Go South Coast

[Wessexbuses]

Operating the Portland Port Cruise Shuttles today were ADL E400s 11(HF70 CUW), 1253(LX56 ETO), 1258(SN12 AOW), 1259(LK57 EJO), Volvo Geminis 1260(BL61 ADZ), 1261(LX03 EDV), 1262(LX05 FBC) & DAF DB250 8201(YJ05 PXM)


11 (HF70 CUW) | Weymouth Bus Spotter | Flickr
1253 (LX56 ETO) | Weymouth Bus Spotter | Flickr
1258 (SN12 AOW) | Weymouth Bus Spotter | Flickr
1261 (LX03 EDV) | Weymouth Bus Spotter | Flickr
1262 (LX05 FBC) | Flickr
8201 (YJ05 PXM) | Weymouth Bus Spotter | Flickr

 

[miklcct]

Morebus has announced its summer timetable which, again, a disappointment for me.

The only good thing is the m1 extension to Bournemouth Hospital, which is likely to bring the remaining passengers on Yellow Buses 3 to morebus.

In the West side of the town, the Wimborne Flyer will be changed to peak only and renamed 3x, while 3 will become a duplicate of 4 between Poole and Broadstone, replacing the short working of 4 off-peak. The number of slow buses per hour between Poole and Broadstone will remain at 4, which will all run to Wimborne, while the 2 fast buses will be gone off-peak. Also, half of the 8 and 9 will only run half loop via Hamworthy to Turlin Moor.

There are some adjustments in the Purbeck Breezer network as well. In particular, 50 will be modified to run via Christchurch Road permanently like when Holdenhurst Road was closed before, the second route with this change permanent after the U1, while the 70 will additionally serve Westbourne like the 50 with the Alum Chine section added, making it more slower than the 50. In addition, 31 is truncated to become a railway feeder from Wool only (not Wareham) and a new route 35 is added.

However, given the current beach weather, the hourly 50 is already jammed and I'm disappointed that the summer timetable didn't start in April like last year.

The official press release can be found here:

Route and Timetable Changes from Saturday 28th May

Our summer timetables will be introduced from Saturday 28th May to accommodate for the busy and sunny season ahead...

www.morebus.co.uk

 

[M803UYA]

The only good thing is the m1 extension to Bournemouth Hospital, which is likely to bring the remaining passengers on Yellow Buses 3 to morebus.

Without access to the ticket machine data for Yellows, how is the extension of the m1 going to ensure the loss of passengers from Yellow Buses? I'd anticipate some extraction of passengers, but can't see how that will result in the loss of all the passengers.
Introducing the m1 into the melee of Cooper Dean and the bottom part of Castle Lane should make the overall m1 service patchy in reliability. Go South Coast have invested much into the combined 3.5min headway on m1/m2 making their vehicles the first ones to the stop (and the first ones to the passengers).
So I can see the opposite happening when it comes to Yellow Buses services - they'll have more opportunity to be first to the stop and they no longer have the handicap of solely running to the Hospital.

 

[miklcct]

Without access to the ticket machine data for Yellows, how is the extension of the m1 going to ensure the loss of passengers from Yellow Buses? I'd anticipate some extraction of passengers, but can't see how that will result in the loss of all the passengers.
Introducing the m1 into the melee of Cooper Dean and the bottom part of Castle Lane should make the overall m1 service patchy in reliability. Go South Coast have invested much into the combined 3.5min headway on m1/m2 making their vehicles the first ones to the stop (and the first ones to the passengers).
So I can see the opposite happening when it comes to Yellow Buses services - they'll have more opportunity to be first to the stop and they no longer have the handicap of solely running to the Hospital.

