Vario

My posting yesterday regarding the UK Bus Awards has received a couple of interesting comments. I will deal with the first comment later this weekend - but for now...

Western Greyhound excellent compared with operators in Plymouth? Well yes if you love very long rides on a vario,but probably no if you are a parent with a
pushchair or are disabled

He certainly has a point.

For such a well run and modern fleet, WG has no proper low floor easy access buses. The Varios are not too bad compared with many buses - but they are not low floor. There are very good reasons for WG to have built up such a large standardised fleet of Varios. In many ways they are ideal for the routes they serve - some routes will not take low floor buses and their relatively low cost compared with full low floor buses is also a factor. Some routes might not sustain the addition cost that full low floor easy access buses would bring. Although I am sure many of the passengers would prefer a full low floor easy access bus on their route most WG passengers are just happy that they are now getting a more reliable bus service with newer buses over routes which First has given up on. A bus with a few steps is better than no bus at all!

Of course the Varios are much in use here in Plymouth as well. They can appear on almost any local First service - even those routes which are supposedly 'low floor routes'. Although not ideal for City services they are much better than the older Mercedes Minibuses they have replaced - and First D&C have got rid of all their older breadvans now which is good news for passengers. Just one of several improvements FDC have made to their Plymouth fleet over the past few years.

Plymouth Citybus still have quite a few of their older Mercedes 709 bread vans in service. Speaking as a regular user of the 52 which still employs the older Mercedes I will be happy to see the back of these buses especially as the 52 has a couple of sections of speed humps to travel over - not pleasant in these buses at all. With some more short mini -Darts believed to be on order at the moment it seems that the breadvan fleet is set to decline in numbers - although it looks like some will be around for a year or two yet. Perhaps Citybus could do with a few second hand Varios to see off the last few a bit sooner?

Although I have made clear my dislike of the Mercedes bread vans I do recognise the simple fact that one of the reasons the 52 has survived was down to the fact that these buses are a lot cheaper to run than anything else. Given the choice of having better buses - and loosing the service - or keeping the breadvans and the service - I for one would keep the breadvans.

As usual all your comments are welcome!

NEWS FLASH

The first two Enviro200 Darts have arrived at Milehouse. The third is due tomorrow. Registrations are WA 56 HHN/O/P.

News reported by Dave Godley on the South West Bus Group.

UK Bus Awards

Once a year the UK Bus Awards take place.
UK Bus Awards’ aim is to spread the quality message so that it is not just confined to pockets of excellence but becomes so widespread that the bus will be seen as a logical alternative to the car for many journeys – with all the environmental, communal and economic benefits that will bring.
Today the shortlist for this years awards has been announced and Plymouth is lucky enough to be stuck right in between two of the nominees - both of whom have a good chance of picking up awards:

Award for Operating Excellence - Large Fleet
Arriva Midlands Stagecoach Devon Stagecoach in Fife Stagecoach West Scotland
Award for Operating Excellence - Smaller Fleets
Ipswich Buses Stagecoach in Cambridge Western Greyhound Yorkshire Coastliner

For Plymouth its either good news or bad news depending on how you look at it:

Good News: If you leave Bretonside Bus Station and turn Left or Right you will not have to travel too far before you reach a quality public transport operation.
Bad News: Plymouth - the gaping void between decent public transport systems.

You decide!

WCR Municipal Hire

It seems to me that Plymouth City Council has given up buying its own vehicles and just borrows them instead. One of the suppliers of refuse trucks that Plymouth has turned to is WCR Municipal Hire. One of at least two Mercedes Econic refuse compactors is seen above.

Watson Fuels

I spent the most of this morning down on the Embankment taking photographs of buses, lorries and vans - over 300 photos taken in all. Some of these will appear over the next week or so...

Watson Fuels provided two very smart new DAF tankers...

Little bit of transport history

Ive not had much chance time to spend on the blog this last week but have a wonderful little bit of transport history tonight. If you look closely at the photo above there is a little bit of track that seems out of place. I have been wondering what that little spare bit of track was doing there. It didnt seem to fit in with any of the remaining tracks on the quayside. Well I was reading up this weekend and finally found an answer - and it turns out to be more interesting than I expected...

