First West of England (Bristol, Bath & The West)

matt_splat · 4 Oct 2019

GRAHAMJ said:
Anyone got any info on the First Discovery changes please?

Yes First handing back the evening and sunday X31's

D2 & D3 hourly during off peak every 30 mins Peak times

D1 every 30 mins Bath - Trowbridge - Westbury then hourly onto Warminster and 2 hourly to Sailsbury

Saturdays see the D1 running the same as weekday D2 every 30 mins and D3 hourly

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cnjb8 · 4 Oct 2019

matt_splat said:
Yes First handing back the evening and sunday X31's

D2 & D3 hourly during off peak every 30 mins Peak times

D1 every 30 mins Bath - Trowbridge - Westbury then hourly onto Warminster and 2 hourly to Sailsbury

Saturdays see the D1 running the same as weekday D2 every 30 mins and D3 hourly

Is this a reduction or increase in frequency?
I know a lot about buses in the East Midlands but not in the West.

matt_splat · 4 Oct 2019

cnjb8 said:
Is this a reduction or increase in frequency?
I know a lot about buses in the East Midlands but not in the West.

all reductions in some way

Private Baxter · 4 Oct 2019

matt_splat said:
Yes First handing back the evening and sunday X31's

D2 & D3 hourly during off peak every 30 mins Peak times

D1 every 30 mins Bath - Trowbridge - Westbury then hourly onto Warminster and 2 hourly to Sailsbury

Saturdays see the D1 running the same as weekday D2 every 30 mins and D3 hourly

A shame, so soon after the Discover re-launch only last year.
Didn't think the half hourly D2 would last, but at least it is being retained during peak, and I'm glad they tried. More surprised at the further cut back to D1, I had always thought it ran at an appropriate frequency.

TheGrandWazoo · 5 Oct 2019

Private Baxter said:
A shame, so soon after the Discover re-launch only last year.
Didn't think the half hourly D2 would last, but at least it is being retained during peak, and I'm glad they tried. More surprised at the further cut back to D1, I had always thought it ran at an appropriate frequency.

Echo these sentiments. The D3 is definitely no surprise. Anecdotally, it seems quieter. Given the 267 was being threatened by withdrawal, it’s enhancement was also surprising and on both, it should be remembered that (with Faresaver), there’s 3 bph on routes that were traditionally hourly.

The D1 is also a cut that returns it back to 1999 service levels. It’s all a bit disappointing after 18 months but Faresaver do have a very smart business model.

Private Baxter · 5 Oct 2019

True, there was probably never any real demand for the half hourly services anyway, so in that respect not much has been lost.
Guess we will see a drop in PVR and a possible redeployment of some of the Discover buses?

TheGrandWazoo · 5 Oct 2019

Private Baxter said:
True, there was probably never any real demand for the half hourly services anyway, so in that respect not much has been lost.
Guess we will see a drop in PVR and a possible redeployment of some of the Discover buses?

The curious thing is they’ve just repainted an extra one in 66726.

Whiteway215 · 5 Oct 2019

TheGrandWazoo said:
The curious thing is they’ve just repainted an extra one in 66726.

There is often a non Discovery liveried bus on D1/D2/D3 anyway. 66938 is fairly regular and yesterday one of the 4452x was on there. Late Friday afternoon I noted 69507 heading to Newton Park on a U5.

Private Baxter · 5 Oct 2019

All good points, and always there will likely be more to come. I believe 17 were originally branded for it (11 of the former airport buses, the three solars and two older eclipses). One of them (69511?) was involved in accident last year whilst on a D3. Did it come back?

TheGrandWazoo · 5 Oct 2019

Whiteway215 said:
There is often a non Discovery liveried bus on D1/D2/D3 anyway. 66938 is fairly regular and yesterday one of the 4452x was on there. Late Friday afternoon I noted 69507 heading to Newton Park on a U5.

Did wonder if 65724-6 might be released. However, that’s something that you’d have thought would’ve happened before.

With 18 liveried vehicles, that should be plenty.

ValleyLines142 · 5 Oct 2019

Private Baxter said:
All good points, and always there will likely be more to come. I believe 17 were originally branded for it (11 of the former airport buses, the three solars and two older eclipses). One of them (69511?) was involved in accident last year whilst on a D3. Did it come back?

It was 69509, and yes it is back in service

matt_splat · 5 Oct 2019

Also heard drivers will move onto a spare rota to cover bath and Westbury, I'm guessing the peak extras will terminate in bath drivers will cover breaks/ bath work before working peaks back

Private Baxter · 5 Oct 2019

Might this coincide with the changes to 19/19A as well? Bath seem to be losing a bit of work at the moment.

freetoview33 · 5 Oct 2019

Private Baxter said:
Might this coincide with the changes to 19/19A as well? Bath seem to be losing a bit of work at the moment.

