Seen Around

Roger French runs an excellent blog Bus & Train User which does a great job showcasing the best and worst of bus and train travel in the UK, and a few days ago Plymouth Citybus got a mention, and not in a good way..

Plymouth Citybus cuts itself off

It’s never easy running a bus company and keeping on top of vehicle presentation out on the road, not least when panels with vinyls on them need replacing from time to time or someone goes and sticks an advert board over company branding as illustrated below on my recent visit to Plymouth

read more here.

Meanwhile a great example of a Plymouth bus looking really good…

©Ian Byrne

There will be a further chance to see 171 and possibly a few more of the Plymouth City Transport preservation group buses at the Plym Valley Railway on Sunday 3rd December . The group will be supporting a free bus service  to the city centre from 11am.

THE TRAGIC MISSED OPPORTUNITY OF CORNWALL

Not my words but those of a blog: FREEWHEELING

If there is one bus network, other than my immediate local one, that I know well, it is the bus network of West Cornwall.

As a family, we’ve been visiting Penzance at least once a year since I was 5.

But this year, I was particularly looking forward to our easiest-ever visit.

I’d read a lot about the ambitions of Cornwall Council in improving the bus network - and the money they’ve been given by central Government to help.

As a car-free family visiting a rural area, I assumed we’d benefit from more buses and better service.

But I’m afraid we were in for a serious disappointment…

Its well worth a read. https://www.freewheeling.info/blog/the-tragic-missed-opportunity-of-cornwall

I have to say I agree with pretty much everything he says – Cornwall is very much a missed opportunity to be so much better.

Fat Bloke in Plymouth–the prequal

Many of you will already read the Public Transport Experience blog which is entertaining and very often controversial. It seems Fat Bus Bloke has visited Torpoint to check out the scene. The first three parts really just set the scene with the real meat coming this week…

The Trouble with Torpoint Part 1

On arrival (on time) at Plymouth station, it is a short, signposted walk out of the station, over a footbridge to the busy bus stop. Assuming, as ever, you know which side of the road you want. fbb did!

The Trouble with Torpoint Part 2

Which brings us to 2013 and the former municipality's significant encroachment into First's traditional out-of-town territory; a policy which had started in 2009 when red buses rode eastwards to Plympton in the form of City Bus 5. GoAhead started its "Blue Flash" route 12 to Tavistock, followed soon after by route 32 to Torpoint, both deep into First's territory.

The Trouble with Torpoint Part 3

Torpoint is, of course, in that land of Piskies and Pasties "where be Dragons" known as Cornwall (Kernow) rapidly claiming its Celtic origins with its own flag ...

Hopefully a proper posting tomorrow – sheer lack of time to complete anything tonight…

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East Norfolk Bus: Ex X1 Geminis Sunday 10 November

Public Transport Experience: An Infestation of Spiders Monday 11 November

Busworld Photography: NMB70P Monochrome Monday 11 November

South East Bus Scene: Lest we forget Monday 11 November

Public Transport Experience: An infestation of spiders2. Tuesday 12 November

Busworld Photography: Metrobus Mk2 Tuesday 12 November

East Norfolk Bus: Willowbrook Swifts Tuesday 12 November

Busworld Photography: L646SEU Tuesday 11 November

Public Transport Experience: An Infestation of spiders part 3 Wednesday 13 November

East Norfolk Bus: Willowbrook Swifts at Eastern Counties Wednesday 13th November

Public Transport Experience: Praise for platinum Pt1 Sunday 17 November

Recommended Reading

As its been a while I have quite a lot of blogs to catch up on, so I present an extra post with the recent posts on a few of the blogs I recommend.

 

• I doubt many people noticed, certainly not those who saw the film in the United States, but it just goes to show that you don’t need a Routemaster to prove you’re in London. Omnibuses
• Next weekend sees a big day for London: the complete conversion of the first route to see 100 per cent New Buses for London (NBfLs), the LT-class Omnibuses
• The other question has to be: where next? To register three competitive routes in such a short space of time is unusual and you have to question whether or not it’s part of a larger plan. How such activity can be afforded is also questionable Omnibuses