From Sutton Harbour, by Crispin Gill:

In 1878 the London & South Western Railway (L&SWR) opened Friary as a goods station and one line in the marshalling yard finished just short of Exeter Street. At a cost of £25,000 the Harbour Company was busy building the North East Quay, which cut through the clutter of old shipyards, quays and storehouses there, and cleared the path for both railways to reach North Quay in 1879, the L&SWR on 22nd October and the Great Western Railway (GWR) on 6 November. The GWR had to take a spur off their new line to Coxside Station at St Johns Bridge to get a line of approach. They were still broad gauge and the L&SWR standard gauge, so there had to be three rails to each track once they joined up on North Quay. This hybrid was carried to Sutton Wharf and Vauxhall Quay, turning the corner by turntable as proposed earlier but never making the Viaduct leap across to the Barbican. Only three years later the GWR switched over from broad to standard gauge and the third rail was taken up in Sutton Harbour. On Sutton Harbour the line of cobbles mark the old broad rail, and at a set of points in front of the door into Dolphin House is the last piece of broad gauge line in the country in its original position.

It really would be nice if somewhere in all the redevelopment of this area there could be made space for displays of the areas rich history to tell people about little bits like this. In the meantime - this book is well recommended!

South West Trains

© Fengschwing - Flickr.com

It has been announced today that Stagecoach have won the new South West Trains contract ensuring a Stagecoach Rail presence in Plymouth for another 10 years.

Under the terms of the contract, the transport company will invest £40m in stations including London's Waterloo, from where it runs services to Brighton, Southampton, Portsmouth, Bristol, Exeter and Plymouth. Stagecoach said that it would increase capacity by 21% on mainline services and by 21% on suburban services by operating longer trains.

Bits and Bobs

Not much time tonight to post much so just a few snippets to be going on with:

Plymouth Citybus: 1 N101UTT is the latest repaint into the current livery.
Trathens: The first of the long awaited batch of Neoplan Skyliner coaches has arrived - it carries registration LSK821. Looking forward to seeing one myself!

Finally just to mention a few other blogs that I find worth reading in the hope that you might find interesting too:

Omnibuses which covers the national bus scene and is the first blog I read every day.
Bus Driving A Torquay bus driver - excellent insight into the joys of driving through busy Torbay.
Driving a bus I only found this one after a mention on Omnibuses: A brand new bus driver based on the South Coast with Stagecoach. If you want to find out what its like to train to be a bus driver then this is a great blog to start with.
Plymouth Citybus Photoblog - Well I cant leave out my own sister blog can I? Now up to 21 in my visual fleet list.

FDC Incoming?

© Robert Burn

It does seem increasingly likely that the Cornish Tridents are indeed heading for Plymouth. So thanks to Robert Burn for sending me this photo of 32763 taken at Exeter WHOTT Rally this weekend just gone.
Luke Farley added a note on a previous entry here which deserves more prominence:

"I've been told that the Cornish '55' reg Tridents will definately be moving to Plymouth to replace the Royales, which may be moving to the Truro/Camborne corridor.

Also, it is apparently likely that two or three of either the Bath tridents, or the ex-London T8xx LLC park & ride tridents will be converted for Torpoint ferry use to replace the Olympians that have only just arrived their. Both types of tridents have short wheelbases, so would fit around the bottom lake road in Millbrook. Not entirely sure how true this is but it does seem to be quite possible"

Thanks Luke

New hope for railway station?

An ambitious scheme to build a new £300million railway station in Plymouth with retail and commercial space has moved a step forward, according to the Evening Herald.
If this grand scheme goes ahead it seems it will include a full bus interchange and new pedestrian links to the City centre and Central Park. It does all sound very grand - and like many such schemes announced in Plymouth you know it is unlikely to ever happen. The telling statement in the news item was the line that owners of the Railway Station, Network Rail, had been informed by letter - and were 'cautiously Optimistic'. Unless Network Rail is right behind the scheme from the beginning I cant see anything happening.
I hope I am wrong - the area around the Railway Station does need investment - and anything that can bring the station nearer to the City Centre - or at least bring the City centre nearer to the Station has to be a good idea. If it was planned properly - and did indeed succeed in joining the City with the Station then it could even be a feasable replacement for Bretonside.

Bus Crash

Fifteen hurt in bus and van crash

All the injured were taken to hospital after the crashFifteen people have been injured in a road crash involving a bus and a van in north Devon. The collision happened at Pathfields in South Molton, near the Allers Cross roundabout, on Saturday morning. The van driver was cut free and flown to hospital. His injuries were at first thought very serious, but were later described as non-life-threatening. The bus driver, his 12 passengers and a passenger in the van were described as having minor injuries. All the injured were taken to North Devon District Hospital after the accident, which happened at about 1100 BST.

I know its not strictly Plymouth - but the bus company is Plymouth based First Devon and Cornwall with one of their Hong Kong Darts which has sustained some serious damage. I am glad no one was seriously hurt. This is the second major bus accident in a week as last Sunday a Hookways coach was involved in an accident on Dartmoor. In that case it seems the action of the coach driver was praised by the passengers of the car that was involved as it could have been a lot worse.

