Roundup

Reading Time: 4 minutes

There are quite a few little bits that are floating about and are not necessarily big enough for their own post. This roundup covers Eastleigh, Portsmouth and Gosport.

I had planned to annoy you all while you were wandering around the Bournemouth Bus Rally yesterday. I had the unfortunate task of working on a Sunday, so I was unable to see the delights that morebus, Transpora and others brought along to join the plethora of older restored vehicles.

From the pictures I have seen on Twitter and Facebook (at least, while Elon Musk was not playing around with things) it looks like the weather was good and the buses plentiful.

As I press “publish” on this post, it is greetings from The Imperial, a Green King Pub just off of Leicester Square in Central London. I had a small heart attack when they said £6.90 for a pint of Level Head, but it is a good pint to try if you like something a little more fruity in flavour.

Bluestar timetables announced

The replacement services for the Xelabus commercial operation around Eastleigh has been announced by Bluestar. Thanks to Clive for letting me know the timetables are now live!

The X4 and X4A run between Hedge End, Eastleigh and Velmore under a variety of guises, both as a through Crosstown route and as separated services. It is a commercial operation that has lost money over the more recent years, with Simon Gard’s Southampton Mini Link also having a stab in the west Eastleigh area as well.

Bluestar replacement service 23 will run between Eastleigh and Velmore. The slightly earlier running timings would suggest that there is no change to the route, although an extra morning bus will run on weekdays. The Saturday service will reduce to run two hourly though.

Bluestar replacement service 24 will run between Eastleigh and Hedge End. Again some times change slightly from the X4 currently running. Saturday services on this route will also reduce to running every two hours.

These changes take effect on Sunday 30th July.

*** NOW ***

I won’t take credit for realising this, as it was first spotted on the Southampton Bus Update that the team at Go South Coast have skipped the numbers Bluestar 21 and 22. It does not appear to be replacing the X10 and X11 as Xelabus have confirmed they are not currently reviewing them – so what? If anything?

Less Greens around schools as well

Xelabus have also announced that they will cease running some schools and college services from September:

• Services 301 to 305 for St Georges School
• Services 402 & 404 to 408 for Barton Peveril College
• Service X9A between Fair Oak and Swanmore College

Philip Blair has confirmed on SBU that these are being moved to Bluestar as well. We have previously noted a strange mid-school year cancellation of Bluestar college routes (which actually I think was an error and was meant to be revisions for exam season), but at the same time this could actually give Go South Coast a change to re-cast the majority of the Barton Peveril network, if they felt the need.

Stagecoach also replacing greens

The Stagecoach registration is merely a temporary change relating to cycle lane works closing Eastleigh Bus Station (Thanks Andy)

Stagecoach also have a change registered for the E1 and E2 from Sunday 17th July. The registration states that it is rerouted to replace a Xelabus withdrawn service.

Traveline is reporting that the timetable is only effective 17 July to 04 August, although at the same time it goes to load the existing service which was re-routed back in April to cover the X9 coming into the top of Eastleigh (or was it the X10? No… that was the Southampton one wasn’t it?)

We have also previously reported that Stagecoach have changes registered for the 95 and 67 at the end of the month.

Changes at First Solent

There are a few changes to First Solent in August:

• The schools variation to TheStar7 – numbered 7A for Oaklands school – is being removed from the registration.
• The schools variation to service 2 – numbered 2A for Portsmouth College – is being removed from the registration

Whether these services will gain their own service registration, or whether they are being removed altogether is unknown.

I have also yet to see the cancellations for other supported services in Portsmouth being withdrawn; so if this means that Portsmouth College will lose all it’s scheduled buses remains to be seen.

• Eclipse services E1 and E2 have a timetable variation listed from Sunday 23rd July. Details are unknown.
• Fareham service F1 has a timetable change from Sunday 23rd July. Details are unknown.
• theStar 7 and 8 services have a timetable change listed for Sunday 3rd September.

Changes at First Wessex

Thanks to Tony Smale for letting me know that Weymouth depot has it’s high season coaster changes coming up:

The currently hourly X50 between Weymouth and Wool gets extended to Swanage (competing with Breezer 30). There are no changes shown for the X54 through to Poole though.

The revised timetable is in the digital copy of the new timetable booklet, available directly from the First Wessex website >> here <<

Unibus U5 for Bournemouth Students

Excelsior, a part of the Go South Coast group of brands, will be running a Wednesday Only coach service between Lansdowne and Talbot Campus, non-stop to Chapel Gate near Bournemouth Airport.

This would suggest it is primarily aimed at Bournemouth University students heading to the sports pitches and it is included within the the University students annual bus passes.

There will be no cash fares and frankly I would doubt there is any use for anyone other than those at the University heading for Sports Wednesday.

More details HERE.

Lastly….

Am I the only one having problems with the TravelineSW website at the moment? The website can see changes to timetabled services because if you search for a particular service (lets use First Solent’s E1 and E2 as an example) it shows a new timetable from 23 July; however when I select it I get the current timetable.

This seems to happen with all the current changes for me. It might be that the new timetable is not yet available and the cross checking from service registrations causes the anomaly. It might just be that TravelineSW has made a back end change….