It's more likely down to Bath trying to get more drivers/buses for the U1/2/3 so they don't have to hire in all these extra buses.

TheGrandWazoo · 5 Oct 2019

freetoview33 said:
It's more likely down to Bath trying to get more drivers/buses for the U1/2/3 so they don't have to hire in all these extra buses.

That’s undoubtedly the reason, along with the 37 also heading to LH recently. Assume that is why the X31 has been chucked in. On the latter point, will we see Faresaver come out on an evening?

D2007wsm · 5 Oct 2019

TheGrandWazoo said:
That’s undoubtedly the reason, along with the 37 also heading to LH recently. Assume that is why the X31 has been chucked in. On the latter point, will we see Faresaver come out on an evening?

One of the reason the 37 was transferred to Marlborough Street depot to operate not Lawrence Hill, even though the vehicles are based there, was to replace the work which was lost from Marlborough Street with the transferring of the Severn Express to Stagecoach. It also eased the pressure on Bath, with the reintroduction of the Bath and Bath Spa Unibus services.

TheGrandWazoo · 5 Oct 2019

D2007wsm said:
One of the reason the 37 was transferred to Marlborough Street depot to operate not Lawrence Hill, even though the vehicles are based there, was to replace the work which was lost from Marlborough Street with the transferring of the Severn Express to Stagecoach. It also eased the pressure on Bath, with the reintroduction of the Bath and Bath Spa Unibus services.

I know there's a separate MH rota and management but with a common depot, O license and allocation, I tend to refer to it all as LH.

The main kicker for the 37 move was to relieve pressure on Bath with the University term coming. The Bristol depots have no shortage of work with the Q busters and the enhancements to 1/2.

D2007wsm · 5 Oct 2019

TheGrandWazoo said:
I know there's a separate MH rota and management but with a common depot, O license and allocation, I tend to refer to it all as LH.

The main kicker for the 37 move was to relieve pressure on Bath with the University term coming. The Bristol depots have no shortage of work with the Q busters and the enhancements to 1/2.

Marlborough Street is not a separate rota of Lawrence Hill, it is a separate depot and is operated as part of the ‘Badgerline’ side of the business alongside Bath, Wells, Westbury and Weston. Lawrence Hill operates as part of the ‘City’ side of the business alongside Hengrove.

There is no association with Lawrence Hill and Marlborough Street in terms of drivers, management and operations other than engineering and sharing an allocation of vehicles which are based at Lawrence Hill and maintained by Lawrence Hill engineering.

The ‘Q Buster’ services or enhanced 1 & 2 doesn’t effect Marlborough Street, other than maybe the transfer of the 35 as Marlborough Street doesn’t touch these.

Yes there is one common Operators Licence, but this is the same one which covers all of the WoE depots. Does that mean Weston is part of Lawrence Hill because they use the same Operators Licence?

wiltshirebloke · 5 Oct 2019

Private Baxter said:
A shame, so soon after the Discover re-launch only last year.
Didn't think the half hourly D2 would last, but at least it is being retained during peak, and I'm glad they tried. More surprised at the further cut back to D1, I had always thought it ran at an appropriate frequency.

Unless it was changed with the Discover launch, I'm pretty sure that the section between Westbury and Warminster was supported by Wiltshire Council, so it may be that the funding has been removed? I seem to remember at some point a 265 timetable re-cast did show a turnback at Westbury, but never came to materialise

TheGrandWazoo · 5 Oct 2019

wiltshirebloke said:
Unless it was changed with the Discover launch, I'm pretty sure that the section between Westbury and Warminster was supported by Wiltshire Council, so it may be that the funding has been removed? I seem to remember at some point a 265 timetable re-cast did show a turnback at Westbury, but never came to materialise

I think you're right.

If I recall back in the olden days, the X4 ran hourly from Bath to Warminster (hourly) with two hourly extensions to Salisbury. The 265 was the other Bath to Trowbridge service but ran through to Frome. The half hourly frequency to Trowbridge to Warminster only came with the RBC funding that took the Salisbury service to hourly as well.

TheGrandWazoo · 5 Oct 2019

D2007wsm said:
Marlborough Street is not a separate rota of Lawrence Hill, it is a separate depot and is operated as part of the ‘Badgerline’ side of the business alongside Bath, Wells, Westbury and Weston. Lawrence Hill operates as part of the ‘City’ side of the business alongside Hengrove.

There is no association with Lawrence Hill and Marlborough Street in terms of drivers, management and operations other than engineering and sharing an allocation of vehicles which are based at Lawrence Hill and maintained by Lawrence Hill engineering.

The ‘Q Buster’ services or enhanced 1 & 2 doesn’t effect Marlborough Street, other than maybe the transfer of the 35 as Marlborough Street doesn’t touch these.

