Private Baxter
Established Member
- Joined
- 22 Sep 2013
- Messages
- 1,789
My turn to add my thoughts from the last year, and look ahead to this one.
I'll briefly start with Bristol city services. Metrobus has dominated the year, and as such the regular services have carried on much as they were, with frequency reductions to some. Investment in new fleet has taken a back seat, aside from some of the contracted services at the start of the year such as the A1 with their superb e400s, in addition of course to the aforementioned metrobus. Not much has changed in terms of fleet allocation, but we've got the M1, 91, 92 and 96 all starting next week, so except a few changes there. We might see new fleet arrive for some of the core city services this year, such as 42-5, and maybe 75-6 but beyond that it is quite hard to see what else will happen. I can't think of any city routes that were branded in 2018, so maybe they will resume with that, either in the form of new fleet, or repainting existing buses for routes such as the 9, or 73.
On to country depots, Weston has had a fairly big year. Route 1 returned to First after a few years absence and was treated to an additional bus in coaster livery. But in an even bigger surprise, a previously shelved plan to brand all town routes into an updated version of Badgerline came to fruitition, with buses currently being outshopped in the livery. Hopefully this will be complete fairly soon. They lost the A2, but have gained elsewhere.
Bristol saw a big rebrand of their South Glos services, with the scrapping of the 78 and 79, only to be replaced with the very popular T1 and T2. The T1 has been remarkably successful and has some of the newest buses in the fleet, which will be painted in due course. Meanwhile the Yate services were all grouped together to create the Y1-6, again some with newer buses, and a big re-branding program got underway. Regretfully however, progress on this seems to have stalled, after only doing a few buses, likely due to more immediate operational issues elsewhere in the region, but hopefully will restart soon as it really is a beautiful livery. We might see the loss of the final few 54/55 reg B7RLEs in Bristol but beyond that don't see much changing.
Bath too has had a slightly bigger year. My predictions a year ago were pretty wrong, with none of what I saw happening actually happening, whilst some of what I didn't think would happen, did! Get me?
Some of the only new fleet to arrive this year came to Bath, and it was solos. A pleasant surprise away from the bigger stories of the year. They have found themselves on routes that weren't run by First a year ago, so it might be they soon find their way on to their intended routes. I have not had the pleasure of travelling on one yet but they do look great from the outside. The former airport buses did indeed go to Bath for Wiltshire services, which were all rebranded as Discover and given a new identity. I like the brand, though not crazy about this obsession with letter prefix service numbers, which has been a common theme this year, but oh well. And in a surprise move, the 267 (D2), far from being cut, was actually doubled in frequency! However, the X39 didn't get its new buses, I think the reason might be is that the deckers were moved on there so soon after the streetlite maxes, and so they couldn't really justify investing in the X39 again. However, it has been nearly six years now since they arrived, whilst the current B9 gemenis, great as they are, are starting to look tired, so it might be this year we see a new fleet of deckers for X39. Towards the end of this year, I believe the Park and Ride buses will have served their time in Bath, so something new should be coming their way. Meaning a new home needs to be found for the existing fleet. Historically former Bath P&R buses have always stayed in the region, so perhaps they'll be sent to Weston for Excel services, sending the 56 reg ones elsewhere, or perhaps to LH for 1/2? The Bath city fleet is now looking pretty strong, but I would like to see the streetlite maxes, e200s and any remaining streetlites (assuming the Wales transfer happens) receive the rather brilliant city blue livery.
Wells is much the same as it was a year ago. The 175 was just about to go and since then nothing has come or gone in its place. The 172-4 has seen growth so it was decided to convert the routes to decker operation. However, this is another project that seems to have stopped and only a handful of deckers work the routes, the majority still being in the hands of the otherwise excellent B7RLEs. Whether it was ever meant to be 100% decker I do not know, or maybe it just isn't priority at the moment. The plan I think is for them to work the T2 in Bristol, whilst a few work the 178, but so far only one bus (69448) has been painted in the S. Glos livery, whilst the other few that did move up continue to run in Mendip Explorer, as was the plan. In the meantime, the T2 is making use of the older single deck buses, as well as the new e400s. Further more, the few B9s that transferred to Wells following the loss of the 903 are preferred on the 376 wherever possible! With so much up in the air, it is hard to predict what might happen in Wells so I will watch with interest! I think they would like to take the streetdecks off the 376 at the earliest opportunity, though that probably won't be till next year.
So, as ever, plenty to come, many surprises, new buses, new services, cuts, withdrawals, the lot. Let's see what happens!
