Bus Times: New Years Day 2025

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New Years Day has traditionally been a day where heritage bus owners take to the streets in parts of our area for a range of events. Today is no different except the fact that the Met Office has issued a Yellow Weather warning for the whole of the Hampshire Bus Update region. So although at the time of writing both of these events are going ahead…. please check before travelling. I have included links below.

Provincial Society Ale & Ride

The Provincial Society Ale & Ride returns for 2025 and the volunteers of the society are once again welcoming a number of vehicles to run a free service to some of the best pubs across Gosport and Fareham. I have been to most of them at some time in the last 5 years or so.

Examples of some of the vehicles at previous events are available to see on the Provincial Society website and on their Facebook page and this year there is a souvenir timetable available at various locations for £5. Money raised from the sale of timetables will go to the continued restoration of the Provincial Society bus fleet.

Buses will run from 11am from Gosport Bus Interchange and Fareham Bus Station. There are also free services being run by the Friends of King Alfred’s Buses between Winchester and Fareham on service 69.

King Alfred Mini Running Day

The Friends of King Alfred Buses are also running their own mini running day in the Winchester area on city centre routes.

Souvenir programmes are available for £6 on the day in The Broadway and next to Winchester Cathedral. You can see some examples of the FoKAB fleet in some of the videos that are available on their website. You can see the first buses of the day planned to run on this Facebook post:

Regretfully I will not be at either event this year as I have to do something called work. Damn inconsiderate… this work thing.

The Regular Bus Service list

There are still some bus operators running a reduced timetable on the Wednesday that is New Years Day, so let’s take a quick look around them:

South Dorset

First Wessex and Damory are running no services.

Bournemouth & Poole

morebus will run a Sunday timetable on most of it’s commercial network:

• Services 1a, 1b and 1c to Somerford, Southbourne and Christchurch
• Services 3, 4, 6 and 13/a for Wimbourne
• Services 5 & 5a for Kinson
• Service 8 & 9 for Turlin Moor and Upton
• Services 14, 16, 17, 22, 25, 26 around Bournemouth and Poole
• Service X3 between Bournemouth, Ringwood and Salisbury
• Service X8 between Poole and Blandford

A special timetable will run on services m1 and m2 (3 buses an hour on each route), Breezer 40 (every 2 hours) and Breezer 50 (every 2 hours)

Southampton

Bluestar will run a Sunday service across much of the network, except:

• No service on Bluestar 3 ( Southampton – Hedge End – Botley – Eastleigh )
• No service on Bluestar 6 ( Southampton – New Forest – Lymington )
• The first Quayconnect service (0735 from Central Station / 0747 from Town Quay) will not run
• A special hourly service on Bluestar 9 to Hythe, Fawley and Langley
• A special every 20 minutes service on cross-city Bluestar 17
• A special every 20 minutes service on cross-city Bluestar 18

First Solent services X4 and X5 will not run.

Isle of Wight

Southern Vectis will run a full Sunday service.

Fareham & Gosport

In Fareham, only First Solent service 3 will run to a special service hourly daytime timetable. This is the same Portsmouth City Council collaborated service that ran on Christmas Day.

No other services will run – except the Provincial Society Ale & Ride, and the Friends of King Alfred Buses service 69.

Portsmouth

First Solent will run a special service in the Portsmouth area.

• Service 1 – Hourly between approx 0800 and 1830
• Service 2 – Hourly between approx 0715 and 2056
• Service 3 – Hourly daytime service with some additional early morning and early evening short trips for QA
• The Star 7 – Hourly running to/from Gunwharf from approx 0730 to 1830 with additional short trips in the evening. Note No additional late trips north of QA for the 8pm shift change
• The Star 8 – Hourly between approx 0900 and 1900. Note No additional late trips north of QA for the 8pm shift change
• A SUNDAY service on the Tipner Park & Ride service PR1

Stagecoach South will run a Special service on

• Pauslgrove service 18,
• Anchorage Park and Havant service 21
• Southsea, Havant and Leigh Park service 23.

These are all planned to run hourly during the daytime.

Winchester, Andover and Basingstoke

Stagecoach South will be operating no service in any of these areas on New Years Day, however:

• Friends of King Alfred Buses will operate their free services in Winchester City
• Salisbury Reds are running a special service on Activ8 in Andover (sorry, I forgot to mention they ran Christmas Day)
• Newbury and District Flightline 730/731 will run a Sunday service.

and finally…..

May you all have an enjoyable New Years Eve, I will see some of you in 2025 and that whatever you are doing… remember I am working!

or something – insert an inspirational quote here

We are back to largely normal timetables from Friday 2nd January. That is with an exception in Portsmouth where service 23 commences operation at 05:24 from Leigh Park, 05:11 from Farlington & 05:35 from Southsea