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• Whilst regular users of the station may well have been able to cope with the changes, fbb has to confess to being thoroughly disorientated and befuddled. Public Transport Experience
• A few days ago, long-time blogger Busing was offering his somewhat depressing views (from a bus operator's point of view) on attempts to persuade folk out of their cars and onto buses. fbb offers a few suggestions. Public Transport Experience
• The effect of this lovely leaflet on fbb is to persuade him to saunter from Seaton to Swanage as soon a possible to enjoy this network. Public Transport Experience

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• Recently acquired Optare Solo M1020 626 MX55 BXO has been repainted into the latest fleet livery and is expected to enter service soon Andys Bus Blog
• The 5th annual Clacton Bus Rally took place on Sunday 2nd June 2013, the event which is held at the Clacton Factory Outlet attracted an interesting selection of over 50 buses both old and new Andys Bus Blog
• Following on from our previous post we are pleased to see that the brand new BBC documentary series (with a revised title) The Route Masters: Running London's Roads begins next week! Andys Bus Blog
• In our first Looking back... photo special for a while, we are taking a look at an interesting selection of classic coaches photographed in Norfolk in the late 1970's Andys Bus Blog

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• Once again, I have had the privilege of one of my photos being selected by Western Greyhound for use on their mini timetable guides! PTOTPA
• the photo this week depicts one of Western Greyhounds very impressive looking Optare Solo SRs in Truro, taken at the tail end of last summer. PTOTPA

Happy Birthday

Precisely 50 years ago today, on Wednesday 20th June 1962, a brand new coach was delivered to Western National's Kingsbridge depot.

You can follow 270KTA on her own blog which is well recommended as it details the many ups and downs of owning such an old coach.  

today I am seven

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!

Well that was the very first post on Plymothian Transit way back on the 31st March 2005 which with my analysts hat on, I can tell you was 7 years ago today. yep, SEVEN YEARS! I gave up the idea of trying to post every day a long time ago. I think I am probably on about 5 a week which seems to be manageable and keeps things moving along nicely.

As for the first proper post:

First Devon and Cornwall still operate this ancient Mercedes 'bread van' which is registered J143SJT. Seen here just leaving the main Plymouth bus depot this week it has just been treated to a new repaint into the latest barbie livery. This is a real suprise as most of the rest of this batch have been sold along with many other newer minibuses. Normally this would mean that its likely that this bus will be around for some time yet, but this is First Group - so anything could happen

 

 

 

 

We do have a thriving bus enthusiast scene here in Plymouth which has certainly helped keep the blog going for all of this time. There have been many times when I didnt have anything to post myself that someone else has come up trumps and sent me something, or made a suggestion. The use of Flickr has also grown over the years which has given access to an amazing treasure trove of photos, the owners of which have nearly always been happy for me to use on the blog. Like many others I was with Fotopic before but I jumped ship quite early, well before they hit problems taking all their members photos with them. Flickr has so many options to make sharing photos easier that its an essential blogging tool!

The other thing which has helped this blog so much over the years is the involvement of quite a few people within the industry. Senior staff within both Citybus and First have popped in occasionally and either sent photos or given me information or just answered questions I posted. (Special thanks to my friend Brian George at Citybus who has supplied many photos over the years with permission from the company).

One of the biggest changes I have seen has been in the number of other bus blogs which have sprung up (and have actually lasted!). The excellent Omnibuses Blog is slightly older than me with a few occasional postings from back in 2004 but it was the end of August 2005 when he started posting daily. This is still required viewing and still pretty much every day – dont know how he does it! I now have quite a few on my daily lists, most of which appear below my blog posts. This is a totally manual process and all done in html the old fashioned way so occasionally I get behind but hopefully its still worth it. I know I have helped many people discover new blogs which has helped the new blogs get new readers. If you know people are reading your blog and let you know, it does make it easier to post.

Thanks again to all who have contributed over the seven years, and to those who have just popped along and read a few postings. This time last year I was running at aprox 6000 views a month. My views for March 2012 have just gone over the 10,000 views for the first time. Wow!

So, stick around, there might just be something interesting along…

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Dont Forget

Plymouth Hoe 10am – the launch of the new Volvo Wright buses for Plymouth Citybus.

Once the official launch and pictures are taken then the buses will be rolled out onto our service 43, enabling enthusiasts to get pictures of at least seven of the ten in service on the same day. I will be happy to give enthusiasts a ride around the City on one of the buses before it enters service.

Sadly I am still officially off sick so I wont be there (gutted!) but I will be bringing you pictures later. Enjoy yourselves!!

