

This was the scene at my bus stop on the sunny morning of 11 August. The sand you can see on the road as put down the night before to cover up the aftermath of an accident involving a Citybus Dart and a car. My wife heard the accident but didnt get the number of the bus - I need to train her better!
This is the bottom of Keswick Crescent, and the buses stop on either side of the road here. Cars come down the hill from behind me as I took this photo and then suddenly come across a bus which they usually cant get past. There have been many near misses at this stop over the years I have lived here. I am not aware of anyone being hurt so hopefully it wasnt serious.

Derriford Gloom

A couple of days ago I sat in the back of a dark and gloomy Citybus Dart and took this photo through the back window. In the far distance you can see a few Fire engines which were attending another false alarm at the hospital. It caused traffic chaos at the bus stops for a while as there is not a lot of room at the front of the hospital with badly parked cars and buses - let alone fire engines.
The horrible dark grid effect is down to the overall advertising carried by the bus I am sat on. Great for the advertiser, awful for the passenger. Oh well...

Irritating Dart

This might look like a perfectly respectable, civilised low floor Dennis Dart, typical of the Citybus fleet. However, we had the misfortune to catch her into town over the weekend, and sat at the back. It has the most annoying high pitch squeak/ rattle of any bus I have ridden on recently. Click here to listen'Annoying-Dart'(Sound fx no longer works!)
To be fair - it did only make this noise when it ran over a bumpy road surface. But lets face it - this is Plymouth, Most of the roads are bumpy!

Plymothian Bridges Number 5

Posted for no other reason other than that I quite like this one!
This bridge takes the main line out of Saltash Station into deepest Cornwall. It takes Coombe Lane from old Saltash into the newer housing estates. Just to the left of this picture is another bridge which I will leave for number 6 in this series...

CITYBUS NEWS - Citybus exits

A report from David Beardmore on the UK Bus Fleetnews Yahoo Group reads as follows

DEWS, SOMERSHAM have acquired Volvo B10M/Alexander F50/1ACL ex Plymouth Citybus and in an advertising livery for Plymouth College of Further Education (orange allover). By my reckoning Dews are their fifth owner, 3 of which have been in East Anglia. New to Great Yarmouth, then Rhondda (I think) then Chambers of Bures, then Plymouth.

It seems the exodus of double deckers has begun following the reduction in schools services for the new term.

Duck

© Dave Godley
Thanks to Dave for allowing me to post his photo of the new DUKW that is due to begin a service in Plymouth although it does seem to have slipped behind schedule somewhat as it was originally planned to start after "Easter 2006"! It is noted that the vehicle still does not carry a registration number which may explain the delay?

I am sure it will be popular once it starts - but its looking more likely for next year now. Shames as we have had one of the best summers for years weaterwise - I am sure business would have been booming!

BUS NEWS - tenders

Mark Howarth of Western Greyhound has reported on the South West Bus Group (Yahoo) that Plymouth City Council has invited tenders for the following routes to start from 29th October:
5/6 evenings
7D Mondays to Saturdays
10 daily
14 evenings
17 Mondays to Saturdays
19 Mondays to Saturdays
16B Monday to Saturday evenings and Sundays
20 Sundays
20A Monday to Saturday evenings and Sundays
26A Mondays to Saturdays
28B Monday to Saturday evenings
23/24 evenings
31 Mondays to Saturdays

It will be interesting to see if any of these routes change hands in the process.

Continuing to mention Western Greyhound I am please to be able to report provisional details of a planned Routemaster Running Day on 18th August
RM1783 783 DYE opentop AEC engine
0915 Newquay BS to Newquay BS 500 arr 1000
1015 Newquay BS to Newquay BS 500 arr 1100
1115 Newquay BS to Newquay BS 500 arr 1200
1205 Newquay BS to Newquay Airport 556, return 1235 arr Newquay 1300
1315 Newquay BS to Newquay BS 500 arr 1400
1515 Newquay BS to Newquay BS 500 arr 1600

RM1062 62 CLT Scania engine red livery
0940 Newquay BS to Truro 586 arr1030
1035 Truro to Newquay BS 586 arr 1127
1155 Newquay BS to Sunnyside Hol Park 567, arr 1215
1230 Sunnyside Hol Pk to Newquay BS arr 1250
1255 Newquay BS to Sunnyside Hol Park 567, arr 1315
1330 Sunnyside Hol Pk to Newquay BS arr 1350
1405 Newquay BS to Newquay Airport 556, return 1435 arr Newquay 1500
1535 Newquay BS to Truro Vic Square 597 (via St Columb Major) arr1645
1645 Truro Vic Square to Newquay 587 (via Perranporth) arr1820
1830 Newquay BS to Summercourt Bus Garage 528 arr 1905

RMA11 NMY 648E forward entrance AEC engine
0954 Summecourt Bus Garage to Newquay 528 (via Fistral Bay) arr 1035
1040 Newquay BS to Newquay BS town service 558 arr 1117
1122 Newquay BS to Newquay BS town service 559 arr 1134
1140 Newquay BS to Newquay BS town service 558 arr 1217
1222 Newquay BS to Newquay BS town service 559 arr 1234
1240 Newquay BS to Newquay BS town service 558 arr 1317
1322 Newquay BS to Newquay BS town service 559 arr 1334

Even if you are not a Routemaster fan (I'm not!) it should be a good day if you are in the area. These are provisional plans so check before making a special trip!

