Fleet Lists are back!

I may have been quiet on here recently due to not being out and being extra busy with other things at the moment but I have been able to make a start at sorting out my fleet lists and bringing things up to date, something which I have had several requests for!

I can now bring you the first results of this catch up with a couple of local listings

• Plymouth Citybus
• Alansway Coaches Ltd – Country Bus

Other local listings will be made available over the coming week or so as I update my records. The up to date details will always be found here 

I hope to get First South West listing up next. Eventually Stagecoach Devon will be available but I am a lot more behind with them!

Also on line at the moment I have

• Go Ahead Group List
• First Group Fleet Lists

These last two are not up to date yet (psvc area 3 is, but the other areas are a few months behind)

As always if anyone notices any errors or updates please let me know and I will correct them. (dbg@plymothiantransit.com)

Christmas Service Arrangements

Just a quick post to wish all readers and visitors to this little blog a Very Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

I will have my usual Christmas break for the next week, returning with a two week Devon & Cornwall Transit post on Tuesday 2nd January (unless anything major happens in the mean time!)

Normal service will be resumed...

I will try and keeps posting here but I have a major fault on my internet service which means I get a connection for about one minute at a time and then it drops off for a few mins and resets.

A high speed engineer has been dispatched to sort out my connection and should be here - on Wednesday!

I can do somethings off line in between so hopefully I can get some posts online - and hopefully I can get this message on line too when the connection comes back on in a minute...

Guess How Old Plymothian Transit is today?

©Jos Van Hemert

Thanks to everyone who has contributed over the last TWELVE YEARS. The many photos you have allowed me to use, the sightings, the bits of information from across Devon & Cornwall, and most of all the general support there has been for all of this time which has allowed this little bit of the internet to continue for so long. Special mention too for all of the comments which have been left here over the years - the comment counter hitting 10,000 earlier in February!

Here’s to the next twelve…

A weekend off, but…

This weekend I lost my Mum after a period of poor health, so public transport in and around the Plymouth area has not been high on my agenda, so no proper posting this morning.

However, don't forget the new bus fares for Plymouth Citybus are now in place so take (quite) a few extra pennies when you leave for work this morning.

Also, more importantly, today should see the start of Gas Bus operation on the 43, which is now the Orange Flash. I am not sure if I will get into town early enough to get any of them on camera, but I am sure plenty of you will - I would welcome any photos of the new fleet to share on the blog later, there are a lot of people now in Plymouth who would like to see them here on PT.

Thanks

Graham

Normal service will be resumed

I am sorry for the lack of action here on Plymothian Transit. A combination of being very busy and also quite a few computer problems over the weekend resulting in the loss of a whole afternoons work on Sunday have all added up. My PC is now finally back up and running although some settings have reverted back to defaults which makes some jobs harder to sort out until I get things back to how I like them.

It seems the main culprit was my keyboard which proceeded to mess up Google Chrome completely and other essential programs too. I have now reverted back to an old keyboard  and reinstalled Chrome (five attempts!)  so everything works again.  The trouble is this old keyboard was replaced as its impossible to read any of the letters on the keys which makes typing up blog posts even more fun!

However, I will now get back on track starting with the next Devon Transit post tomorrow and then hopefully full service will be resumed…

Sadly I did not get to Kingsbridge this weekend - so if anyone has any photos they would like to share of the event - you know where to send them as I am sure people would love to see them.

Cheers

Graham

Comments

As you may have seen I have not published any of the comments left over the last day or so. This is because I am having to have a rethink as to how I deal with comments.
I was at work reading my emails at lunch time when I came across this comment left on a previous post:

I never really post on this blog and thats because quite a few important comments that i've posted have been treated like spam by Mr Richardson, he's constantly biased in favour o PCB(probably cos he gets paid by them), his behaviour is typical of the 99% rivet counter enthusiasts who ruin the bus industry for everyone else (anon)