Related Links

• Hello World! 31 March 2005 Plymothian Transit

Elsewhere on the net

• With many thanks to David Morgan, I can bring you this brilliant photo of (quite obviously!) Ex-Plymouth Enviro 400, WA56 FUD back at work in her new home of Bristol. PTOTPA
• An answer was found in the form of the 'Floating Railway' ferry system devised by Thomas Bouch, then a youthful and successful engineer untainted by the later Tay Bridge disaster Public Transport Experience

Bonus Link post: Tamar Bridge being built

“While researching material for the Blue Sound project, I came across some very interesting newspaper cuttings from 1959 and 1960 which showed the bridge as it was being built.”

With all the fuss over the current resurfacing works on the Tamar Bridge I thought it worth an extra post to highlight this posting on the excellent Plymouth Local History Blog

Plymouth Transport Illustrated

With the main rally season over the emphasis of these reports will switch to archive photos until the new year, so, where to begin? When I started to look at the statistics for the blog one very consistent source of traffic was Graham Richardson's 'PlymothianTransit' blog so in thanks here is a selection of views from Plymouth in 1980 and 1985.


Transport Illustrated

I have always tried to include links to other blogs out there as I think blogs are a great way putting your work on the internet. It has been good to see some real high quality blogs appear over the past couple of years. Thanks to Rob for the kind words in his latest post!

Monochrome Musings

"A wonderful collection of fine art photography” Highton-Ridley Musings in Monochrome

A web site I have recommended before is the photo gallery of Highton-Ridley. A wonderful collection of fine art photography is on show, much of it based on the local area. Shots illustrating the beauty of the area along with some great shots showing the industrial decay in and around Plymouth too. As well as his gallery web site he has a blog Musings in Monochrome where he really interacts with readers. He actively encourages comments on his art works and has regular prizes of signed art prints. Just register as a member using the Google gadget and make comments as you see fit. I subscribe to his blog and always look out for his work. I encourage you all to go and have a look, and make comments on his work. I do this because I think its worth looking at, and not just because I have just won a signed print this month! I have actually requested one of the shots shown in the screen shot above - I am sure you can guess which one!

Plymouth Local History

"a small snippet of local history” Others... Omnibuses 2.0 Microsites TGP: Ozzy etc

Plymouth Local History Blog is a newish blog by Derek Tait which I have been following for a short while now. Its a nice simple blog with one or two posts each week offering a small snippet of local history just like the one above. It only started in March so its easy to go back through all the posts, which is well worth the effort. Links to other new posts I notice will appear in the side bar alongside the others I usually post there. On a personal note, sorry for the lack of action here over the past week or so. I have now been signed off work awaiting a hospital appointment for further tests of my ongoing chest pain. Although this does mean I can sit indoors and spend more time at the computer, it also means I cant get out and about much at all. I am severely restricted as to what I can do at the moment, and quite frankly blogging has often been far from my mind as I have been feeling so rough. I will be trying to get back into regular posts but until things settle down expect the occasional gap!

A new blog on the block

"I am a young transport enthusiast from the Plymouth area”

A new blog for the area, started recently by Tom Pearce, a young bus enthusiast from Plymouth. he certainly gets out and about a lot more than I do so if he keeps it up (and that not easy!) its worth a visit. LINK Good luck Tom!

Communications

"We must be doing something right. Question is can we keep it up? ”

Omnibuses 2.0 is one of the daily must read sites as far as I am concerned as it often covers the areas that the usual enthusiast sites don't. This latest post is no exception, and although it covers the South Coast specifically, it does raise some general points about customer communication. All very interesting of course but its actually a couple of the comments that make it interesting from a Plymothian Transit point of view. Look for the comments from someone ‘big’ in Plymouth Citybus. Informative as usual! LINK

The tgpresence

The past year has been very enjoyable but always there was the conflict between what was wanted and what was possible. There never was enough time. So in 2009 you will see changes that will release time seeing I cannot create any more!

Terry Partridge.

Being a bus enthusiast in Plymouth is made so much more interesting and entertaining when you have people like Terry Partridge around. His knowledge and his photo archive is amazing and his enthusiasm for his own fleet of buses, and helping others preserve theirs by sharing his knowledge he is well respected by enthusiasts and operators alike.