Yes there is one common Operators Licence, but this is the same one which covers all of the WoE depots. Does that mean Weston is part of Lawrence Hill because they use the same Operators Licence?

Good lord - calm down. I did say I know it's separate - did you spot that (fifth word of post)? I said that it's my fault that because despite it being a separate rota (i.e. a separate group of people - that's the dictionary definition) with separate management, because it shares an physical site and fleet, I tend to refer to it as single entity. That's my error and I acknowledged that.

Perhaps you need to reflect on what I actually said.

carlberry · 5 Oct 2019

D2007wsm said:
Marlborough Street is not a separate rota of Lawrence Hill, it is a separate depot and is operated as part of the ‘Badgerline’ side of the business alongside Bath, Wells, Westbury and Weston. Lawrence Hill operates as part of the ‘City’ side of the business alongside Hengrove.

There is no association with Lawrence Hill and Marlborough Street in terms of drivers, management and operations other than engineering and sharing an allocation of vehicles which are based at Lawrence Hill and maintained by Lawrence Hill engineering.

The ‘Q Buster’ services or enhanced 1 & 2 doesn’t effect Marlborough Street, other than maybe the transfer of the 35 as Marlborough Street doesn’t touch these.

Yes there is one common Operators Licence, but this is the same one which covers all of the WoE depots. Does that mean Weston is part of Lawrence Hill because they use the same Operators Licence?

All of this is true however, to an outsider, it's now very much a case of services that are operated out of Lawrence Hill. The renumberings of recent years make it even harder to keep track of which of services 35, 37 or 41 are operated by the city side or the country side and a bus that's allocated to the T1 or Y1 is going to spend it's entire day without visiting 'Marlborough Street' itself.
It wasn't that long ago that the thought of a country bus being prepared for service or fixed by a fitter from the city operation would have been refereed to the union, and may have been brought up at the next council meeting!

Whiteway215 · 6 Oct 2019

Tongue in cheek alert. Perhaps we should go back to 'C' prefixes to fleet numbers for 'City' buses and 'balancing mileage' (I think it was called) when Country buses ran on Bristol City routes.

Flinn Reed · 6 Oct 2019

Saw on a fleetlist that First West of England are due a large number of new Scania Enviro 400 Citys. What routes are these due for? Are these intended to replace any particular older vehicles?

TheGrandWazoo · 6 Oct 2019

Flinn Reed said:
Saw on a fleetlist that First West of England are due a large number of new Scania Enviro 400 Citys. What routes are these due for? Are these intended to replace any particular older vehicles?

42-45, 6&7 and metrobus are amongst those. 48/49 might also be on the list.

Whiteway215 · 6 Oct 2019

Goodness me! Steve now telling us we're tapping another source for Tridents! 33165 from Kernow.

BBC · 7 Oct 2019

TheGrandWazoo said:
42-45, 6&7 and metrobus are amongst those. 48/49 might also be on the list.

And also the 17.

TheGrandWazoo · 7 Oct 2019

BBC said:
And also the 17.

The 17 was listed as it passes through the Kingswood and Keynsham AQMAs but there’s been conflicting comments on its status AND the order is smaller.

NorthernSpirit · 7 Oct 2019

wiltshirebloke said:
Unless it was changed with the Discover launch, I'm pretty sure that the section between Westbury and Warminster was supported by Wiltshire Council, so it may be that the funding has been removed? I seem to remember at some point a 265 timetable re-cast did show a turnback at Westbury, but never came to materialise

The late night services Monday to Saturday between Bath and Trowbridge and the four Bath to Warminster journeys on a Sunday are funded by Wiltshire Council still.

It does make me wonder if the Bath to Westbury journeys on the D1 will start to serve Westbury High Street (outside the former Barclays) before heading back along Haynes Road towards Bath as I can't think of anywhere else to turn round.

DaveHarries · 7 Oct 2019

Flinn Reed said:
Saw on a fleetlist that First West of England are due a large number of new Scania Enviro 400 Citys. What routes are these due for? Are these intended to replace any particular older vehicles?

One thought is that, with all the reckoning as to the future of at least some of First's bus operations, will these new Enviro400 City buses (CNG I think?) stay for long? Anyway should be good for the users of Services 3 and 4 (City Centre - Sea Mills - Cribbs Causeway) as the replacement of the vehicles on the 6, 7 and 42-45 might release newer vehicles for the 3 & 4.

TheGrandWazoo said:
The 17 was listed as it passes through the Kingswood and Keynsham AQMAs but there’s been conflicting comments on its status AND the order is smaller.

How big was the original order (70+ IIRC) and what is it now I wonder?

Dave

First West of England (Bristol, Bath & The West)

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