Now, as its anon, I have no idea what comments he is referring to, although I can guess at some of them.
First of all lets get one thing out of the way – I am not employed in any way by Plymouth Citybus and have never received any financial contribution from them. (It would be nice if they did!) Indeed I am not employed in the transport industry at all. Never have been. If I am being charitable I can see how it may look like I am biased in favour of Plymouth Citybus. When you have two main bus operators in the city and one is buying brand new buses and expanding services whilst the other is cutting back and clearly doesn't want to be here at all then its hard not to sound more positive for Citybus. Historically though I have always been more biased towards Western National  as when I was growing up in Plymouth I was always on Western National routes and caught them to school. Given the choice between at Atlantean or a Bristol FLF or VR, the Atlantean never stood a chance!
I may believe that Citybus have been doing a better job than First over the last few years but I am still very sad to see First leave the City. There have been periods when they were very much on the up and Citybus were the ones under attack and cutting back. The balance between the two operators has ebbed and flowed back and forwards quite a bit over the 40 years I have been interested.
Having said that I will be sad to see First leave, I do think that it will be good news for the city as I am sure Stagecoach will do a much better job, if only for the fact that they actually want to be here. I have watched as SC have taken over in North Devon and transformed what looked like a dead duck under First. I have watched the underperforming X80 transform overnight into GOLD with brand new high quality buses. Something First could have done at anytime but never did. I may look like a Citybus fan, but I am equally impressed by Stagecoach and welcome their investment and look forward to seeing what they can do in Plymouth.
The comment about 99% rivet counter enthusiasts is more puzzling. Yes I am an enthusiast. Always have been. I am not sure if I count myself as a rivet counter or not, but then I'm not that bothered by the term anyway. I am sure many readers will disagree with the bit about them ruining the bus industry for everyone else though. Many of the bus enthusiasts I know are actually in the industry.
So that covers me. That is where I am at. The big question I have is how to deal with comments. Do I even want to encourage comments anymore? The last month or so and the next month is clearly an upheaval and I know many staff have found it stressful. There has been a period where many staff at First have faced uncertain futures. That is always going to have an affect on the comments being left here. We saw it when Citybus were up for sale and under attack from First. I can understand that. Some of the comments I have held back were because they were making specific comments / allegations against Citybus (and some also against First) which would be unfair, and maybe even legally dangerous for me to post. There have been an awful lot of facts being given in comments which have clearly turned out to be rubbish. When I was publishing the details of the routes which SC were taking on, and more importantly not taking on, I was repeatedly being informed that I was talking absolute rubbish and that SC had to run a full network cus the council said that they had to. If it wasn't the council it was the traffic commissioner or the competition people. All I can say to that is that apart from the late addition of Saltash back to the network, the routes being run by Stagecoach are exactly as I reported they would be. The many people telling me I was wrong were clearly misinformed themselves. One thing I did get wrong was to accidentally overstate how many redundancies were in the air at First Plymouth after receiving and believing comments that were sent to me. That particular post was amended the same day to remove that line so was only ever actually on the web site for about 5 hours as it had been removed by about 10am on the day it was published. That lesson was learnt.
So where next?
Having asked the question – do I even want comments? I have to say that generally yes I do. I know many people enjoy reading them and find them useful. Most readers can disagree with stuff that I post or that others leave as comments and then make perfectly reasonable comments in return. The majority of comments are useful and interesting although I have had to hold quite a few back recently. I prefer not to as its a lot of extra work for me as its hard enough wading through the 50-60 ‘spam’ comments that I get in my inbox let alone weeding out genuine but inappropriate comments being left. As the anonymous writer points out I have treated some as spam and not published them. I dont generally keep them so cant see all the ones I have blocked but here are just a few of the recent comments I have held back:

• Neither as I'm anti pcb & want to see them go out of business, they have no right ripping off the people of Plymouth
• hope city bus has only put fares up on the route 50 seeing it new buses  (have they – Ive not seen anything to say they have?)
• why has the bus fare gone up on the red flash if so I walk so catch stage coach (what does that mean?)
• To be honest I have been using First for several years now as I got totally fed up with spiralling costs of the already expensive fares of PCB. I really could not give two hoots about RED, BLUE, YELLOW or whatever other form of gimmick FLASH bus they want to come up with, all I care about is COST and reliability plus friendliness of drivers, all of which First have constantly excelled at. First charge half what PCB do, and if as they promise Stagecoach keep fares the same then I for one will be using Stagecoach next week. There is no way I will go back to PCB ever and i know I am by no means the only one. From several reliable sources I have (not driver gossip either!) Stagecoach have big plans for expansion in the city in the next few years, this is just a start up skeleton network so PCB should take note!!!!  (Now I would probably have posted this one as at least its readable and makes sense even if its not saying anything new)
• Citybus fares aren't reasonable, they're pricing themselves out of the market & losing customers everytime, they also don't care about the customer, all pcb care about is lining the pockets of their fatcat owners
• I think you'll find that the 6 was full every trip so yes you can do it, the only reason first are closing down Plymouth is they can't be arsed to invest in new buses
• gramham do u use the number 3 bus ,I do all time and it always busy more people on it than red flash and people even walk from barren bartton to catch 3 if number was not doing well why has stage coach had 100s of people say about it (then why have Citybus increased their buses and SC decided not to cover it?)
• I hard that stage coach may be start up some more old first routes like the 3 if there can get more buses

So now what?
My initial reaction was to stop all anonymous comments. I really don't want to do that as it would stop a lot of interesting points being made. I still enjoy reading the comments so I wont let a few people spoil it for me.  I will however continue to monitor comments before I publish them. I will block comments which make allegations or name staff. I will block comments that just state that Citybus (or any other bus co) are crap and ripping people off. Its getting boring. I will block comments that are so poorly written its impossible to work out what they mean.

