Today has seen two news items relating to the Hampshire market town of Alton. While two days a week sees Cresta Coaches operate shopper bus routes 206/208 to nearby villages, Stagecoach South is very much the dominant operator. The town used to have its own bus depot, but these days services are now operated by an impressive six premises (five depots and one outstation).
- Aldershot: 9, 65X, 113, 123
- Basingstoke: 13
- Farringdon: 64 (some), 64X
- Guildford*: 65
- Portsmouth: 37X, 38, 38X
- Winchester: 64
(*I believe it is the Peasmarsh depot, rather than Leas Road depot, in Guildford that work the 65.)
The single outstation among the list of depots is Farringdon Business Park, located in the village of Lower Farringdon, around four miles south of Alton. It has been reported that this operating centre officially closed today, with vehicles moved to Winchester depot. The licence shows an authorisation of five vehicles here, with a look through the handy
bustimes.org website’s past tracking for local routes showing at least three regular dead runs to/from Farringdon on weekdays. The vehicles appear to have been regularly workings as follows, with I presume the longer slack time between some journeys in Winchester allowing for any required fuelling/vehicle swaps (although I guess these could also be done at other times during layover time between trips in Winchester too if required). These include journeys on routes 64, 64X, 67 and 69. I had previously twigged a link between Farringdon outstation and the not-so-local Winchester to Fareham 69 after recently being turfed off a late running Winchester-bound 69 before reaching the bus station, so the bus could head straight to Peter Symonds College for a college run which I noted on bustimes.org at the time appeared to run dead to Farringdon afterwards.
64: 0633 Alton – Winchester (0720)
64: 0730 Winchester – Eggars School (0820)
64: 0845 Alton – Winchester (0937)
64: 1045 Winchester – Alton (1135)
64: 1145 Alton – Winchester (1237)
64: 1245 Winchester – Alton (1335)
64: 1345 Alton – Winchester (1437)
64: 1445 Winchester – Alton (1535)
64: 1545 Alton – Winchester (1637)
64: 1650 Winchester – Alton (1740)
67: 0715 Petersfield – Winchester (0841)
64: 0845 Winchester – Alton (0935)
64: 0945 Alton – Winchester (1037)
69: 1325 Winchester – Fareham (1450)
69: 1455 Fareham – Winchester (1635)
64X: 1648 Peter Symonds College – Alton (1752)
64X: 0749 Four Marks – Peter Symonds College (0848)
64: 0945 Winchester – Alton (1035)
64: 1045 Alton – Winchester (1137)
64: 1145 Winchester – Alton (1235)
64: 1245 Alton – Winchester (1337)
64: 1345 Winchester – Alton (1435)
64: 1445 Alton – Winchester (1537)
64: 1545 Winchester – Alton (1635)
64: 1645 Alton – Winchester (1737)
64: 1750 Winchester – Alton (1840)
Since posting about this on
our Facebook page, I am told that Stagecoach are still looking to possibly replace the outstation rather than permanently move these workings to Winchester, and that the former Farringdon-based drivers are remaining on a separate Alton rota.