The Not Stagecoach Roundup

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Today’s plan was to do a single post with all the little bits of updates that are going on at the moment. So if you want to find something swoopy and stiped, its all on a separate post about Stagecoach. This though, will be a round-up of everything else, hopefully; because I can not stretch out our first company to enough words.

Xelabus

The Park and Ride service for Southsea returns for the summer and Portsmouth City Council have awarded the contract to the boys in green for another season. All timetables for the entire season have appeared on TravelineSW but they have not appeared on the Xelabus website yet.

The service began last weekend (9th June) and is running Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holiday until Sunday 1st September. Buses run every half-hour from 0935 from Tipner Park and Ride to Commercial Road, Old Portsmouth and a loop of Clarence Pier and the D-Day Museum. The last trip is 1932 from Clarence Pier.

On Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th July the service will run every 15 minutes, presumably for the Portsmouth International Kite Festival. There will also be some changes during Victorious…. presumably.

There is no weekday service during the summer holidays. That is a change from the 2023 season.

The timetable for the PR3 is available on the Portsmouth Park and Ride website.

Go South Coast

So, something is afoot on the mainland GSC companies.

Among all the timetable changes for the Isle of Wight Festival, and the New Forest Tour routes is a few anomalies that don’t seem to make sense to me.

So the easy bits:

Boscombe Beach Bus re-appears with the service 99 showing a route and timetable change from Sunday 20th July. I do recall seeing 2710 during a trip to Bournemouth not long ago, wearing the Beach Bus colours (and on the pre-opentop service 70)

This year it appears that after calling at Pokesdown (for Boscombe) Railway Station, the 99 will run via Wentworth Avenue towards Sainsburys, rather than via Corpus Christi School. The season for the 99 has also reduced as last years trial started at Easter.

The New Forest Tour restarts on 29th June. All the details are on the dedicated morebus page, but it does not appear that there are any route changes.

Now:

There are a few cancellations for services that are taking place on Friday 9th August.

• Durlston Country Park service D5 will not run this year as funding has not been secured to support the service. The service is not showing on BODS, so presumably the cancellation is just tidying up.
• The King’s Park to Boscombe Park and Ride last run in…. 2022?
• The Creekmoor Christmas Park and Ride service into Poole which has not run for years as far as I know (and was a COVID testing site for a while)
• and now…. Salisbury Reds 333. This is not to be confused with the Stonehenge Tour which as far as I know is still running. The 333 is the bus service that is run for Stonehenge solstice events (like this coming week) is this moving to a new operator?

Now I know, Stonehenge is outside our normal area, it just seems an odd cancellation for something that has been run for a long time.

and finally….. new buses are coming to the X3. Six new ADL E400MMC are not electric, but are being shown off on Tuesday in Ringwood.

First

First up are changes in the Fareham area where First Solent are curtailing extensions to Botley Station on service 28.

Experiment over?

First Solent service 28/A curtailed to run Fareham to North Whiteley from 30th June. The peak time extensions to Botley Station will no longer run.

Changes to the timetable as well with the morning 28s changing which ones terminate where.

— Hants Bus Blog (@HantsBus) June 7, 2024

From Monday 1st of July, the early morning trips on the 28 will also swap around where they will end their journeys.

• The 0620 to Botley will now run at 0625 and finish at Park Gate with no return trip
• The 0650 will now extend beyond Swanwick Station to Whiteley and then pick up the return trip the 0620 dropped
• The 0800 will run at 0745
• An additional trip will run within to balance the service…. or so it appears.

Reports from enthusiasts nearer to Fareham suggest that the Botley extension was not well used.

Portsmouth

I am expecting that First Solent services using The Hard Interchange bus station will have some stop changes from 21st July. This is because the bus station is being re-surfaced and certainly we know that Stagecoach South will be moving all their departures to either Stand K in the bus station, or a temporary Stand K nearby.

I would assume that First Solent will do something similar, although I am surprised that the bus stop opposite The Ship Anson has not gained more services.

South West Coaches

and finally…. South West Coaches are running their Haven Holiday Park service again this year. Service 200 will run from 27th June to 1st September. It is a daily and hourly service with a lunch break for the driver.