As for the perceived bias for Plymouth Citybus, well all I can say is that I do genuinely try not to be biased for any operator. The fact that as from this weekend the second operator in Plymouth is now Stagecoach will actually help here as they are a professional outfit with a good record of investment and who seem to me at least to be a lot better at marketing their services. The fact that Citybus will now have some serious competition in Plymouth is a good thing. All these comments being left stating that SC will be running lots of new services in the future – great. I hope that they do. It will be great to have two operators who believe in investing in new buses and services.
OK so rant over lets get back to blogging about buses again.
Plymouth Citybus 531 the new red Enviro looking very smart. Just needs a white swoop now to finish it off!

Photo replaced with another version as it seems to have disappeared from my account! I hope to see some of you at least in the morning at Bretonside – have a good day

material of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious knowledge…

Ever since I turned comment moderation on I have worried that occasionally good quality comments are either taking too long to get posted, or even just being lost. It would be so much easier if I could just let comments go straight through. However, that's not really an option when occasionally someone gets a bit too anti-Citybus or Anti-First or Anti Western Greyhound and strays beyond the acceptable. This isn't very often these days, but every now and again it creeps back up! I really do need to check comments before they go live. There is an alternative and that's to insist on registration and bar any anonymous comments. I don't want to do this as quite often people have good reason to remain anonymous and also its a lot quicker and easier if you don't have to log on. Checking comments is something which shouldn't take that long as the vast majority are fine and can get posted straight away. However, these days it is actually taking a lot longer due to the amazing amount of spam comments which get emailed to me. To give you an idea of how many, I am typing this intro at 10:30 Sunday morning. In the last 10 hours I have received 37 comments! At this point in time, my well organised In-Box which splits comments and Flickr notices into their own section has 69 posts. It was cleared yesterday evening. about 15 of these messages were legit!

Most of these comments follow a set pattern with some sort of rambling comment then a link to an unrelated web site, some of which you clearly wouldn't want to click on. Just to let you see the quality of the messages I have to trawl through each day I have decided to offer just a small selection for your viewing pleasure….

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As you can see I get an awful lot of rubbish to trawl through in order to validate the comments, so please don't get too upset if I accidentally miss any of yours. It is not deliberate!

We are Ten!

Hello World

Ten years ago this simple paragraph started things off:

Well, here it is, My first attempt at a blog.
At this point I dont really have a clue what is going to appear here or how it is going to end up looking, but I will concentrate on what is happening with the transportation in and around Plymouth, England. I will try and post something every day if I can. This will either be something that has caught my attention that day or maybe just something of interest from my files.
So sit back and relax, and wait - something interesting might just appear at some stage - you never know!

My first post:

Then the next one...

This same bus last caught by my camera as recently as July 2014

Whilst the bus is pretty much the same this does highlight the difference in my camera over the last ten years.

The other difference is that the original post was hardly seen by anybody! According to eh Google stats the original has been see 44 times (not bad for ten years!) whilst some of the more recent posts over the Western Greyhound saga have gone well past 1500 hits in a couple of weeks.

Although I have never been one for checking the stats everyday and getting too excited at big numbers, it is heartening to know that there are a few people out there reading what I have put together.

 

Content

It has to be said that when I started PT, I didn't really have much of an idea of what I was going to post. Generally the odd photo of the local buses was the original plan, I didn't really expect anyone else to find it and read it. Looking back through my first month on Plymothian Transit I can see the beginnings of a few themes which have prevailed through the last ten years. Having my own blog did mean I could post my own opinions online rather than keep them to myself. If I saw something which annoyed me I could say so. This was back before Facebook etc. really took off. We had the local Yahoo email groups but that was about it.

Even back in April 2005 there was an ambition to cover more local transport history, something which I still feel I am not doing enough off…

As expected for someone who works for Plymouth Hospitals (33 years and counting) at Derriford Hospital, the problems of daily commuting from the hospital have popped up quite often

and the follow on post is the beginning of tracking all the various adverts and liveries carried by the local bus companies

Over the coming month or so I will be looking back at some of the posts from the blog. There is a lot of information here, I may as well make use of it!