FDC INCOMING TRIDENTS

It has been reported that new Volvo double decker buses have been seen on delivery to First, for Park and Ride services in Bath. Normally this would not be anything to get excited about here in Plymouth, but once the new buses are in service they are due to release existing Park and Ride low floor DD Tridents to FDC. W709-17RHT 32709-17 are East Lancs bodied Dennis Tridents and are expected to be placed into service on the X80 Plymouth - Torquay service.

It has also been reported that the new Tridents currently operating down in Cornwall WJ55CRX, CRZ, CSF (32761-3) are due to transfer to Plymouth as they are not getting enough mileage down in Cornwall. I am not sure if this is true or not - but I have seen it mentioned more than once!

CITYBUS NEWS 34 Advert Photo

As mentioned yesterday Dart 34 T134EFJ had appeared in a new advert livery. Well it turned up at Derriford Hospital tonight so I was able to grab this very quick photo before my own bus came. Not the prettiest advert really.

CITYBUS NEWS 34 Advert

Plymouth Citybus 34 T134EFJ pictured above has now lost this colourful advert livery. It has now appeared in another all over 'wrap' for Stax Reclamation Ltd, in a mainly dark green based scheme.
I first noticed it on the road on Monday - the fleet number has just been confirmed by Nick Rice.

Just a reminder - my Citybus photo blog has reached 15 tonight.

Appreciation of the past

Ambitious plans for a new Plymouth History Centre which will celebrate the city's rich heritage have been agreed by senior councillors. The major centre is planned as part of a wide-ranging heritage strategy, which will also include improvements to the city's museum and art gallery
The new centre will see the city's local studies library, Plymouth and West Devon Record Office and the South West Film and Television Archive brought together under one roof.The plans form part of the council's vision to make the museums and archives service a regional centre of excellence by 2010, providing a 'gateway to inspire curiosity about Plymouth's past'.

Plymouth has long neglected its heritage. Lets hope that this exciting project does produce something which can finally provide the promised 'Gateway'

Life Before Plymouth

© Grahame Bessey

Only recently sold by Plymouth Citybus this Volvo double decker was new to Great Yarmouth, one of many municipal bus companies that have disappeared.

Thanks to Grahame for allowing to me to post this photo. For more of his photos visit his fotopic site

Other photos: Same bus with Chambers, and again and with Rhondda in August 1995.

Terry Partridge photo while still with Citybus

FDC NEWS Incoming

News posted by Marc Reddy (Top man at FDC) on the South West Yahoo Group yesterday concerning new buses due shortly to arrive for the Plymouth Park and Ride services.

For those interested the following are arriving in FDC shortly:
WA56FTV - 42946 SLF Dart
WA56FTX - 42947 SLF Dart
WA56FTY - 42948 SLF Dart
WA56FTZ - 42969 SLF Dart
WA56FUB - 33411 Enviro 400
WA56FUD - 33412 Enviro 400
WA56FUE - 33413 Enviro 400
WA56FTK - 33414 Enviro 400
WA56FTN - 33415 Enviro 400
WA56FTO - 33416 Enviro 400
WA56FTP - 33417 Enviro 400
WA56FTT - 33418 Enviro 400
WA56FTU - 33419 Enviro 400

The Darts were a surprise - the buses used at the moment are last years brand new Darts. I guess all these new buses will arrive in a new brighter livery for the service which should help increase usage at the George site. This will however be at the expense of the Milehouse site - my sister being one who has used the service over the last few Citybus years when they finally put low floor Darts into action. Now she finds that by the time the buses reach Milehouse, the wheelchair/ buggy spaces have been taken up already - and she cant get on. Last time she used it she let two buses go by before finally getting a space on the third. Folding the buggy was not an option!

FDC NEWS Fares going DOWN!

