Regretfully, I have been deeply, deeply involved in the foundations of a completely different website recently, so I have not been keeping up with posts as much as I would have liked.
I know, I built this up during the world of COVID when we were all confined to quarters and I had lots of time on my hands while overseeing homeschooling. Thank you though to regular contributors like Clive, Reece and Tim among many others who have made sure that I have been up to date of late.
So, what has been going on over the last few weeks?
Morebus
Go South Coast brand morebus has been busy getting ready for the first summer season of wholly blue bus fleets.
Hidden within the usual mix of service frequency increases and the move to open-top buses, there are some new things coming too! Go South Coast will launch the new summer push in Poole Park on Good Friday!
We have actually already covered most of the new Breezer network that change this weekend, but …
- Services 30 and 31 (from 27th May) are now branded as the Jurassic Breezer
- Service 60 becomes the Harbour Breezer, with the summer increase from 27th May
- Beach Breezer 70 will be extended from 27th May to run Rockley Park, Poole, Compton Acres, Alum Chine, Bournemouth, Boscombe Pier, Hengistbury Head
- NEW Beach Breezer 80 will run Alum Chine, Bournemouth, Boscombe Pier, Hengistbury Head, Christchurch, Mudeford.
Morebus already have a new map with the 27th May service extensions included on their summer announcement page.
Bluestar
Now the largely exclusive operator for Southampton, Go South Coast have wasted no time in pushing their footprint in the city by acquiring the rights to the former City Red depot at Empress Road.
Now, I am not going to profess detailed knowledge on the matter; I do not know whether it is freehold, rented, or donated. I was originally led to believe that First Southampton owned the land and buildings when Empress Road was built, however I also heard that it was a council property.
A few of you did contact me to say that the disc allocation for Empress Road has been set at 154. Technically, this means that the 100 allocation at Eastleigh’s Barton Park depot, and the 47 at Totton could indeed all be merged into a single location. I would be wary of suggesting that Totton will be closed though, particularly as it has some strategic importance at the edge of the New Forest.
However
At the same time, the Bluestar 6 is already decanted to be run from the morebus brand depot at Lymington. It would not necessarily increase dead travel mileage if the duties that cover the Hythe and the West Totton subsidised services moved to Lymington – and I am not sure what the schools duties that encompass these entail.
With the loss of some of the Romsey area contracts as well (as HCC are not renewing them) I am not sure what the long-term plan for 200 Salisbury Road would be.
First Solent
All the talk of depots also means that I can conveniently move onto the depot situation at First Solent.
This is because First Bus have acquired The News Centre in Hilsea. For those that know the area, you will already know that First have rented some of the car park hard standing for parking for a very, very long time. I think even Transit Holdings (Red and Blue Admiral) parked there pre-First.
A bit of an important backstory first (not First) though. Land and buildings have already been acquired at Anchorage Park. I thought I had already posted about that, however it appears that was not the case.
So although there was plans for parking and other mechanical items close to the railway at Hilsea, it appears now that enough land for pits and parking has now been acquired right next to the existing Hilsea West depot.
The press release for the new Hilsea…. East(?) depot is inclined to suggest that it will be a 90-vehicle all-electric establishment. Hilsea West has permission for 67 vehicles; so it would be likely that this will be a straight replacement, albeit with an all new, all-electric fleet. I did overhear while sat in Southampton’s The Standing Order (Wetherspoons) from a Bluestar driver (it’s fine, he was drinking a soft drink) that Hoeford was expanding too; but I am largely of the opinion that he was under the mis-guidance, especially as Hoeford is also receiving electric vehicles and funding.
Routes 13, 18 and 22
As previously reported, the 13, 18 and 22 indeed do continue largely on their existing routes and schedules. I understand that they will all move to commercially viable services after various council tender reviews.
The 18 service, as a kind of death knell to the Ocean Park service 17, will no longer serve South Parade Pier, but will do a small loop around the Palmerston Road Shops.
First Wessex
Weymouth depot have registered for the cancellation of service 3 between the seafront and Westham. The service is currently running around every 45 minutes on an elongated figure eight sort of route.
Whether there is a plan to divert service 8 to cover some of the withdrawn sections of route, remains to be seen.
Transpora Bus
The new operator for Bournemouth – which has a number of schools contracts in the area – has registered a new service for Sightseeing Bournemouth.
The new T1 service will run between Bournemouth Pier – Hengistbury Head – Boscombe Pier from 21st April. No other information as yet and even the website only carries the small number of school buses they run in the area.
Stagecoach South
Also as a reminder, that Stagecoach South have a number of changes going on.
Monday will be the first run of the new 49 and 49h services, replacing Xelabus’ X9 and X10. As much as I would like to compliment the Xelabus operation, unfortunately the lack of ability to run early morning services made it so unreliable that I doubt Hampshire County Council could see how essential it was.
Monday also sees the changes to the E2 taking effect when it will divert to run away from Boyatt Wood and direct via the Twyford Road.
Stagecoach South will also be making changes to services in Portsmouth, Winchester and Basingstoke.
Far as I’m aware Bluestar are also gonna be basing Unilink at empress road as well
That would make sense as they are brands under the same management.
I live in Botley, and will be trying out the new Stagecoach 49 and 49h tomorrow. The 49h does has some advantages as it allows access to Hamble and Netley, something that has not been possible since Xelabus stopped the X15 service some time ago.
It will be very interesting to see just how many people use these services, and whether they can keep to the very tight timetable they have published, as traffic through Botley Square is very heavy, and the same goes for Wildern Lane and Hamble lane.
It would be interesting to see if the 49h is in fact more popular than the 49, with its easy to understand round trips.
Well I put together a spreadsheet showing the total days route starting at 08:16 at Swanmore and finishing at Bishops Waltham Square at 17:56.
There is a gap between 13:02 and 13:35 at the Hedge End Superstores, possibly to allow delays, as there is nowhere to park a bus there for that period of time.
Comments I got from elderly passengers on the X10 on Friday, were that the could not use their bus pass, as services start before 09:30. I would expect HCC to make an exception to that route, just as they did for the X9, as its an infrequent route.
Yes HCC has made the 09:05 journey to Hedge End available to bus pass holders.
I also got that impression from the Stagecoach co-driver who was guiding the driver around the new route, so he did not get lost! Apparently the same concessions apply on some of their other routes.
The 49h was much busier than the 49 which I started out on at 09:33 (Maypole).
The co-driver used to work with Xelabus on the X9/X10, and the old X15, so he knew the route. An interesting route which I had not been on for many years. Lots of people in Hamble-Le-Rice, enjoying the sun.
The Botley Outstation also does some journies on the 3,5,7,64,66,67,69 and spring