The Future

I wont beat about the bush. There have been a few occasions over the ten years when PT nearly came to an end. When I started there were only a few bus blogs. The main one being the much missed Omnibuses blog. The scene is a lot busier now with quite a few good quality blogs which do get updated frequently. There have been a lot more which have come and gone, mainly because  quite simply, maintaining a regular blog like this one is hard work! I do spend far more time than is healthy on the blog and the sideline web sites, along with reading web sites and books etc for research enjoyment. However, its not all bad. One of the best things that has come out of sticking around for so long, is the number of contacts and regular readers / supporters of the blog. I have made a lot of friends in and out of the industry and on both sides of the main First v Go Ahead camps. The number of people who regularly contribute to the site has grown and is very much appreciated. Although things are fairly settled at the moment, the difficulties of bringing up an autistic child have often hindered getting out and about as much as I would have liked. Knowing that if anything interesting happens out there, someone will let me know and more often than not send in photos has almost certainly made the difference between continuing the blog and giving up.

Having said all that, I have to say that I am probably enjoying the blog now more than I have ever done! Covering Devon and Cornwall as well has been a challenge but has also increased interest and seems to be very popular. With your help there is probably no reason why Plymothian Transit wont be around for another ten years at least!

Thanks to everyone who has contributed, supported, or just read the blog over the last ten years.

 

The last ten years on Plymothian Transit in numbers

2848 posts (including this one)

Most popular post 9022 views

Page views all time 1,795,519

Page views from Israel 6920

Page views from Turkey 2591

Page view from Ukraine 34192!

Number of comments left (and published) 6837

Number of spam comments left 10699  (you can see why I have moderation turned on)

Number of PC / Laptops gone through to produce it: 4

Number of cameras gone through: 5

Number of amazing wives I have had without whom I wouldn't be able to do all of this: 1

Bringing things back up to date

Both Citybus and First Kernow are still making changes to their new Cornish networks taken on after the demise of Western Greyhound (more changes coming up too). Its not just the timetables and routes which have needed adjustment. Plymouth Citybus have had to make a slight change to their livery at the request of Cornwall County Council. They would have asked First Kernow to change theirs too, but no one knows what it actually is at the moment!

Happy New Year

Just a very quick post to wish everyone a very Happy New Year from Plymothian Transit.

Thanks especially to all who have left comments or supplied photos and other information over the last twelve months. It has not always been possible to give PT as much time as I would like but thanks to you all, it has been a real pleasure. PT will be back very soon, suitably refreshed after the Christmas break.

©Jos VanHemeert:  the 15 in 1985

In The News

• Focus Transport: Go North East Steps In to Save Quaylink Service Kevin Carr, managing director of Go North East, said: “With all our local authorities facing a funding crisis and some considering increasing council taxes, it’s inevitable that front-line services – including those buses funded by councils – will be hit. “But this must bring in to question the Combined Authority’s view that bus services are best controlled by local authorities – if they can’t guarantee a service as important as this, how can they guarantee improvements to the bus network?”

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• Southampton Bus Update Amended bus services for Monday and Tuesday : Routes being withdrawn this weekend : New Year's Eve bus services
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• Steves Bus and Train Page: Review Of The Year 2014 Part One

Something Interesting Appeared…

Hello World

Well, here it is, My first attempt at a blog. At this point I dont really have a clue what is going to appear here or how it is going to end up looking, but I will concentrate on what is happening with the transportation in and around Plymouth, England. I will try and post something every day if I can. This will either be something that has caught my attention that day or maybe just something of interest from my files. So sit back and relax, and wait - something interesting might just appear at some stage - you never know!

It was exactly nine years ago that the above paragraph found its own little corner on the interweb.31st March 2005 saw the start of Plymothian Transit!
At this stage I wasnt even aware that anyone else was doing anything similar although it did not take me long to find a few. Omnibuses started first but really took off in September 2005

First 50743

The first photo to appear on Plymothian Transit was of this bus 50743 as it had just been repainted into FG-Barbie livery. This has of course long left Plymouth for the big scrap yard in the sky...

First 42784

The second bus to appear in Plymothian Transit is still very much with us, or at least it was in November 2013 which is the most recent shot I have seen of her. When I caught her on camera back in March 2005 she had only been in Plymouth a month or so after being transfered across from Eastern Counties along with many of her sisters

An awful lot has changed over the last nine years. The design of the blog has had a few changes over the years. This year has seen a few tweaks to the existing design rather than a full blown refresh as I am quite happy with it at the moment and its easier for me to update these days. The one thing that has not changed is just how interesting the transport scene is here in Plymouth. There has always been plenty going on and that seems set to continue for a good while yet!
Thanks as ever to everyone who has contributed over the years through either photos, news or just joining in the discussion through the comments. When I started back in 2005 I didn't expect anyone else to ever see it let alone be that interested in what I was wittering on about...