Yellow Buses 3 is now only running at 20-minute headway instead of 15 in the past, making the m1, once extended, having much greater chance to be the first to the stop. It will also improve connectivity to Castlepoint with its express routes coming from Ringwood as well (the 14 / 15 only offers 3 buses per hour combined and not evenly spread) as I know some workers are forced onto paying singles on Yellow Buses because of the non-connection between the X-routes and the 14 / 15 services at the hospital, and also the fact that the X-routes only stop at the roundabout (a walkable distance from Castlepoint) in one direction.

After the extension of m1, the number of buses between the hospital and Castlepoint per hour (discounting route 2 which is circuitous through Townsend) in the daytime will be:

Yellow Buses 3: 3
Yellow Buses 4: 2
morebus m1: 8
morebus 14: 2
morebus 15: 1

As you can see, the m1 will make morebus much more likely to take passengers between the hospital and Castlepoint.

 

[baza585]

Without access to the ticket machine data for Yellows, how is the extension of the m1 going to ensure the loss of passengers from Yellow Buses? I'd anticipate some extraction of passengers, but can't see how that will result in the loss of all the passengers.
Introducing the m1 into the melee of Cooper Dean and the bottom part of Castle Lane should make the overall m1 service patchy in reliability. Go South Coast have invested much into the combined 3.5min headway on m1/m2 making their vehicles the first ones to the stop (and the first ones to the passengers).
So I can see the opposite happening when it comes to Yellow Buses services - they'll have more opportunity to be first to the stop and they no longer have the handicap of solely running to the Hospital.

Spot on. Yellows build in most of their layover time at RBH to aid service recovery. I doubt GSC will and I expect their service will fall apart at peak times.

Yellows response will be interesting......

 

[E-Rail]

The 50 only went half hourly at April last year to help with social distancing and was fully supported with government Covid funding. It was considered repeating this year but the current staffing situation ruled it out. Given the shortage of drivers, it's a miracle it's increasing at all this year.

 

[M803UYA]

Spot on. Yellows build in most of their layover time at RBH to aid service recovery. I doubt GSC will and I expect their service will fall apart at peak times.

Yellows response will be interesting......

It was always something I was pretty keen on, when scheduling was proper layover time at either termini. And the hospital was no exception. As a scheduler I made two assumptions - the bus had sufficient time to make it's journey, and that it started on time.
I wasn't aware the 3 had been dropped to 20 mins, I recall an earlier timetable c2015 where I planned some of the journeys to turn short at Castlepoint - so over the 'common' section we were frequent against the m1. Takings improved as we were getting first to the bus stop. This I know as I used to track the monthly takings off the ticket machine data. Pretty rudimentary but you could see by route the on bus revenue and passengers.
Go South Coast don't schedule their vehicles in the same manner, so bunching is commonplace. The 15 was a route which was constantly fiddled with under the pretext of 'improved reliability'. They would retime the 1715 journey to leave 5 minutes later each service change.
In practice, the c1715 journey on the 15 from Hospital to Poole was always late due to the peak traffic levels at Cooper Dean and down the bottom of Castle Lane. The m1 will be going through this on all journeys, and I foresee reliability issues which Yellows will take advantage of. Obviously my experience is some 5-7 years old but I would wager the traffic levels in that part of Bournemouth would have worsened over the last 5 years.

 

[route101]

How long do you reckon the Bluestar Scania deckers have in service?

 

[PTR 444]

Morebus has announced its summer timetable which, again, a disappointment for me.

The only good thing is the m1 extension to Bournemouth Hospital, which is likely to bring the remaining passengers on Yellow Buses 3 to morebus.

In the West side of the town, the Wimborne Flyer will be changed to peak only and renamed 3x, while 3 will become a duplicate of 4 between Poole and Broadstone, replacing the short working of 4 off-peak. The number of slow buses per hour between Poole and Broadstone will remain at 4, which will all run to Wimborne, while the 2 fast buses will be gone off-peak. Also, half of the 8 and 9 will only run half loop via Hamworthy to Turlin Moor.

