Alongside the changes to Stagecoach services in Winchester, First have announced minor changes to bus services in Weymouth.
While we are waiting for a town to change services starting with W – let’s whittle the time away by finding out what changes will happen in Wessex. It’s enough to hypnotise you, in fact, that is where it came from.
Changes from 22 November
Most of the changes appear to be minor, there are a few minutes added here and there, possibly as towns return to a more normal level of congestion.
Service 1
Heading out to Portland, a few minutes additional running time has been added to the large majority of daytime trips. Some of the rush hour journeys have an extra 5 minutes.
Saturday sees a service uplift though. The service increases from Every 20 Minutes to Every 15 Minutes during the daytime, which would suggest that there is almost as much Saturday traffic as during the week. It would be interesting to see how this fares when the shops re-open on December 2nd.
Although Sunday timetables do not change, and I know that the Portland service has always been a little different…. I am impressed at the 0448 departure from town on a Sunday morning!
Service 10
All I can suggest is be at your stop the usual time. There are some services that will run a few minutes later than now; some are 1 minute different, some are 3 or 4!
Jurassic Coaster
The X51 and X53 have a full timetable change, partly in line with it now being a winter timetable as well.
Weekdays, most X53 from Weymouth to Bridport and Axminster run a few minutes later throughout, arriving at Axminster up to 5 minutes later than they are now. Likewise, the return trips from Axminster run up to 10 minutes earlier.
The X51 will leave Dorchester at the normal times, but will arrive in Axminster later, providing an hourly service between Bridport and Axminster with the X53
Saturdays see a similar change to times for the X53. The route will become two hourly though, because the X51 has a more drastic change. The Dorchester route will only operate 3 times on a Saturday, and between Dorchester and Bridport only.
This means that the Bridport to Axminster section of the Coaster will only have a 2-hourly X53 service.
Sundays will see the X53 remain 3-hourly, however the X51 will be suspended for the Winter.
As always, full details and timetables are available on the First Wessex COVID page, and timetables are also in PDF format by clicking the service numbers above!