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Acklams Beverley Town Services April Changes After Easter Acklams Coaches are revising two of their Beverley Town Services. From VOSA:

All Gas and Goodness in Aberdeen [1] But you can have too much of a good thing - even the mercurial rise of Worst Bus to First Bus can become a little, well, samey, however commendable it might be.

Pennine to Cease Operations Pennine Motor Services – which runs a fleet of 14 orange and black buses throughout Craven – will cease operating from May 16

 

Looking back... Easey of March in this part we look at five interesting coaches operated by Easey of March - an operator who is no longer around...

Bakerloo Line There has been a rumour, a dark legend of lore and myth that one day in some heavenly future, the Bakerloo Line will be extended south of Elephant and Castle. However, what if instead of heading south, it actually turned north again — to Bank station instead?

All Gas and Goodness in Aberdeen [2] Let's hope the canny Aberdonians APPreciate it! There's two bonny Scots lassies looking very happy here! And first have painted the top of a bus to win over potential customers who own their own helicopter.

Holiday snaps

Slightly (!) outside the normal operating area of this blog, I bring you a few photos from my trip to Bournemouth last week.
Due to various reasons I had very little time to take photos of buses, in fact I had five minutes…

Wilts & Dorset

Happy to get one of these as there are not many left. In fact one was destroyed in a fire the day before I took this shot. It is also of note (to me at least) that it displays adverts for The Lego Movie, which we were queuing to see while I took these photos

Another bus which cant have long left...

We did have one ride on one of these buses back to our hotel, and a very pleasant bus it was too! Very friendly and helpful driver which is always nice when you are catching a bus in the dark with no idea where to get off!

Yellow Buses

I really do need to get back to Bournemouth and spend some time getting more photographs.

---

Other News

BBC NEWS DEVON: Further damage to the railway line in Dawlish means it will not be repaired until mid-April, Network Rail has said. It had originally hoped to complete the repairs by the middle of March but the line suffered more damage on Friday. Network Rail said it was "conscious of the importance" of the line which connects Cornwall and most of Devon to the rest of the UK. The predicted date for the work to be completed comes just ahead of the Easter Bank Holiday. Good Friday falls on 18 April but the company said it hoped to "beat" its date.

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GRESLEY A4 PACIFIC NIGHT-TIME POSTSCRIPT Another viewing of the 'Great Goodbye' held recently at Shildon, but this time from quite a different atmospheric angle

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Council check: Bournemouth Borough Council Each Sunday, we take a look at how one of our local councils provides information on the buses operating on their patch. Today, we look at Bournemouth Borough Council (nice timing!)

The first Railway Bridge Out of London… A number of railway lines feed into, or out of London, depending on your perspective, and many of them pass over roads, or above viaducts — so which is the first railway bridge heading out of London?

The battle for Tavistock 2014

Question two of our survey was looking at the Tavistock corridor

Although there are nearly three times as many people who think that Citybus will reign supreme rather than First it has to be said the overall picture is more balanced than I expected with Citybus having the edge but two thirds of you see both operators still slugging it out at the end of the year.

 

©Tom Pearce

©Nick Rice
Both companies save their best kit for the Tavistock routes

There were a few extra comments left after this question:

First still have 75% of customers on this corridor, i don't think this will change that much, Citybus will not be able to make a profit on this corridor

Probably see First running more often Tavistock direct to Derriford.

Plymouth city bus will continue on the winning side, and perhaps some of the 2012 Volvos will enter into the blue flash livery to give extra services!

Whilst I have no option other than to say that we all live in a very competitive world nowadays :-( I do find it very sad that two reputable(?) concerns are fighting over a relative backwater (let's face it, this isn't London or any other densely populated corridor which we're discussing here) when they could be,and should be concentrating on providing and improving services in their already established areas of operation for their passengers (or customers whatever you prefer to call the paying punters nowadays) benefit which hopefully would repay the respective operator by improving their passenger numbers and consequent revenue. All this competition and subsequent over provision of bus services is undoubtedly very unfortunate and quite unnecessary really,and is a gross waste of manpower and resources

Despite the superior buses of PCT the better headway always seems to win as passengers will always get on what comes first, vehicle not company.

Both companies to arrange a compromise on all routes

I can't see Citybus giving up this one too easily. If First stick around, they will have to get used to sharing the corridor.

Because Plymouth city bus have wifi on their buses which is bound to make people want to travel on them

Next time we look at the Torpoint services.