StreetLite Repaint

That's the first quarter of the year gone then with March being a busy month for the blog publishing more than 40 posts! We continue with the first post of this month featuring the news that one of First's Wrightbus StreetLites being repainted in the Flying Banana bus livery reminiscent of the 1990s.



Looking forward to see that operating on First Great Yarmouth routes 2 and 3 serving Bradwell, Burgh Castle and Belton.

Many thanks to Tom Green for the information and photo.

Roy

Firstbus return to Park & Ride

This weekend saw First return to operating Park & Ride services in Norwich. They will run the Thickthorn and Airport sites previously served by Konectbus.

 Recently re-powered Streetdeck 71025 CMZ5293 is pictured above entering the Airport site.

 

Another recent addition to the fleet at Norwich is 71016 W6FAL, another re-powered Streetdeck converted to Battery seen here at the Airport terminus.

 

Finally a throwback to First previously operating at Thickthorn, A batch of Scania L113CRL operated the service although being allocated to Yarmouth Depot. 552 R552CNG seen here in Castle Meadow in 1997. This ended its career with First Essex in 2013.

Many Thanks to Toby Cullum for use of his excellent photos from Sunday.

Grahame.

 

History Of Transport Event

Omar Atiallah provides details of a History of Transport event which he is helping to organise in the Lowestoft area on Saturday 12th July 2025. It includes displays being held in the Nicholas Everitt Park at Oulton Broad in Lowestoft which will have buses, trains, boats and cars on view to the public.

Further information regarding the event can be found here, while details of the display are also available on the website with the opportunity of applying for a free ticket!

My thanks to Omar for alerting us about the event.

Roy

Central Connect's First Day On P&R

Sunday was the first day of the new Norwich Park and Ride contract with Central Connect (Simonds) operating the PR2 from Harford and PR3 from Postwick.



Dan High's father got photos of the two ADL Enviro400 MMCs working the routes with YY74 OBU working the former and YY74 OBV the latter.



My thanks to Dan for forwarding the images.

Roy

Konectbus Last Day P&R

Yesterday was the last day for Konectbus to operate their Norwich Park & Ride services and Dan High was there to get some photos for us,




Konectbus commenced its contract to operate all six park & ride services for a five-year period from the 7th September 2015. (Although they had been successful in providing some routes under the 2005 and 2010 contract awards). This led to the purchase of a fleet fleet of eighteen Alexander Dennis Enviro 400s painted in a new green livery. The contract was renewed in 2020.




My thanks to Dan for the photos

Roy

New Arrivals for First Lowestoft

New arrivals at Lowestoft today after taking delivery of two more ADL Enviro 200's from First Essex. Both were previously based in Chelmsford.

44537 YX13AEF & 44538 YX13AHN are in the old Olympia livery at present.

Both are pictured above after arriving in Lowestoft earlier today.

Many Thanks to Alfie Clarkey for the photos.

Grahame.

Gapton Threesome

I paid a flying visit to Gapton Hall Estate on the outskirts of Great Yarmouth this morning to look in at two operators and observe the retail park's last day of bus service.



The first port of call was Ambassador Travel's premises at James Watt Close and at the front of the site was their Scania K410EB6/ Caetano Levante 3 BV72 XFA. According to Bus Times 304 worked last night's 21:00 from Heathrow Terminal 5 arriving in Great Yarmouth after 2am this morning.

Whilst on the estate, I checked whether Completely Coach Travel were using their Great Yarmouth base situated at the west end of Edison Way. The site is just a hardstanding with no buildings and with no reference to the operator. On site was Astromega R28 CCT which was new to Thames Transit (Stagecoach Oxfordshire) as OU09 FNH. 



I returned to Morton Peto Road to capture a photo of the last day of the 214 route operated by Konectbus to Gapton Hall Retail Park. Coincidentally it was ADL Enviro200 MMC 201 YX69 NPF - the same bus which began the service on 30th November last year.

Roy