Millbay Docks redevelopment

According to This is Plymouth they are now looking for a partner to start the development of the derelict parts of Millbay Docks. Over a hundred quality flats and houses will be built in the first phase of the development. It is all supposed to fit in the Plymouths grand plans to relink this area to the City Centre and open it all up again. If these plans end up anything like what has been proposed then it should be a very attractive development indeed. I guess we will have to wait and see. Interestingly the first areas D1 and D3 are not the areas pictured above but are over in the far distance. I have yet to see any real mention of what they are planning to do with these derelict areas pictured.

For some of the history of this area the Plymouth Data pages are well recommended.

CITYBUS NEWS - Back on the road

Plymouth Citybus Dart 8 N108UTT is the latest to hit the road in the new brighter livery. This bus was involved in the accident on Royal Parade back in early July 2006.
I hope to get a photo of this one very shortly so in the meantime here is what it did look like before it had a close encounter with White Van Man.

Incoming Rubbish

At the moment some rubbish from outside Plymouth comes into the City to be disposed off at the main Chelston Meadow waste centre. South Hams District Council bring in loads each day, presumably from the surrounding areas closest to Plymouth. It seems all this could change soon as the main tip is now almost full and is due to be closed in 2007. Plans are being put in place at the moment which will see our waste being exported elsewhere.

FDC NEWS - Olympians coming South?

A batch of Volvo Olympians that were working up at Barnstable have now appeared at The Ride. 31457-61 N968-973SOS are now spare as the contact they were working on has ended. It remains to be seen if they are staying at Plymouth or just passing through. FDC are pulling quite a lot of routes in North Devon later this year so expect quite a lot of fleet movements.

Also I see tonight that I am just about to get my 5000th hit - wow! Thanks to all who visit - especially those who leave comments. Its nice to know someout out there is interested!
Graham

Local Fleets - Severnside

Severnside has vastly improved its fleet over the years I have been observing them. Mainly due to the fact that they are now on contract hire from Ryder and are all all fairly new. They used to be a dull red livery but this nice green makes them stand out from other fleets. Typical of the Severnside operation in Plymouth is this DAF bulk waste unit

Pole-axed!

Fire chiefs in Devon have hit back at claims they built a new station without a pole for health and safety reasons. The 52 firefighters at the new £2.1m Greenbank fire service HQ, in Plymouth, have to run down two flights of stairs to get to their engines. It was reported the pole was left out for fear of officers slipping on it, hurting their knees and ankles. But a spokeswoman for Devon Fire and Rescue Service said there was no room for a pole in the station. Bernard Hughes, Fire Service Authority chairman, said on Friday that everything in the fire service was now governed by risk assessment. "Whilst every consideration regarding health and safety was taken into account, the reason that a pole was not included was purely due to space restrictions." The traditional pole has been used in fire stations since Victorian times and was described by the FBU spokesman as an "iconic symbol" which is also "useful and very important". full story bbc.co.uk

FDC NEWS - More Hong Kongs Darts

Just a quick post tonight with news that Dart/Plaxtons 42757/779/780 (S657/679/680SNG) are due to transfer to First Devon & Cornwall with 3 Dart/Plaxton SLF going to First Eastern Counties in return.
It does seem that we are getting most, if not quite all of these buses within First Group.

Also there is a new 'Group' set up on Flickr which is dedicated just for First Group photos. Not much there yet but it will hopefully grow...

And its goodnight from her

Torpoints last VR LFJ844W has now been withdrawn from service. It is due to come over into Plymouth where it will enter preservation.
Its sad that Bretonside will be devoid of regular VRs now - but it is good news that she is being saved.

Local Fleets - Reeds Removals

Local removal and haulage company based on Embankment Road, Plymouth. not that far from where this picture was taken. There is something reassuringly old fasioned about the livery!

new website address

Hi

Just a quick post to say I have now moved to a new web site address
www.plymothian-transit.blogspot.com

finally the site name and the adrress match up!
Hopefully everything will continue as normal and everything will work...
but having said that one or two internal links dont. I will try and get these fixed as I find them

LDV Vans Post

News that LDV has been sold to Russian GAZ should mean the LDV name surviving well into the future. I also managed to take this photo of one of their new Maxus vans the other day so why not post it here as its one of many now helping deliver post in Plymouth. Well, I assume its one of many, unless I have just seen the same ones all the time!

GAZ Group has acquired U.K. based automotive manufacturer LDV Group from an affiliate of Sun European Partners, LLP. This transaction is a significant step in GAZ's international expansion strategy. The acquisition of LDV, which manufactures the Maxus light commercial vehicle range, awarded 'Fleet Van of the Year 2006' at the Motor Transport Awards in July, will enable GAZ to expand into important international markets.
Full story at TNN