There are some adjustments in the Purbeck Breezer network as well. In particular, 50 will be modified to run via Christchurch Road permanently like when Holdenhurst Road was closed before, the second route with this change permanent after the U1, while the 70 will additionally serve Westbourne like the 50 with the Alum Chine section added, making it more slower than the 50. In addition, 31 is truncated to become a railway feeder from Wool only (not Wareham) and a new route 35 is added.

However, given the current beach weather, the hourly 50 is already jammed and I'm disappointed that the summer timetable didn't start in April like last year.

The official press release can be found here:

Route and Timetable Changes from Saturday 28th May

Our summer timetables will be introduced from Saturday 28th May to accommodate for the busy and sunny season ahead...

www.morebus.co.uk

The 3x is not a direct replacement of the Wimborne Flyer, but rather an alternative route going via Darbys Corner, Waterloo Road and Willis Way (for the retail park) where it rejoins the 3’s previous fast route. I believe the section from Fleetsbridge roundabout north was the old route of the long-winded 133 Poole - Wimborne - Ferndown - Bournemouth before that was scrapped in 2005/6. Since then, the only bus provision along that route has been the irregular 32 (2 buses per day) and the hourly 18 which goes to Bournemouth via Canford Heath rather than Poole.

Still, this will be a massive inconvenience for Corfe Mullen residents, who will have to endure a longer journey for most of the day. Worse still, the connections for the train are much poorer, as the new 3 will arrive in Poole at xx12 and xx42 for most of the day, a few minutes after the xx07 and xx40 fast trains towards London Waterloo have departed respectively.

 

[route101]

I noticed Bluestar has an older E200 in service on the 8. Never noticed this bus before. Was this in the reserve fleet?

 

[Jamesbus80]

I noticed Bluestar has an older E200 in service on the 8. Never noticed this bus before. Was this in the reserve fleet?

There are two - 2718 and 2720 (HF64BPU / BPX) that were transferred down from Salisbury in 2020. One is usually found on the Hythe or Totton locals (depending on the day of operation) with the other generally out of service or on schools. However, as you saw, it sometimes escapes out to Southampton on the Waterside routes.


That really was the LED when I photographed it - one of the most pale I’ve seen.

 

[Jamesbus80]

Go South Coast are in the process of receiving their next batch of buses for the Bournemouth University routes. I travelled past Poole depot on the train yesterday and managed to snap this shot, which shows four in view.




Facing the camera head on (from the right) is presently un-numbered HF22UXX.
Next along is 1696 - haven't seen the registration.
Next along is 1690 (HF22UYx) - I couldn't see the last digit when I went around the back of hte depot. A zoom in on my photograph suggests it could be HF22UYA but that's a very unreliable source (but would match the potential registration sequence).
There's another bus parked behind that one.

Hope this is of interest,
James

 

[route101]

Go South Coast are in the process of receiving their next batch of buses for the Bournemouth University routes. I travelled past Poole depot on the train yesterday and managed to snap this shot, which shows four in view.

View attachment 117435


Facing the camera head on (from the right) is presently un-numbered HF22UXX.
Next along is 1696 - haven't seen the registration.
Next along is 1690 (HF22UYx) - I couldn't see the last digit when I went around the back of hte depot. A zoom in on my photograph suggests it could be HF22UYA but that's a very unreliable source (but would match the potential registration sequence).
There's another bus parked behind that one.

Hope this is of interest,
James

Interesting, what will these replace?

Is there anything new for Bluestar this year?

 

[43055]

Interesting, what will these replace?

Is there anything new for Bluestar this year?

Would imagine they are replacing the existing unibus E400 MMC's. Fleet no's 1623-1634, 1655, 1672

 

[Gc1986]

I wonder if anything will be passed down to replace the aging deckers in Swindon. They do still have 2 51 plates in the fleet.

 

[Surreyman]

I wonder if anything will be passed down to replace the aging deckers in Swindon. They do still have 2 51 plates in the fleet.

I think Andrew Wickham has stated that some of the displaced E400 MMCs are for Swindon.