07/09/2006 BUS FARES COME DOWN IN PLYMOUTH
Bus operator First is reducing fares in the Plymouth area and simplifying the choice of tickets in a major initiative to encourage more people to think about using public transport.
The changes are being introduced following requests from customers across the region.
From this Sunday, 10 September, the new FirstDay Plymouth ticket will give a day's unlimited travel on all First bus services within the Plymouth area for just £2.90.
These new tickets replace the existing peak and off-peak tickets and will mean lower fares for most bus users.The existing FirstDay Peak ticket for travel within the Plymouth area is £4.50 and the off-peak ticket is £3.90. With the new FirstDay Plymouth ticket costing £2.90 customers can save £1.60 a day which is up to 35% cheaper.
There are no restrictions on when the ticket can be used.
There's also a new FirstDay Plymouth Plus ticket which includes journeys to Antony, Down Thomas, Cremyll, Kingsand, Millbrook, Milton Combe, Rame, Wembury and Yelverton. This ticket is £3.90.Child tickets are also available. There are no time restrictions on these tickets so they can be used throughout the day. The tickets can be bought from the bus driver on any First bus.
Marc Reddy, managing director of First's bus services in Plymouth, says: "Our customers tell us that our fares are too high and our range of tickets can be confusing. We've listened to those comments and done something about it. The new FirstDay Plymouth ticket covers all of our bus services in the Plymouth area, and the new FirstDay Plymouth Plus tickets covers those bus services that travel further out from the city. We've removed the confusing peak and off-peak tickets and we've made a significant reduction in the price of our fares to encourage more people to think about using the bus.
A new range of weekly and monthly tickets will be launched in the coming months."75,000 leaflets giving details of the new fares and tickets are being distributed to households across the Plymouth area and details are being posted on every bus. Full details can also be obtained by calling 01752 402060, by visiting the First Travel Shop at Bretonside Bus Station, or by going to the Devon pages at www.firstgroup.com.
This is excellent news and a very welcome initiative by First. I am sure its pure coincidence that the new day ticket is 10 pence less than the same Citybus ticket which is being promoted so visibly at the moment!

Life after Plymouth ODV203W

Thanks to Chris Sampson for allowing me to post these two photos of ODV203W.

Above we see her in Llanberis, Wales back in July 2006.

Below is an earlier photo of her in Plymouth, also taken by Chris back in June 2003. Its a shame we dont have open toppers in Plymouth these days!

For more of Chris' work visit www.midlandred.net - an excellent site.

Plymothian Bridges - Number 8

Hot on the heals of bridge number 7 comes this one. Mainly because it is right next door. St Budeaux Victoria Road Station is on the Tamar Valley Line which these days only goes to Gunnislake.

From Wikipedia: St Budeaux Victoria Road station is a suburban rail station in St Budeaux, Plymouth, UK. It is served by First Great Western services between Plymouth and Gunnislake. It is the first station on the branch. The station is situated on the former Southern main line to Exeter via Okehampton. St Budeaux Ferry Road station is located on the opposite side of the road. The reason for the separate stations is due to the Southern and Great Western taking different routes into the city - the current junction was built when the Southern main line closed in the 1960s.

Plymouth Data also has a page on this station along with an old photo showing what it ised to look like.

Victoria Road.pdf to download a two page pdf of more photos from around this area (5MB)

CITYBUS FLEETLIST

A new feature now available on my blogs is a downloadable fleet list of Plymouth Citybus.
It will be kept as up to date as possible and will always be available from the link top right of the main page. At the moment its only available as an xml file which can be opened in most newer versions of Excel. In the near future I will try and make other formats available although I cant upload standard xls files for some strange reason!

I will also be uploading pdf files from time to time which you might find interesting.

Plymouth Citybus Fleetlist 060906.xml LINK NO LONGER WORKS!

Plymothian Bridges - Number 7

Ferry Road Station St Budeaux

This nice little bridge carries the main road into the large housing estates of St Budeaux over the main line to Cornwall. This is taken on the Plymouth side, with Plymouth to the left and Cornwall to the right. The station itself is a bit run down, typical of many smaller unmanned stations along this route. There are a few extra photos on my Tabblo here.

You can see the bridge in the centre of this Google Earth view below

The George

© Ashymoto - Blogged via Flickr
(Click on the photo to visit the Flick page of "Ashymoto" and view his other photos)

An interesting development with the new Park and Ride at The George today as reported in This is Plymouth.
Just a year ago, Plymouth City Council was predicting that the bus terminal and car park would ease congestion on the busy A386.But today the authority confirmed that it is looking at creating an entrance on Plymbridge Road - because motorists from Glenholt, Southway and Derriford can only get in if they take a one-mile detour around Woolwell roundabout.
The residents' groups think the park-and-ride, in use since March, is an 'excellent facility'.But they want to know why the only way in is by heading towards the city, on the A386, and turning left.Buses are the only vehicles travelling towards Woolwell allowed to turn right, at traffic lights, and there is no entrance from Plymbridge Road.
As a user of the Park and Ride myself I have to agree it does seem strange that we cant have access to the site from Plymbridge Road. We have to drive passed the site and then make the long detour to the next roundabout and then drive back into the site. The same problem exists when you leav - as you are only allowed to turn right and head off towards Tavistock! Needless to say many people just turn left anyway - or use the Bus Lane exit to make the turn.