If you want to keep up with Terry then he has a great set of blogs on the go for 2009:
tgprojects - His jottings!

tgpreserved - Keep up with his fleet
tgphotos - photos  lots of them - on just about anything - but always interesting!
tgphotos - five a day - even more photos!

TGP Flickr account - nearly 14000 photos and counting!

 

The fact that he credits me with his introduction to blogging is a source of great pride!!

The Plymothian Transit Photo Blog

Plymouth Citybus Photoblog is no more, well its still there, but its not being updated anymore. But dont worry it still lives on in spirit. The all new Plymothian Transit Photoblog is the successor to PCP. It has been designed to show off the photos in a much larger size than the old blog could manage. It will cover all forms of transport in Plymouth, just like the main blog. It will only consist of a single photo along with a caption. Nothing more, nothing less.

www.plymtransitphoto.blogspot.com

South Devon Conundrum

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours taking photos at Marsh Mills so of course I was able to observe a number of X80's and X45s coming in.

Apart from One Trident seen leaving Plymouth all the X80s were Volvo B6BLE Wright bodied single deckers. Most like this one having a reasonable number of passengers, but certainly not full.

Stagecoach on the other hand had three different Dennis Trident double deckers pass through in the same time. Each one was almost full. One actually had a couple of standing passengers although I could see a few empty seats upstairs. Based on yesterdays evidence it would seem that Stagecoach are winning the battle.

So which company has just announced it is withdrawing from the route just as the summer season gets going?

First must think its Christmas!

I was in Town this morning with the intention of spending the day in town and maybe even tracking down the Scania demonstrator. In the end, as I have a miserable cold and was feeling rough I just spent 40 mins or so taking pictures and came home. I don't know if the Scania was out and about today but I will just have to make do with everyone else's photos of this beast. Sometimes even I don't feel up to bus spotting - I must be getting old!

I did get some more work on a major project of mine done though, which will soon be added to the Plymothian Transit blog site. Watch this space!

Plymouth Citybus 273 M273HOD

With the first of the new Enviro single deckers due very shortly there are a number of buses who will soon be facing life outside of the pampered confines of Plymouth Citybus. 273 is the oldest numerically of the bread van fleet although being in the new livery might just help its cause! Surprisingly there is still a market out there for well looked after breadvans like these so expect most to see further service.

This photo is one of a series being posted to the sister Plymouth Citybus Photo Blog, all in this style. Other blogs of mine include Transit Elsewhere which looks at current public transport news stories from around the country and the brand new Passenger Quotes which looks at some of the odd things which passengers have to say about their bus service. They are all genuine quotes and serve to illustrate just what bus companies are up against! Read and weep!

New Blog on the Block

© budgie/ Rich B

TV3) VDV782 Plymouth garage 26-8-80

The "TV" numbering series was applied to most (though not all) of Western National's dedicated driver training vehicles. Here we see TV3, a Bristol LD6G / ECW at the company's Plymouth depot in August 1980. In its revenue earning life this bus had carried fleet number 1948. It has received a yellow waistband as opposed to the all-over yellow usually applied to trainers brought in from other operators

Posted here because its a great photo - and to point out that he has a new blog which some of you may be interested in: Buses in the South West

Its early days - but its already got plenty there to keep me coming back!

L401VCV TGP

The first Dart for Western National (ignoring the Red Bus fleet) is now in the safe hands of Terry Partridge 'Inner Circle Group' and will soon be in for her MOT. This is just one of many photos of Terrys fleet which can be found on his new Flickr acount.

He has also started a new blog which can be found here. If you want to see quality photos then head to Terrys pages!

Omnibuses 2.0

The excellent Omnibuses blog has had a refresh and now calls itself omnibuses 2.0! Its certainly a lot easier on the eye and still has the same up-to-date content that makes it so interesting. The post today is a useful one as its a quick listing of other notable bus related blogs out there.
The list can be found here.

I have also added links to most for them on this blog to the right (I thought I already had links there but they seem to have been lost somewhere along the line!)

358 MCO658

Two reasons to post this photo tonight:

When I first started the Plymouth Citybus Photo Blog I ran in fleet number order so ended with 358. I have now started the fleet again, but this time I am running in the order they joined the fleet, so 358 is the first one having arrived nearly 30 years before 175 - which I have just posted tonight.

Thanks to Simon Coates for confirming the bus rally this weekend - although sadly no running day on Saturday. Check the web site for more details