 

[Ancelljb]

I wonder if anything will be passed down to replace the aging deckers in Swindon. They do still have 2 51 plates in the fleet.

Andrew Wickham has said on Twitter (link here):

These will trigger a cascade of buses meaning Swindon will receive newer buses.

Suggesting that the current university MMCs won't be moving to Swindon, but will be displacing other vehicles in the group which will in turn displace some newer vehicles to Swindon

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Andrew Wickham has said on Twitter (link here):



Suggesting that the current university MMCs won't be moving to Swindon, but will be displacing other vehicles in the group which will in turn displace some newer vehicles to Swindon

That makes a bit more sense. Much of the Swindon DD fleet is employed only on schools and the odd associated peak hour run (unless they've plans to reduce frequencies and employ deckers on regular routes) so MMCs might be a bit of overkill.

 

[Dorsetbus]

Mmc's are staying in poole and Bournemouth.

 

[E-Rail]

2 MMCs (1655 and 1672) are going to Pimperne for the X8.

 

[Dorsetbus]

1547 is off to Lymington

 

[route101]

Noticed Bluestar have 56 plate deckers out in service. Not seen these before, were these in reserve?

 

[baza585]

Noticed Bluestar have 56 plate deckers out in service. Not seen these before, were these in reserve?

Yes they are ex London. Briefly in service but then put into reserve due to woeful reliability.

Have GSC sent some newer stuff to Commonwealth Games perhaps?

 

[route101]

Yes they are ex London. Briefly in service but then put into reserve due to woeful reliability.

Have GSC sent some newer stuff to Commonwealth Games perhaps?

I think it may have been down to Bluestar needing buses for the Graduation shuttles at St Marys. The 58 plate Scania decker's must be up for replacement soon.+

 

[BenS123]

So it appears recently morebus have boosted their fleet for taking over Yellow Buses' old routes by:

- Taking delivery of 9 (out of 15) new ADL Enviro400 MMC buses for UNIBUS
- Transferring 8 ADL Enviro200 buses from Salisbury Reds
- Transferring 3 ADL Enviro200 MMC buses from Bluestar
- Transferring a Scania N94UD OmniDekka bus from Bluestar
- Transferring a ADL Enviro400 bus from Bluestar

(Source for the above: https://bustimes.org/operators/morebus/vehicles)

I was wondering, how morebus may redo their routes/network, whether just renumbering some routes or completely redrawing the map.

 

[Ostrich]

I think I caught a glimpse of 2711 working around Shaftesbury on the 29 on Saturday.
It was in Reds livery, but 2711 isn't one of the traditional batch of 27xx single-deckers I'd normally associate with Salisbury, it's an ex-Newport vehicle? Was it a mis-sighting?
And is it unusual for a 27xx to appear on the 29 - it's normally a 38xx on that route, isn't it?

 

[Dorsetbus]

So it appears recently morebus have boosted their fleet for taking over Yellow Buses' old routes by:

- Taking delivery of 9 (out of 15) new ADL Enviro400 MMC buses for UNIBUS
- Transferring 8 ADL Enviro200 buses from Salisbury Reds
- Transferring 3 ADL Enviro200 MMC buses from Bluestar
- Transferring a Scania N94UD OmniDekka bus from Bluestar
- Transferring a ADL Enviro400 bus from Bluestar

(Source for the above: https://bustimes.org/operators/morebus/vehicles)

I was wondering, how morebus may redo their routes/network, whether just renumbering some routes or completely redrawing the map.

All 15 Unibus have arrived with the three new art buses still in Poole depot.

 

[BenS123]

All 15 Unibus have arrived with the three new art buses still in Poole depot.

Apologies - my only source was bustimes.org

 

[Gc1986]

Drove past the Swindon Depot today. There looked like a hint of a Red double decker from the distance. Any news?

 

[PTR 444]

Saw this on my travels to Bournemouth yesterday:




A yellow double decker in Morebus livery!