Lets hope that something does happen fairly soon. There is certainly unused capacity at the site so anything that helps the service gets more use has to be a good idea

FDC NEWS New Commercial Director

Announcement from First Devon & Cornwall
Simon Newport has been appointed Commercial Director for First’s bus operations in Devon and Cornwall. He joins the company from First Bristol.
A glimmer of hope:
"In Dorset, I had 5 successful years developing the business. My biggest success in this role was the implementation and introduction of the award winning Service X53. The new route was and still is a great success, linking the Jurassic Coast to Exeter and Poole. Working in conjunction with Devon and Dorset County Councils, we experienced amazing passenger growth and received national recognition for all of our hard work. I feel that this success has really improved the overall profile of the company in the area”.
The X53 is a great success and is a credit to all involved as it shows what can be achieved when bus companies work with local authorities. If Mr Newport can bring some of this to FDC then he will be warmly welcomed by passengers in the area.

Another goodbye

Hot on the heals of yesterdays message about a final running day for Plymouth Citybus Atlanteans comes a message from Marc Reddy of First Devon and Cornwall

All:It is my intention to withdraw the few remaining VR's shortly. I can also confirm that I have agreed to a "Last VR Running Day" when the VR's do come off the road...in terms of timescale I anticipate this will be before Christmas...more details when they become firmed up.Marc

I guess its fitting that we see the last "Western National" VRTs and the last Plymouth Citybus Atlanteans bow out at the same time. Both types have served us very well over the years

Atlantean Running Day

I received an email this evening which reads as follows

Found your Blog whilst searching. I am involved in the Plymouth City Transport Preservation Group. On Sunday 15th Oct we are hosting a running day in Plymouth City Centre. Hopefully operating out of Bretonside. It will culminate in the handing over of 171 from CityBus to the PCT PG.
It is planned for 1000-1600 with hopefully 8-9 buses running free services around the City.
Could you advertise it on your sites and get the word around. Programmes will be available on the day. All profits to St Lukes Hospice,

enquiries at: enquiries@plymouthcitytransport.co.uk

cheers, best wishes Ralph

Seems a good excuse to post Ken Bakers excellent photo of 171 in what I always thought was the best and most interesting livery carried by Citybus. I know many disagreed though!
Thanks to Ken for allowing me to post his photo.

Life after FDC

© Dave Ballntyne

R304JAF was new as First Western National 2304 on National Express duties and therefore often passed through Plymouth. It has now ended up in Scotland where it is seen recently in Glasgow heading for Edinburgh. Interestingly in standard Barbie bus livery rather than the First Coach version which looks a lot better

Thanks to Dave Ballntyne for permission to post the picture here.

Housekeeping

It has become apparent to me that the change over to the Plymothian Transit address has not been a 100% success. Although the site is up and running fine and people can view all the pages etc, many of the links are broken and searching the blog is all but impossible as many items are still looking to the old didbygraham address.

To this end I have decided to rebuild the blog onto a mirror plymothian-transit2 site. This entails copying all the blogs, one at a time over to the new site and testing all the links as I go. This will take a while so I everything will continue to be posted onto this site as normal. Once I have the copy blog up and running I will then announce the new address and switch over to what will hopefully be a proper working, fully searchable site!
So if you see links or referances to plymothiantransit2 then dont worry!
UPDATE
It seems that actually I have managed to iron out many of the problems after all so I have abandoned the idea of a new Plymothian-Transit2 site and will keep this one going as it is. I will continue to monitor and fix most of the missing links etc.

Western Greyhound

Only posted here as i like this photo!
Western Greyhound operate a Plymouth - Newquay service using these Vario minibuses - always immaculately turned out. With First Devon and Cornwall withdrawing from many routes in Cornwall, WGL are rapidly becoming the main operator in the county. Its also useful that their day ticket is valid on Stagecoach Devon.

A new sister blog

A new month brings a new project. A new sister blog for Plymothian Transit!
Plymouth Citybus Photos is a simple photo blog of the whole Citybus fleet - in fleet number order - starting today with number1. I will also add snippets of fleet news - but everything else will stay on Plymothian Transit.
The first posting is reproduced below to give you an idea of what to expect...

St Andrews Cross 19 August 2006

Fleet Number 1 Registration: N101UTT

Dennis Dart SLF Chassis Number SFD322BR1TGW10168

Plaxton Pointer B39F Body Number 9610.6HLZ5331

New June 1996

Other peoples photos of N101UTT

David Oakley - Fotopic undated click here

Peter Wearne - Fotopic Jan 2005 click here